1937 Top Box Office Movies

Myrna Loy’s two 1937 movies grossed almost $300 million in adjusted box office

This movie page looks at 1937 Top Box Office Movies.  Finding box office information for movies made in the 1930s and 1940s is extremely difficult.   For somebody looking for box office information on 1937 it is very very frustrating.  Over the years, we have researched and collected information on over 33,000 movies.  So we figured we would show all the 1937 movies in our database.

To make this list a movie had to be made in 1937.  Obviously many movies made in 1936 earned box office dollars in 1937.  On the other side many movies made in 1937 made money in 1938 and later.  This page will looks at 132 1937 Top Box Office Movies.  The movies are listed in a massive table that lets you rank the movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.

The following massive table only includes the movies made in 1937 that are in our database.  Since we are constantly adding new movies to our database….this page will quickly become obsolete.  We will try and update this page on a regular basis.

Snow White is the top grossing movie of 1937…but….it took many re-releases over many decades to end up with close to a billion in adjusted domestic gross

Our UMR Top 50 of 1937

1937 Top Box Office Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort 1937 Top Box Office Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.  If you want to see the 3 Paul Muni movies on the table…just type in his name in the search box and up they will come
  • Sort 1937 Top Box Office Movies by domestic actual box office grosses (in millions)
  • Sort 1937 Top Box Office Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort 1937 Top Box Office Movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each 1937 Top Box Office Movies received.
  • Sort 1937 Top Box Office Movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking Score (UMR).  Our UMR score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

My Main Sources

Source 1: Eddie Mannix MGM Ledgers

Source 2: C.J. Tevlin RKO Ledgers

Source 3: Variety Magazine – January 6th 1943

Source 4: Year In Review Variety Editions

Source 5: Grand Design: Hollywood As A Modern Business Enterprise 1930-1942 by Tino Balio

Source 6: Twentieth Century-Fox A Corporate and Financial History by Aubrey Solomon

Source 7:  Wikipedia

Source 8:  IMDb.com

Source 9:  “Revenue sharing and the coming of sound” by H. Mark Glancy

Source 10: Hollywood Power Stats by Christopher Reynolds

1937 Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide

Our Yearly Review Pages

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
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52 thoughts on “1937 Top Box Office Movies”

    1. Hey Kevin…..you are correct there are only 132 movies listed here…..and now the text of the page agrees. Thanks for the catch.

      Reply

  2. Hi

    First, a great picture of Merna Loy. If Walt Disney never did anything after Snow White he would still be remembered today. After 80 years its still looks well and probably next to Pinocchio as Disney’s finest hour. It must have blew people’s minds when it was first released. Had there have been multiplex cinemas, it definitely would have made a billion.
    1937 was a great year for movies, my favourite has to be Captain Courageous, although probably a bit sentimental by today’s standards, Spencer Tracey’s performance is superb. Another favourite is The Awful Truth, one of the best comedies of the 30’s. In Old Chicago is good but I always felt it was a rehash of San Francisco.
    The first version of A Star Is Born looked great in color but I don’t think it was as good as the Garland version.
    The Good Earth wasn’t bad but I don’t think the casting would go down well in today’s P.C. world. Nothing Sacred is probably Carol Lombard’s best movie, she looked amazing in color,
    Great page, thanks.

    Reply

  3. Bob & Cogerson

    I see you mentioned that the average stats don’t back up your point. But I really wonder Bob what your point is. Loy seems, not only on Cogerson’s stats, but off others I have read, to have ended up appearing in movies which sold more tickets in the 20th century than any other female star. I think that is basically all Cogerson (or myself) ever said.
    It might be off field, but I think Cogerson will understand my point, it is like asking who was the home run king of baseball in the 20th century. Henry Aaron with 755 home runs ended up with more home runs than anyone else. Did he hit the most in a season? No. Not even close. His best was 47. My guess is a score or more of sluggers did better than that, even before the steroid era pumped up totals. Did he average the most homers per season. No. I don’t think so. What he did was hit more home runs than anyone else did. Myrna Loy was in movies that sold more tickets than any other actress. Yes, she co-starred with Gable, Grant, Powell, etc. But why were these big stars teamed with her? You seem to be avoiding the fact that the studios sought to match popular male and female stars as much as possible to maximize profits. The biggest hits were rarely stand-alones “chick” flicks.

    Reply

    1. JOAN CRAWFORD:
      Superstar of numerous stand-alone films

      COMPETITIVE OSCAR WINS 1
      COMPETITIVE OSCAR NOMINATIONS 2

      GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS 1
      GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS 2

      OTHER COMPETITIVE AWARDS 7 Wins/3 Nominations

      POSITION ON AFI LEGENDS LIST 10th

      MYRNA LOY
      Leading Actress heavily dependent on bigger stars as her male leads
      “If you included only her stand-alone movies her grosses would go through the floor.”
      Bruce Cogerson

      COMPETITIVE OSCAR WINS 0
      COMPETITIVE OSCAR NOMINATIONS 0

      GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS 0
      GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS 0

      OTHER COMPETITIVE AWARDS 3 Wins/O Nominations

      POSITION ON AFI LISTS Not Listed so not considered a Legend

      Reply

      1. Bob & Cogerson

        no offense, but what does competitive Oscars (or Golden Globes or what-have-you) have to do with box office success? Louise Rainer won two Oscars. Betty Grable, Esther Williams, and Judy Garland never won an Oscar. So Louise Rainer was a bigger box-office star than Grable or Williams or Garland? No. She was just better at winning competitive Oscars.

        Returning to my Henry Aaron analogy, it like refuting a claim that he hit more home runs than anyone in the 20th century by pointing to players with higher batting averages. There are a lot of those, but this has nothing to do with hitting home runs.

