1942 Top Grossing Movies

Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon in the biggest box office hit of 1942...Mrs. Miniver
Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon in the biggest box office hit of 1942…Mrs. Miniver

This movie page looks at 145 1942 Top Grossing Movies.  Finding box office information for movies made in the 1930s and 1940s is extremely difficult.   For somebody looking for box office information on 1942 it is very very frustrating.  Over the years, we have researched and collected information on over 23,000 movies.  So we figured we would show all the 1942 movies in our database.

To make this list a movie had to be made in 1942.  Obviously many movies (How Green Was My Valley and Ball of Fire) made in 1941 earned box office dollars in 1942.  On the other side many movies made in 1942 made money in 1943 and later.  This page will looks at 168 1942 Top Grossing 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.

And now for the part of the movie page that the wife calls the “drivel” part of our movie pages.  When we decided to do a page on 1942 box office grosses….the thought was this was going to be an easy and fast page to write…well 3 days later and we are finally finishing off the page.  Guess the fact that we have collected so many sources of box office information is a good but very time consuming thing. Talk about confusing….Casablanca is listed by IMDb as a 1942 movie.  Casablanca was not eligible for the Oscars® for movies made in 1942…but did qualify for the Oscars® for movies made in 1943…..so that is why we have two Best Picture Oscar® winners on one page.

Gary Cooper in 1942's The Pride of the Yankees
Gary Cooper in 1942’s The Pride of the Yankees

Our UMR Top 50 of 1942

1942 Top Grossing 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 1942 Top Grossing Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
  • Sort 1942 Top Grossing Movies by domestic actual box office grosses
  • Sort 1942 Top Grossing Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort 1942 Top Grossing 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 1942 Top Grossing Movies received.
  • Sort 1942 Top Grossing 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.
James Cagney in 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy
James Cagney in 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy

 

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 – 1941,1942,1947,1954,1961,1968,1971,1974

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

How the Box Office Numbers were Calculated 

Sadly in 1942….BoxOfficeMojo was not around to keep track of box office earnings. Back then earnings seem to be a secret and a secret that needed to be safely locked up.  When studios did report box office stats they used “box office rentals”.  Box office rentals were the amount of money the studio got back from the theaters.  It is NOT the box office gross.  We created a computer program that looked at box office rentals and known box office grosses in my database.  My program found over 2,000 movies that matched that criteria and came up with an average of 2.2.  Meaning that box office gross was 2.2 times greater than box office rentals.  It is not an exact calculation….but it is the multiplier I used to calculate the grosses.  For example:  Lets look at Errol Flynn’s Desperate Journey. Desperate Journey returned to RKO studies $2,029,000 million in box office rentals.  Using my multiplier of 2.2….I calculate that the box office gross was $4,463,000 million in 1942. 

If a big budget movie made $4.43 million today it would be considered a huge box office bomb (can you say The Adventures of Pluto Nash?).  To compare box office results from movies from different eras you have to use tickets sold as the common denominator.  Back in 1942 the average movie admission was .28 cents (Box Office Mojo says it is .23 cents…but I disagree with their number).  So you take the box office gross and divide it by average movie admission….in this case…$4.43 million divided by $.23 you get 15.8 million tickets sold in 1942. Now (have I lost you yet?) you take the average movie admission price today ($8.14) and multiply that by tickets sold.  15.8 * $8.14 = $128.61 million  So if Desperate Journey was released this year it would earn about $125.00 million.  Desperate Journey’s unadjusted box office total of 4.43 million would rank as the 153rd highest grossing film of 2014….right behind The Skelton Twins.  But if we look at Desperate Journey’s adjusted box office total of $125.00 million…it would rank as the 23rd highest grossing movie of 2014….one spot ahead of Lucy.

Not Enough Stats?  How About A 1942 Adjusted Worldwide Box Office Table?

1942 Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide

Jump to Domestic Box Office

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29 thoughts on “1942 Top Grossing Movies”

  1. Hello Bruce i just recently check DIsney movies worldwide grosses figures available on BOM among others and i found out that Bambi is reported to have made 165 200 000 in foreign gross (maybe with reissues)…
    So the 684 100 000 worldwide adjusted gross seems too low ….

