After a year, Weinstein assigned Bender to the film and conceded to pay Van Sant's asking price, prompted to resume the production by Damon's casting in Francis Ford Coppola's 1997 film The Rainmaker, based on John Grisham's 1995 novel of the same name, and film star Robin Williams' interest in Good Will Hunting.
Bender officially hired Van Sant as the director. The duo had originally ended the script with Will's death at the hands of the gang that Will fights at the start of the film, but Van Sant proposed to have Chuckie be killed in an accident on the construction site. Kleitman and mathematician Tom Bohman gave them a brief lecture and suggested the computer science P versus NP problem as one that Will could solve.
In early 1997, Bender, Moore, and Van Sant began auditioning actors at the Bowery Hotel in New York, casting Cole Hauser as Billy but struggling to find performers for the roles of Skylar and Lambeau. Weinstein denied Driver's claim regarding the note, but stated that he had wanted to cast Ashley Judd in the role at first. However, Casey initially refused the part to focus on making a documentary of the production, before accepting to appear in Good Will Hunting.
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Filming began on April 14, 1997, and ended nine weeks later. In Toronto, the production filmed several interior scenes at the University of Toronto, using Knox College, St Michael's College, Victoria College, Whitney Hall, McLennan Physical Laboratories and Faculty Club. Other scenes were shot at the Central Technical School, the Upfront Bar and Grill, and other locations. In Boston, Affleck and his brother along with Damon and Hauser lived in the same apartment and often would hang out with Driver. The producers invited the Boston Red Sox's representatives on set, trying to convince them to let the production use their logo and footage of Carlton Fisk's home run at the 1975 World Series.
Post-production and music
thumb|upright=0.7|left|Gus Van Sant in 2015
Van Sant hired editor Pietro Scalia for Good Will Hunting, having liked his work with directors Bernando Bertolucci and Oliver Stone. Scalia used an Avid Technology editing software on Good Will Hunting. In the first version, Van Sant had cut out a scene in which Will uses the phrase "How do you like them apples?", but Affleck and Damon insisted to keep it in the film. Cutting Williams' performance, he chose to use the actor's first takes, finding that Williams' later cuts did not have "that early freshness, that insecurity, that fear". Surprised by the final result, Williams thanked him in person at an exclusive screening organized for him in San Francisco and in a letter after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, saying Scalia had done "the kindest cut". At that time, Van Sant had heard of singer-songwriter Elliott Smith while searching for "raw" sounds, but decided that a heavy metal artist would better fit the film. After wrapping production for To Die For, he began listening to Smith's music, thinking it would be a better match with Good Will Hunting. Elfman approved and began writing a score to match the songs. Elfman provided the orchestral arrangement for "Between the Bars" and later rearranged "Miss Misery" for Smith's performances at award shows, including the 70th Academy Awards.
Near the start of the film, Will sets aside his mop to study a difficult problem posed by Lambeau on the blackboard. The problem has to do with intermediate-level graph theory, but Lambeau describes it as an advanced "Fourier system". To answer the first part of the question, Will chalks up an adjacency matrix:
:<math>A=\begin{pmatrix} 0 & 1 & 0& 1 \\ 1 & 0 & 2 & 1 \\ 0 & 2 & 0 & 0 \\ 1 & 1 & 0 & 0 \end{pmatrix}.</math>
To answer the second part, he determines the number of 3-step walks in the graph, and finds the third power matrix:
:<math>A^3=\begin{pmatrix} 2 & 7 & 2 & 3 \\ 7 & 2 & 12 & 7 \\ 2 & 12 & 0 & 2 \\ 3 & 7 & 2 & 2 \end{pmatrix}.</math>
The third and fourth parts of the question concern generating functions. The other characters are astounded that a janitor shows such facility with matrices.
The second problem written by Lambeau involves graph theory, asking to draw all series-reduced trees on ten nodes. Will manages to write eight of the ten trees, before Lambeau interrupts him.
