| 100% | BELOVED | 7 | 1987 novel with the opening lines “124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom” |
| 52% | SPITEFUL | 8 | “124 was ___. Full of a baby’s venom” (opening lines of “Beloved”) |
| 38% | III | 3 | “Richard ___” (play with the opening line “Now is the winter of our discontent”) |
| 37% | EMMA | 4 | Classic novel with the line "You must be the best judge of your own happiness" |
| 36% | STEP | 4 | "15 ___," the opening track from Radiohead's album in 18a, which was recorded with the help of a group of children |
| 35% | FREEFALLIN | 10 | Tom Petty hit with the opening line "She's a good girl, loves her mama" |
| 34% | CASABLANCA | 10 | 1942 film that ends with the line “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” |
| 34% | YEN | 3 | What a "Y" with a pair of horizontal lines through it is the symbol for |
| 33% | POEM | 4 | Verse composition like "Monday's Child" with the line "Wednesday's child is full of woe," which inspired the name of the character |
| 33% | DONTBETHATWAY | 13 | Benny Goodman jazz standard with the opening line "April skies are in your eyes" |
| 32% | BAA | 3 | Start of a children's rhyme with the line "Have you any wool?" |
| 32% | GRAHAM | 6 | With 35-Across, writer whose novel "The End of the Affair" was adapted as a 1999 film of the same name |
| 32% | ONACID | 6 | How Lennon wrote the opening lines of "I Am the Walrus" |
| 32% | AIDA | 4 | Musical with the opening number "Every Story Is a Love Story" |
| 31% | ELF | 3 | Movie with the line "Son of a nutcracker!" |
| 31% | AYN | 3 | The Book of ___ (2023 novel whose protagonist becomes fascinated with a certain writer's "individualist egoism") |
| 31% | STILLIRISE | 10 | Classic poem with the lines "Leaving behind nights of terror and fear ... Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear" |
| 31% | ARGO | 4 | 2012 movie with the line "If I'm doing a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit" |
| 30% | SNELL | 5 | Part of a fishing line to which the hook is attached |
| 30% | ARGO | 4 | Best Picture winner with the line "If I'm doing a fake movie, it's gonna be a fake hit" |
| 30% | ICLAUDIUS | 9 | Novel with the line "My birth occurred in the 744th year after the foundation of Rome by Romulus" |
| 30% | UNREEL | 6 | The opposite of wind up, as with a fishing line |
| 30% | SILVER | 6 | The kind of spoon a wealthy person is born with |
| 30% | GOLDEN | 6 | "The Man with the ___ Gun," twelfth novel of Ian Fleming's James Bond series which was published in 1965 |
| 30% | LONGITUDE | 9 | The prime meridian is a line of __ at zero degrees |
| 30% | RASSELAS | 8 | Name by which Samuel Johnson's 1759 novel The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale is also known |
| 30% | CASCA | 5 | Roman soldier in a series of novels by Barry Sadler beginning with 1979's The Eternal Mercenary |
| 30% | JUMPINJACKFLASH | 15 | 1968 hit with the line "I was raised by a toothless, bearded hag" |
| 30% | ITSRAINING | 10 | With 63-Across, the opening lines to a nursery rhyme suggested by this puzzle's circled letters |
| 30% | REPOMAN | 7 | 1984 movie with the tag line "It's 4 a.m., do you know where your car is?" |