    Thanks 😉

    Reply

    1. Hey Max….thanks for the information on Bambi…..ah….the issue with Bambi, Disney and re-releases….I will have to see if BOM breaks it down by year and gross…..sometimes their adjusted grosses never make sense…..I will see if I can figure out a way to use their number. Thanks again.

      Reply

  2. HI BRUCE

    1 Thanks for adding 1945 to the site index and updating the 1942 page as I will be continuing to refer frequently to all of your annual reviews.

    2 My earlier ‘educated guesses’ about the revised stats on the 1942 page were in general not too far out but I can’t take much credit for that because ass I’ve said I had your adjustments elsewhere to guide me!

    Reply

  3. The Busiest actors in feature films/serials for 1942 from the 2 volume set ’40 years of Screen Credits’. All actors listed made 7 or more appearances in films that year.

    16 ADDISON RICHARDS
    16 LLOYD BRIDGES
    14 LARRY PARKS
    12 FRANK ORTH
    11 ELIZABETH RISDON
    11 GEORGE CLEVELAND
    11 HERBERT RAWLINSON
    11 JOHN LITEL
    11 LLOYD CORRIGAN
    11 MANTAN MORELAND
    11 WILLIAM HAADE
    10 CHARLES HALTON
    10 CLIFF EDWARDS
    10 FORREST TAYLOR
    10 FUZZY KNIGHT
    10 IRVING BACON
    10 JANE DARWELL
    10 MARY GORDON
    10 SAMUEL S. HINDS
    10 VINCE BARNETT
    10 WARREN HYMER
    9 BRIAN DONLEVY
    9 FRANK REICHER
    9 HARRY WOODS
    9 JOAN WOODBURY
    9 JOHNNY MACK BROWN
    9 LEO CARRILLO
    9 MINOR WATSON
    9 MORRIS ANKRUM
    9 ROLAND DREW
    9 ROY ROGERS
    9 THURSTON HALL
    8 ALAN MOWBRAY
    8 ALBERT DEKKER
    8 ANDY DEVINE
    8 DAVE O’BRIEN
    8 ETHEL GRIFFIES
    8 EUGENE PALLETTE
    8 FRANCES GIFFORD
    8 FRANK M. THOMAS
    8 FRANK PUGLIA
    8 FRANK REICHER
    8 FRANK WILCOX
    8 GABBY HAYES
    8 GEORGE SANDERS
    8 GLENN STRANGE
    8 JACK MULHALL
    8 JOSEPH CREHAN
    8 KEYE LUKE
    8 LUDWIG STOSSEL
    8 LYNN MERRICK
    8 MARJORIE MAIN
    8 RALPH BYRD
    8 RAYMOND HATTON
    8 RUSSELL HAYDEN
    8 WILLIAM DEMAREST
    7 ANNE GWYNNE
    7 BRODERICK CRAWFORD
    7 CHARLES LANE
    7 CHICK CHANDLER
    7 CONNIE GILCHRIST
    7 DON ‘RED’ BARRY
    7 DOUGLAS FOWLEY
    7 ED BROPHY
    7 EDWARD FIELDING
    7 EDWARD GARGAN
    7 EMMETT LYNN
    7 FORREST TUCKER
    7 FRANK SULLY
    7 FREDERICK WORLOCK
    7 GEORGE MEEKER
    7 GRANT WITHERS
    7 HARRY SHANNON
    7 HENRY FONDA
    7 J. CARROL NAISH
    7 JAMES GLEASON
    7 JANE FRAZEE
    7 JANIS CARTER
    7 JEAN PARKER
    7 JEROME COWAN
    7 JIMMY WAKELY
    7 JOHN LODER
    7 JOHN MAXWELL
    7 KENNETH HARIAN
    7 LEO GORCEY
    7 LIONEL ATWILL
    7 LOUISE ALLBRITTON
    7 MARY FIELD
    7 MILES MANDER
    7 OLIVER PRICKETT
    7 RAGS RAGLAND
    7 RICK VALLIN
    7 ROBERT PAIGE
    7 ROY BARCROFT
    7 RUSSELL HICKS
    7 SIDNEY BLACKMER
    7 SIG RUMANN
    7 SMILEY BURNETTE
    7 SONS OF THE PIONEER AND BOB NOLAN
    7 TOM LONDON
    7 TURHAN BEY
    7 WALTER CATLETT
    7 WILLIAM B. DAVIDSON
    7 WILLIAM FARNUM
    7 WILLIAM FRAWLEY
    7 WILLIAM GARGAN