Religion and social class
Several scholars have examined the role of class, religion and the cultural geography of Boston in the film. Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera observed that the residual Catholic–Protestant tensions in Boston are an important backdrop in the film, as Irish Catholics from South Boston are aligned against ostensibly Protestant characters who are affiliated with Harvard and MIT. Emmett Winn has argued that character interactions show class conflict and stunted social mobility, while, similarly, David Lipset commented that class inequality is a driving subtext.
Release
Marketing
After the end of production in June, Weinstein ordered a test screening for Good Will Hunting. At the 69th Academy Awards, the studio had garnered twenty nominations for its 1996 productions, including twelve for The English Patient and two each for Sling Blade and Emma. Despite being understanding of the studio's motivations, Damon later said: "The whole experience was overwhelming, very unhealthy." In the United States, the film received a limited release in seven theaters across New York and Los Angeles on December 5, 1997, grossing $272,912 in its opening weekend. In its fourth weekend of release, it grossed $1,720,540 from 157 theaters. In its eight week, it grossed $11,218,707 and began to fall in the rankings, finishing as the number three film of the week behind Titanic and Spice World. By the following week, the film had earned a total gross of over $60 million. In the week following the announcement of Good Will Hunting nominations at the 70th Academy Awards, it earned $11,075,873—a 23.8% increase—and finished as the number four film of the week behind Titanic and two new releases, The Wedding Singer and Sphere. In its fourteenth week, the film's total gross surpassed the 100 million mark. Good Will Hunting left theaters in its thirty-third week of release, having grossed $138.4 million against a budget ranging from $10 to $16 million and spent thirteen consecutive weeks among the top ten highest-grossing films.
Affleck, Damon, and Van Sant were also owed shares of the film's revenue, equivalent to 2.5% of the adjusted gross for Van Sant and a percentage of the net profit for Affleck and Damon. Over the course of that year, the film received releases on formats LaserDisc, DIVX, and DVD, with the latter being a collector's edition that included audio commentary by Affleck, Damon, and Van Sant, eleven deleted scenes with commentary, a promotional featurette on the film's production, and a music video. In June 2011, it became available on streaming through the subscription video-on-demand services Hulu and Netflix. In August 2011, Good Will Hunting was first made available on the home video format Blu-ray. A year later, the film received a second Blu-Ray release for its fifteenth anniversary that included previously released bonus content, a retrospective documentary on the film's development and reception, and a featurette of an interview with Damon, talking about its production and impact on his life. In August 2025, Good Will Hunting appeared in Netflix's list of the top ten most-watched films of the week.
Reception
Critical response
Good Will Hunting received widespread acclaim from critics. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, writing that while the story is "predictable", it is "the individual moments, not the payoff, that make it so effective".
Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter praised the performances of the cast, writing, "The acting is brilliant overall, with special praise to Matt Damon for his ragingly tender portrayal of the boy cursed with genius."
Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle was equally positive, writing, "The glow goes well beyond a radiant performance by Matt Damon ... Intimate, heartfelt and wickedly funny, it's a movie whose impact lingers."
Owen Gleiberman, writing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the film a "B", stating, "Good Will Hunting is stuffed – indeed, overstuffed – with heart, soul, audacity, and blarney. You may not believe a minute of it, but you don't necessarily want to stop watching." He also noted Damon's and Williams' chemistry, describing it as "a quicksilver intercepting each other's thoughts".
Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the screenplay "smart and touching", and praised Van Sant for directing with "style, shrewdness and clarity". She also complimented the production design and cinematography, which were able to effortlessly move the viewer from "classroom to dorm room to neighborhood bar", in a small setting.
Quentin Curtis of The Daily Telegraph opined that Williams' performance brought "sharpness and tenderness", calling the film a "crowd-pleaser, with bags of charm to spare. It doesn't bear thinking too much about its message ... Damon and Affleck's writing has real wit and vigour, and some depth."
