Want to know the best William Friedkin movies? How about the worst William Friedkin movies? Curious about William Friedkin box office grosses or which William Friedkin movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which William Friedkin movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well, you have come to the right place…. because we have all of that information and much more.n.
William Friedkin (1935-2023) was an Oscar®-winning American director. Friedkin is closely identified with the “New Hollywood” movement of the 1970s. His best-known movies, The French Connection and The Exorcist were made in that time frame. This page ranks William Friedkin movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, shorts, documentaries and movies not released in North America theaters are not included in the rankings. This page comes from a request by ArtMod46. 
Paul Reubens Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.
William Friedkin Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
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- Sort William Friedkin movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each William Friedkin movie received and how many Oscar® wins each William Friedkin movie won.
- Sort William Friedkin movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- Use the search and sort button to make this page very interactive.
I don’t generally answer artist pages where I have seen only one film, but I do enjoy it a lot: The French Connection.
Last year, William Friedkin joined Alec Baldwin for part of The Essentials series on TCM. (There is no Essentials series this season.) When they aired Bullitt, they compared the two famous car chase scenes. Bullitt was a closed set, so the only people who could be injured were the cast/stuntmen. However, in the French Connection, the scene was filmed with the streets running as normal, so anyone could have been injured.
Hey Flora….thanks for checking out a modern day film director. Well your “1” Friedkin movie is a good one to check out. That is good stuff about the show The Essentials. I was completely unaware of that show. Good point about the different sets and how those massive stunts were filmed. Good feedback.
Friedkin is of course responsible for two of the greatest classic movies to emerge from the 1970s, The Exorcist and French Connection. Movie critics and historians also give him credit with his 1977 Sorcerer of providing a terrific remake of the 1953 French classic The Wages of Fear possibly better known as La Salaire de la Peur to buffs like Steve who may well have followed its progress through the cinema art houses of England.
I prefer not to use that aka as it means the “salary of fear” and guys like Bruce who are Hirschhorn followers might well think it is something to do with Brando and his ”greed” for money.
Bruce and IMDB both give Sorcerer a whopping identical 78% critical rating against 81% for Wages of Fear on IMDB. There’s clearly not much in those comparisons but apparently Friedkin insists that his Sorcerer is not a remake of the French Classic preferring instead to regard it as an adaptation of the original novel.
Box Office Mojo ranks The Exorcist as 10th in the greatest grossing movies of all time adjusted for inflation and on his 1973 Review page Bruce credits the film with a stupendous adjusted worldwide gross of over $2 billion.
However Exorcist, French Connection and the modest commercial hit Rules of Engagement are Friedkin’s only 3 films that crashed Bruce’ magical $100 million adjusted domestic barrier and beyond that trio William did not set the box office alight. The other 16 Friedkin movies in Bruce’s box office stats table collectively grossed just an adjusted domestic $560 million or a paltry $35 million per movie,
However probably many directors would be happy enough to be known mainly for even The Exorcist and French Connection so the film buff wo wants a comprehensive collection of Cogerson profiles of people with meaningful contributions to the history of cinema will no doubt welcome this page as I do.
Hey Bob….I have not seen The Sorceror…but I really want to. I have to admit, I had not heard about Wages of Fear before reading these comments. I do know it took Friedkin a long time finish that movie.
I agree….if you take away The French Connection and Exorcist his box office track record is not too impressive. But as you say….most directors would love to have his resume…..and his Oscar can never be taken away.
His last movie (Killer Joe)…is actually pretty good….got some solid reviews……but barely put any butts in movie theaters. Currently Orlando Bloom is playing Joe in a London stage presentation.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for feedback.
I saw Killer Joe the movie and it was a very grisly and depressing film but well made and acted and worth the 72% review rating you have given it.
Hey Bob…I liked it too. My voice double Matthew M. was really good in Killer Joe.
Two “voice doubles” on this site! You have Matthew and I hear Steve has the screen’s Greatest Shakespearean Orator from America as his voice double.
My consolation is that because of my Northern Irish accent whoever I sound like it can’t be Joel – Stephen Boyd maybe!
I dunno Bob, I always imagined you sounding more like Barry Fitzgerald than Stephen Boyd, especially when sounding off on the English. 😉
Me? Probably more Jason Statham than Roger Moore, unfortunately.
saw 7. 5 of top 7. exorcist and French connection both 10s, not favorites. I am sure Steve is not re-watching (100 times) the exorcist for the surprise ending , no matter what anybody says..