    Reply

    1. Hey Dan…..thanks for this list…..good stuff as always. Looks like I need to update this page….seems I did this one in a hurry and it shows…..not happy at all at how this one looks. So a tie for first….I had no idea Lloyd Bridges was making that many movies back then. Seinfeld’s greatest dad was very very busy. I have to admit that I have not heard of Addison Richards. Ones that stick out to me…Roy Rogers with 9 (I am sure most were low budget westerns), everytime I see Charles Halston….I keep thinking it is Chalton Heston, looks like Henry Fonda was the busiest star on the list. I think I understand why he left Hollywood for the stage…if they were making him make so many movies in a year. Now…a star like Leonardo DiCaprio seems to make one movie every two years. John Litel….seems I have been running into his movies all the time…at least in the last month or two. Thanks again.

      Reply

        1. Hey Dan….Lloyd Bridges did a few episodes on Seinfeld…..the one I remember the most…..it had to do with Bridges having a fit because Seinfeld’s dad was wearing a “World’s Greatest Dad” t-shirt. Bridges wanted to duke it out with Seinfeld and his dad and decide who was really the World’s Greatest Dad. Over the years my Seinfeld references have really slowed down….but every once in awhile…one escapes me….lol.

          Reply

  4. Hello Bruce.
    I had read once that a film had to play in Los Angeles for the calander year to be nominated for an Oscar. And Casablanca had only played in New York in 1942, and that is why Casablanca was not nominated for any Oscars in 1942. Casablanca is one of my very favorite films but I believe Mrs. Miniver would have given Casablanca stiffer competition in the Oscar race if it had been nominated in the same year. I didn’t like Mrs. Miniver when i was a kid. I thought it too slow. But as an adult and a great fan of both Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon I think is is a great film. It was a great morale booster during WWII. And it was a much bigger hit than Casablanca. That said I love both films. And I want to that you for doing this page. thank you also for the Box office information on 1965’s King Rat. I believe your guess about right. Thanks.

    Reply

    1. Hey Lyle…interesting that Casablanca did not play in Los Angeles..I wonder is the producers of Casablanca did not want to go up against Mrs. Miniver in the Oscar races. I agree with you that Mrs. Miniver would have probably beaten Casablanca….the morale boost would have been too much for the Oscar voters to ignore. Wiki has a webpage that shows weekly box office leaders for years long since passed. Not sure how accurate or what their source of information is…..but it is still interesting to look at. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1965_box_office_number-one_films_in_the_United_States

      Reply

  5. Hi, Bruce.

    The highest rated film I have seen is Mrs. Miniver, which I have seen multiple times. I quite enjoy Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon together.

    The lowest rated film I have seen is The Magnificient Ambersons at 110.

    As part of the TCM September Star of the Month Susan Hayward lineup, I recently added Reap the Wild Wind to my “seen it” list. That would have been the highest rated film that I hadn’t seen. Now it is Wake Island at Number 8. That is the only film from the top ten that i have not seen.

    My totals for film rankings start out high, go down low, and all over the place between 20 and 110. As such, I’ll comment on tens until 50 then mention my total overall:

    I have seen nine of the top 10
    I have seen 12 of the 20
    I have sen 17 of the top 30
    I have seen 23 of the top 40
    I have seen 24 of the top 50
    I have seen 54 overall.

    I can’t remember which of the Dr. Gillepsie films I have seen. so my total might be higher.

    There are some films here I have seen only once such as Pride of the Yankees.

    Cheers,

    Flora

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora….thanks for stopping by and commenting on my 1942 page.
      1. That is cool that TCM is helping you out so much. Wake Island is a movie that I have not seen either.
      2. Greer and Pidgeon made 8 movies together….and most were very very popular…..so I do not think you are alone in liking their movies.
      3. Tally count…and Flora is the winner…..Flora 54, Steve 39 and me 29…..I actually predicted you would double my total….and I was pretty good in that prediction.
      4. Lionel Barrymore had a pretty busy year in 1942…including the Dr. Gillepsie movies.
      5. The next classic page will be another AFI Greatest Actress….Ms. Jean Harlow…only have to research 2 more of her movies to be ready to write that page.
      As always…thanks for stopping by and talking movies.

      Reply

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