Andrew O'Hehir of Salon stated that despite the "enjoyable characters", he thought that the film was somewhat superficial, writing, "there isn't a whole lot of movie to take home with you ... many will wake the next morning wondering why, with all that talent on hand, it amounts to so little in the end."
Writing for the BBC, Nev Pierce gave the film four stars out of five, describing it as "touching, without being sentimental", although he felt that some scenes were "odd lapses into self-help speak".
Emanuel Levy of Variety called the film a "beautifully realized tale ... engaging and often quite touching". He felt that the film's visual style showcased Van Sant's talent, but the plot was "quite predictable".
On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 97%, based on 91 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "It follows a predictable narrative arc, but Good Will Hunting adds enough quirks to the journey – and is loaded with enough powerful performances – that it remains an entertaining, emotionally rich drama." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on a scale of A+ to F.
Accolades
At the 70th Academy Awards, Good Will Hunting and its cast and crew won Best Original Screenplay (for Affleck and Damon) and Best Supporting Actor (for Williams) and received nominations for Best Actor (for Damon), Best Director (for Van Sant), Best Film Editing (for Scalia), Best Original Dramatic Score (for Elfman), Best Original Song (for Smith's "Miss Misery"), Best Picture, and Best Supporting Actress (for Driver). At the age of twenty-five, Affleck became the youngest person ever to have won an Academy Award for screenwriting, with Damon being the second youngest person at age twenty-seven. Williams won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role. Skarsgård received the European Film Academy Achievement in World Cinema Award.
Box office analysis
Worldwide, Good Will Hunting grossed $225.9 million. Director Curtis Hanson contextualized the film's success as part of a commercial and critical resurgence of character-driven narratives, along with the 1997 films As Good as It Gets and The Full Monty. Industry insiders and experts had predicted that the year would have been dominated by major film studios' productions, but they noted that the unexpected success of Good Will Hunting and other independent films balanced out 1997 and demonstrated the continued commercial and critical strength of independent studios' productions, which had already commanded 1996. The film was evaluated as a successful example of counterprogramming, having been released nearly at the same time as the box-office hit Titanic. Commentators recognized Miramax and other independent studios' ability to generate bigger returns than major studios by casting newcomers or former A-list actors and finding ignored scripts, allowing them to produce films at a low cost. However, some argued that Miramax productions could not be considered independent films in the traditional sense due to their relatively high budgets, while others noted that they were still much inferior to that of major studios' productions. The production was staged as part of the New York Fringe Festival, with Kaling and Withers playing Affleck and Damon respectively. Bruce Weber of The New York Times reviewed it positively when it was presented again off-Broadway.
The film also brought Elliott Smith to national prominence following his nomination and performance at the 70th Academy Awards for Best Original Song. His label, Kill Rock Stars, was able to pay its debts after Smith's rise in popularity. Smith went on to release two more albums before dying in 2003. Posthumously, his music has often been featured on soundtracks for film and television. It was first issued in 1997 as a soundtrack album featuring only two of Elfman's pieces, before a version with all his pieces was released in 2014.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack album for the film was released by Capitol Records on November 18, 1997, although only two of Elfman's cues appear on the release.
"Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band and "Runaway" by Del Shannon were featured in the film but did not appear on the soundtrack album.
Score
A limited-edition album featuring Elfman's complete score from the film was released by Music Box Records on March 3, 2014. The album includes all of Elfman's cues (including music not featured on the rare Miramax Academy promo) and contains the songs by Elliott Smith. One of the tracks is Smith's songs with Elfman's arrangements added to the mix. Only 1500 copies were created.
Reception
In a 2009 retrospective review of Good Will Hunting soundtrack, Alex Young of Consequence called Elfman and Smith's collaboration a "tremendous example of composer and contemporary musician weaving together their creativity".
See also
- George Dantzig—a mathematician, protagonist of an urban legend that resembles Good Will Hunting introductory scenes
- List of films about mathematicians