Hey bob cox. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on William Friedkin. Your 10s are easily his most famous movies….though my fondness of To Live And Die In L.A. makes me want to say his has 3 great movies. Good stuff.
HI STEVE
Chuckled about your Barry Fitzgerald jibe and certainly we are about the same height, Barry being about one inch shorter than I. I carry about with me my own box autographed by Laddie in case I ever bump into Sophia Loren!
Again maybe fitting if you do sound like Jason because to the best of my knowledge you have never pretended you can act!
Bruce has it all though – looks like Robin Williams,sounds like Matthew Mc and does the Philly steps/statue run like the great Italian Stallion
HI STEVE
I meant to say to you maybe you’re already aware of this but because Barry Fitz and I were both born in Ireland doesn’t actually make us fellow-citizens.
He was a Dubliner in the South of Ireland which means he was an “Irish” citizen and part of the Southern Irish state, but I live in Belfast in the North of Ireland which is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In short my nationality is “British” [dammit –I never had any luck!] and I am British on my passport.
When I served in “our” country’s Armed Forces, the mainland guys just assumed I was “Irish” and I was called Paddy which is an Irish nickname
I used to make that kind of mistakes myself by thinking that Wales’ Sir Stanley Baker, Scotland’s Sir Sean and England’s Sir Maurice Micklewhite were ALL English.
When I was young and really ignorant I thought for a time that Canada and the US were the one nation and Canada was one of America’s states. Not only did the citizens of both seem to speak the same in movies but I was of course even then an avid reader of film magazines and articles that referred, and still refer, to Canada and The US as part and parcel of the one “domestic market.”
Stephen Boyd though grew up in Glengormley about 20 minutes’ drive from me in Northern Ireland so he was Northern Irish and therefore British. Maybe though he wished to disown our British nationality because I’m told he used to run around the streets of Glengormley shouting at passersby “Look to Rome! Look to Rome!”
William Friedkin directed one of my all time favorite movies, no not The French Connection… The Exorcist. A film I’ve watched at least a hundred times in the past 40 years.
Other favorites include The French Connection, To Live and Die in LA and Sorcerer (though I do prefer the original ‘The Wages of Fear’ if I had to pick between the two).
I’ve seen 10 of the 19 films on the chart.
Looking at the adjusted box office chart – The Exorcist grossed nearly a billion dollars in the US & Canada. Incredible, especially for such a disturbing horror movie.
Btw ‘Domestic Grosses’ still include Canada I presume, even though it’s a separate country.
Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up!
p.s. when I first saw The Exorcist I was a school kid (I was tall for my age) I took my cassette recorder with me to the cinema (in a shopping bag wrapped in a towel) and recorded all the nasty bits on tape, which I then listened to at night in bed with the lights closed. That’s how weird I was. 🙂
HI STEVE
Fascinating PS.
It is now part of Brit political legend that Ann Widdecombe the former British Conservative politician once derisively said of her party Leader Michael Howard [now Baron Howard of Lympne] that “There is something of the night about him.”
It seems that Baron Howard was after all just your average Brit !!
Hey Steve.
1. I tried to respond to your comment last night….but I kept falling asleep….it was the end of busy hectic, constantly changing week at school.
2. That is a lot of times to watch “pea soup” been thrown around a room….lol.
3. I am one behind you in the tally count…as I have seen 9. I included Jade….but freely admit I do not remember much about that movie…..I can say the same think about Rampage. I find this strange because Michael Biehn (one of my favorites from the 1980s is in both movies).
4. The Exorcist was huge at all box office….on the domestic side….it is the 9th biggest hit of all-time (inflation numbers) and on the worldwide side it is one 14 movies to cross the $2 Billion adjusted mark.
5. Domestic includes North America….so Canada and Mexico are included.
6. That is an excellent story of your youth, The Exorcist and your movie pirate days. I can picture Captain Lensman with a peg leg and an eye patch making illegal copies of The Exorcist…..funny stuff.
7. I do not consider it weird….back before the internet….you had to do stuff like that…if you did not…it would be years before you saw or “heard” the movie again.
Good feedback.
When I was in high school I discovered The Exorcist. It scared the hell out of me. I saw it on VHS back in the early 1990s. So it was still a scary movie 20 years after being made. Love his To Live and Dir in L.A.. Some excellent action scenes. Never really impressed with The French Connection. Nice new page.
Hey SteinHoF16….thanks for stopping by. I think 40 years later and The Exorcist is still a scary movie. Thanks for sharing your VHS Exorcist memory. I love To Live and a Die in LA too. Good stuff.