--- name: "Randall Wallace" canonical: "https://film.one/person/randall-wallace" fi1m_id: "randall-wallace" imdb_id: "nm0908824" tmdb_id: 2460 wikidata_id: "Q1339625" roles: ["Writer","Director"] born: "28 July 1949" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_as: "writer" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-10-01T04:02:37.393312+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Randall Wallace ## Identity Randall Wallace - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/randall-wallace - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** randall-wallace - **IMDb ID:** nm0908824 - **TMDB ID:** 2460 - **Wikidata ID:** Q1339625 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Wallace, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1339625, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0908824/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/2460 Writer and director. Born 28 July 1949 in Jackson, Tennessee, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Writer, Director - **Born:** 28 July 1949, Jackson, Tennessee, USA - **Active:** 1995–2001 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 2: 1 directing, 1 writing - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Wallace, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1339625, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0908824/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/2460 ## Coming up - *The Resurrection of the Christ: Part One* (2027-05-06), Writer - *The Resurrection of the Christ: Part Two* (2028-05-25), Writer ## Streaming the US now - **Apple TV:** [*Braveheart*](https://film.one/film/braveheart.md) (68) - **Pluto TV:** [*The Man in the Iron Mask*](https://film.one/film/the-man-in-the-iron-mask.md) (54) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Randall Wallace > Randall Wallace writes men who know what honour is and say so, at length. His scripts are sincere to a fault, best when a director like Mel Gibson gives them a battlefield, weakest when they are left to explain themselves. Late in *The Man in the Iron Mask* (1998), four old men stand together and say the words the film has spent two hours building towards, and it works because, for once, nobody is given a speech. Wallace lets Suschitzky hold on four faces and stops talking. That is the whole Randall Wallace problem in one scene. He writes about honour, has the word said out loud a great deal, and the moments that land are the ones where he trusts a face to do the work. We were moved by that scene, having laughed at the film ten minutes earlier, and the gap between the two is the truest thing we can say about him. He wrote for television in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the producer Stephen J. Cannell, after a spell in Nashville and, before that, a year of seminary, which shows. His first produced screenplay was *Braveheart* (1995), and it made him. The script gives William Wallace almost no complications; Gibson, directing and starring, commits to that simplicity, and the battles carry it a long way across 178 minutes. Wallace has said of his hero, "I think he is an ancestor, I feel his blood in my veins", and the film believes that with him. Catherine McCormack's Murron is the one figure allowed a feeling that does not depend on the hero's importance, and we wished for more of her. Then he began directing his own scripts. *The Man in the Iron Mask* was the debut: an old-fashioned swashbuckler with a conscience that runs 132 minutes and says everything twice. Gabriel Byrne and Jeremy Irons do quiet work in it, Gérard Depardieu is asked to be the comic relief and cannot land a thing, and Leonardo DiCaprio sulks in a wig. Wallace wrote *Pearl Harbor* (2001) for Michael Bay, went back to Gibson for *We Were Soldiers* (2002), and moved on to real lives and open faith with *Secretariat* (2010) and *Heaven Is for Real* (2014). We have not reviewed those, but the pattern holds: courage, sacrifice, a man with a cause, and often a shape borrowed from the New Testament. What works is the sincerity. Nobody in a Wallace film is winking, and that is rarer in a large action script than it should be. What does not work is that he never trusts a moment to speak for itself, so every good idea arrives with a paragraph attached, and his characters are sorted into good and wicked early and stay put. He needs a director who will cut the paragraph. Gibson, on *Braveheart*, at least gave the speeches a hillside and an army to shout at. Directing himself, Wallace kept every line. He is working with Gibson again on *The Resurrection of the Christ*, the story he has been circling since *Braveheart* and the material least likely in the world to make him stop explaining. We will watch it hoping for four faces and no speech. ## Biography Randall Wallace is an American screenwriter, director and producer. He began his career writing for television in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including work for producer Stephen J. Cannell. He gained prominence with the screenplay for *Braveheart* (1995), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and a Writers Guild of America Award. Wallace made his directorial debut with *The Man in the Iron Mask* (1998). His other credits as writer or director include *Pearl Harbor* (2001), *We Were Soldiers* (2002), *Secretariat* (2010) and *Heaven Is for Real* (2014). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (2) ### Directed (1) - *The Man in the Iron Mask* (1998), Fi1m 54, Director, Screenplay, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-man-in-the-iron-mask.md) ### Wrote (1) — the average rests on these - *Braveheart* (1995), Fi1m 68, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/braveheart.md) ## Complete filmography (17) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *The Resurrection of the Christ: Part Two* (2028), Writer - *The Resurrection of the Christ: Part One* (2027), Writer - *Point of Honor* (2015), series, Director, Writer, Executive Producer - *Heaven Is for Real* (2014), Director, Screenplay - *Secretariat* (2010), Director - *The Rookie* (2002), as Texas Oilman - *We Were Soldiers* (2002), Director, Producer, Screenplay - *Pearl Harbor* (2001), Executive Producer, Writer - *The Man in the Iron Mask* (1998), Screenplay, Producer, Director — Fi1m 54, [page](https://film.one/film/the-man-in-the-iron-mask.md) - *Dark Angel* (1996), Story - *Braveheart* (1995), Writer — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/film/braveheart.md) - *Broken Badges* (1990), series, Writer, Executive Producer, Creator - *Unsub* (1989), series, Writer - *J.J. Starbuck* (1987), series, Writer - *Starman* (1986), series, Writer - *Stingray* (1985), series, Writer - *Hunter* (1984), series, Writer ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1996: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *Braveheart* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/randall-wallace