        As for the AFI list, that is an opinion of supposed experts. But “expert” opinion isn’t set in cement. They vary with the experts. Recently there was a poll of historians ranking American presidents. This is the 6th poll done since 1996. Over those 21 years presidents move up and down. Andrew Jackson (a president close to 200 years ago) has finished 5th, 10th, 14th, 9th, 13th & 18th in those six polls. There is similar flux with other presidents. Are these historians experts? Of course. Is there a set opinion? No.

        On the AFI, I largely agree with the male list as to who made it, but not the order. With the women, I think there are a lot of odd choices and odd exclusions. Mae West & Sophia Loren are two odd inclusions. Myrna Loy is among the odd exclusions. I agree that Joan Crawford should be on this list, but her placement would depend on the criteria of each voter. Should it be box office? Awards? Starring in classics? Enduring cult popularity? My own criteria would lead to a somewhat different list.

        Reply

  4. HI AGAIN BRUCE
    I am afraid that part of my 4th paragraph of previous post and I would be grateful if you would substitute the following for me so that anyone reading it is not mystified. Many thanks

    4 For me your lead-in is misleading not just because it ignores the above-mention situation but it is so selective in that it also gives the impression, whether intended not, that Loy was the top grossing star in 1937 whereas you wider comprehensive and scholarly study illustrates clearly that she was NOT. For example:

    Myrna Loy – Total Gross of 2 movies $300 million domestic/$470 worldwide
    Joan Crawford Total Gross of 3 movies $367 mil domestic/$600 million global

    Reply

    1. Bob & Cogerson

      “Myrna Loy–Total Gross of 2 movies $300 million domestic/$470 worldwide
      Joan Crawford Total Gross of 3 movies $367 mil domestic/$600 million worldwide”

      For me the point here is that in a year which includes her by far worst ever box-office flop Loy averaged $150 million domestic & $235 million worldwide while Crawford averaged $122 million domestic and $200 million worldwide.

      The stats prove Loy’s box-office stature.

      Reply

  5. 1 Afternoon BRUCE. I am not of course surprised that in the friendly spirit of our exchanges you have decided to fight your corner once again but I feel that the array of figures that you have presented whilst both impressive and accurate in themselves are perfunctory and do not tell the whole story as I perceive it which is as follows.

    2 Studio heads and their accountants are naturally more preoccupied with profit margins than total grosses or rentals. In recent times it has been claimed that the real losses incurred by the 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty were exaggerated and that the 1963 Cleopatra eventually turned a tiny profit. According to historian David Shipman Bounty grossed worldwide an adjusted $615 million and a comprehensive survey that was published of Cleo’s accounts suggest that it did even better and had a whacking $730 million worldwide box office take in today’s money.

    3 However back when those movies were released studio heads generally were said to be so frightened and incensed by their perceived losses that one historian claimed there was much talk in Hollywood of “Brando and Taylor being run out of town” As I understand it the Parnell losses were not of the magnitude of that originally claimed for the Marlon/Liz flops but in the film market and economy that existed in 1937 Parnell’s failure so horrified MGM executives that they apparently pressed the panic button to have Loy’s career “rehabilitated” and in is noteworthy that they did not appear to see the need to do the same for the King’s career. We can’t selective airbrush out facts that don’t suit our own argument.

    4 For me your lead-in is misleading not just because it ignores the above-mention situation but it is so selective in that it also gives the impression, whethestudy illustrates clearly that she was NOT. For example:

    Myrna Loy – Total Gross of 2 movies $300 million domestic/$470 worldwide
    Joan Crawford – Total Gross of 3 movies $367 mil domestic/$600 million globally

    5 Crawford’s The Bride wore Red was not of course the hit that her other two movies The Last of Mrs Cheyney and Mannequin were but thanks to foreign grosses unusually not being too far away from its domestic ones its worldwide gross of around $157 million was just about $3 million short of the much vaunted 1934 The Thin Woman which had a global figure of around $160 million.

    6 You would of course be entitled to argue that the average of Loy’s two movies was greater than that of Crawford’s 3 but you can’t run with the hares and hunt with the hounds and once you switch to average grosses as the measure of overall box office success the superficial argument based on bald total gross figures that Loy was “The most successful box office female of all time” goes out the window because Myrna’s average overall gross was far from vertiginous:

    Julie Andrews $204.7 million
    Barbara Streisand $187.7
    Betty Hutton $164.2
    Ingrid Bergman $$144.8
    Betty Grable $142.8
    Liz Taylor $132.6
    Myrna Loy $117.7

    7 Similarly if you are going to measure in terms of rentals instead of your usual grosses your entire ranking order would need to be seriously reviewed because my own extensive exercise on rentals alone suggests that the pecking order gets dramatically changed as rentals were as you have illustrated not evenly applied over the years. As matters stand Crawford’s 1937 rentals exceeded those of Loy and her two top films made MGM a net profit of just under $1 million in 1937 money – a sizeable sum in those days. Parnell was classified as one of the Fifty Worst Films of All Time in the 1978 book by Medvel and Dreyfus and included with such stinkers as Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space, Travolta’s Battlefield Earth and The Sex Lives of Potato Men.

    8 I think we have to accept that that you and I combined have obviously identified two very different Loys so there may indeed be parallel universities and maybe its time to heed Gene Hackman’s Best Shot advice suitably paraphrased and concentrate on what we agree upon rather than that which we do not. For example we both seem to admire our respective idols among the likes Stewart, Grant, Sir M and the Duke and whilst Willis is not in my Top 10 I have long argued that he is unfairly ignored by list makers of box office greats.

    Reply

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