Gene Wilder’s 10 Best Movies, According To IMDb
Table of Contents
From the “Pure Imagination” of Willy Wonka to the irreverent Mel Brooks parodies, these are the greatest movies starring Gene Wilder.
Gene Wilder was a wonderful actor with a resume consisting of some of the most beloved movies ever made. The great thing about Wilder as an actor is that he could do it all: comedies, westerns, horror, drama. There wasn’t a genre Wilder didn’t star in and excel at during his nearly 50 years as an actor.
In such classics as Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and Young Frankenstein, Wilder gave complex and nuanced performances that are incredibly difficult to accomplish. The results of Wilder’s acting were often astounding, and his many amazing films have endured the test of time.
10 Stir Crazy (1980) 6.8/10
Directed by cinematic legend Sidney Poitier, Stir Crazy was the second entry in a series of four movies starring both Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.
In Stir Crazy, Wilder portrays a playwright named Skip Donahue, who is wrongly accused of being a bank robber with his aspiring actor friend Harry Monroe, played by Richard Pryor. This film proved to be one of Pryor’s best movies, earning strong critical praise for Pryor’s comedic skills.
9 Silver Streak (1976) 6.9/10
Arthur Hiller’s Silver Streak, released during the Christmas season of 1976, was the first on-screen collaboration between Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. The movie, a classic murder mystery set on a cross country train, showcased Wilder’s romantic leading man skills opposite Jill Clayburgh, who plays Wilder’s love interest.
Wilder plays a book editor named George Caldwell who is traveling on the Silver Streak train from Los Angeles to Chicago. While onboard, he falls for Clayburgh’s Hilly Burns and gets embroiled with a professional thief named Grover T. Muldoon (Pryor).
8 See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) 6.9/10
Another movie from Arthur Hiller, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, was the third and penultimate collaboration between Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. Their final on-screen pairing in 1991’s Another You was a critical and commercial disappointment.
The title refers to the characters of Pryor and Wilder, who respectively play a blind man and deaf man wrongly accused of murder. In their attempt to clear their names, the duo engages in a high-speed car chase and a violent shootout with the real culprits before they successfully prove their innocence. While the movie was met with negative critical reception, it was a financial success at the box office, grossing nearly $50 million on an $18 million budget.
7 The Scarecrow (1972) 7.0/10
Based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1852 short story “Feathertop,” Boris Sagal’s The Scarecrow is a television movie released in 1972 that starred Wilder as Lord Ravensbane. While certainly not a popular movie with only 140 votes on IMDb, The Scarecrow’s strong 7.0/10 rating proves it is enjoyed by those who have seen it.
The Scarecrow takes place during the Salem witch trials and portrays an old woman, Goody Rickby, bringing a scarecrow to life to get revenge on a former lover. Her diabolical plan involves the lifelike Scarecrow seducing her former lover’s niece and abandoning her, thereby breaking the niece’s heart. By the end of the film, her plan has backfired; in enacting Goody’s revenge, the Scarecrow had gained a heart and stopped the niece from dying.
6 The Producers (1967) 7.6/10
The Producers is one of the best musicals of all time, and it has a suitably high IMDb rating. The beloved movie was written and directed by Mel Brooks, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. While controversial when it premiered, the movie is now deemed a classic and has been inducted into the National Film Registry.
The Producers depicts a corrupt Broadway producer (Zero Mostel) and his accountant (Wilder), both of whom commit fraud by putting on an intentionally awful musical production about Adolf Hitler called Springtime for Hitler. The scam comes back to hurt them, and they are sent to prison where they continue conning others with a play titled Prisoners of Love.
5 Blazing Saddles (1974) 7.7/10
Another hilarious Mel Brooks movie, Blazing Saddles has long been regarded as one of the funniest movies ever made. It has been inducted into the National Film Registry, received three Academy Award nominations, and was deemed the sixth funniest movie ever made by the American Film Institute in 2000.
In one of the greatest parodies of the Western genre, Blazing Saddles concerns a corrupt attorney general (Harvey Korman) tries to take over the small town of Rock Ridge as a nearby railroad will greatly increase its value. To do so, he kills the local Sheriff and appoints a black railroad worker (Cleavon Little) in his place with the hope that it will upset the bigoted townspeople and cause them to leave town.
4 Bonnie And Clyde (1967) 7.8/10
Bonnie & Clyde is unlike anything else in Gene Wilder’s discography. The movie was controversial for its graphic depiction of on-screen violence and sexuality, which new standards for what was acceptable on the silver screen. A box office sensation, Bonnie & Clyde garnered ten Oscar nominations and won two awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Cinematography.
Based on real events, Bonnie & Clyde stars Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, two Depression-era criminals who embark on a violent crime spree throughout the South. Wilder appears briefly as Eugene Grizzard, a victim of the duo’s bank robberies. Bonnie & Clyde’s illegal activities eventually catch up to them, and they perish in one of cinema’s most famous shootouts.
3 Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971) 7.8/10
Gene Wilder’s most well-known movie, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, was not a success when it was originally released in the summer of 1971. It grossed a disappointing $4.5 million on a $3 million budget and earned mixed reviews from critics. Today, it’s regarded as a classic for all generations.
The story follows young Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum), a poor and humble boy who earns a chance to visit Willy Wonka’s (Wilder) famed chocolate factory. On the tour, Charlie encounters many bizarre and fantastic scenes such as a river of chocolate and a workforce made entirely of Oompa-Loompas. With the other visiting children disappearing in various acts of hubris, Charlie is the last boy standing and wins the chocolate factory from a retiring Wonka.
2 Death Of A Salesman (1966) 7.9/10
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. In 1966, Miller adapted his own play for television with Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman and Gene Wilder as Bernard, the son of Willy Loman’s neighbor.
A great tragedy, Death of a Salesman concerns a broke and desperate Willy, who has retreated into daydreams about his few past glories to cope with his crippling present-day existence. Following a string of financial and personal disappointments, Willy decides to take his own life.
1 Young Frankenstein (1974) 8.0/10
According to IMDb, Young Frankenstein is the greatest film starring Gene Wilder. Another masterful comedy directed by Mel Brooks, Young Frankenstein was released to great success in the holiday season of 1974, earning $86 million and netting Brooks and Wilder an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Wilder plays the titular Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, the grandson of the infamous Dr. Frankenstein. After inheriting his family’s Transylvania estate, Frankenstein soon follows in his grandfather’s footsteps and conducts scientific experiments with a Monster, played by Peter Boyle. The result is a deft mixture of comedy and horror as Frankenstein encounters a bug-eyed servant (Marty Feldman), an imposing German housekeeper (Cloris Leachman), and the Monster (Peter Boyle), who wants nothing more than a Bride (Madeline Kahn) to be by his side.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/gene-wilder-best-movies-imdb/