Elton John’s Greatest Hits Volume III is the twenty seventh album release for Elton John. Released in 1987, 10 years after Elton John’s Greatest Hits Volume II, the compilation album features his greatest hits from 1979–1986 and was made available only in the United States and Canada. All of the songs featured had previously been released on a previous album.

The album was initially released under Geffen records after John returned to his US-label. Geffen was later bought out by MCA Records in 1990. John had just left MCA after the label released Greatest Hits Vol. 2 which had created a sales competition with his live album, Here and There.

One third of the album is composed of songs from Too Low for Zero, John’s 1983 album that received the most critical and commercial acclaim for the early 1980’s, including the songs I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues and I'm Still Standing. Some of the artist’s less successful songs were also included on the tracking because they had been released in the past year. The album reached gold status by February in 1989, platinum in November of 1991, and achieved 2x platinum in October of 1995 by the RIAA.

In 1992, two years after MCA purchased Geffen, Greatest Hits Volume III was removed from the artist’s repertoire and replaced with the famed Greatest Hits 1976-1986 album and due to copyright, two tracks from Greatest Hits Volume II, Don't Go Breaking My Heart and Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word were moved to Greatest Hits 1976-1986 and replaced with Who Wears These Shoes.

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