1944 Top Grossing Movies

This movie page looks at 1944 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 1944 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 1944 movies in our database.

To make this list a movie had to be made in 1944.  Obviously many movies made in 1943 earned box office dollars in 1944.  On the other side many movies made in 1944 made money in 1945 and later.  This page will looks at 128 1944 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 1944 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.

Our UMR Top 50 of 1944

1950 Top Box Office Movies Can Be Ranked 7 Ways In This Table

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

  • Sort 1944 Top Box Office Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
  • Sort 1944 Top Box Office Movies by domestic actual box office grosses (in millions)
  • Sort 1944 Top Box Office Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions).
  • Sort 1944 Top Box Office Movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort 1944 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 1944 Top Box Office Movies received.
  • Sort 1944 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.
James Cagney in 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy
James Cagney in 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy

 

How the Box Office Numbers were Calculated 

Sadly in 1944….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?

1944 Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide

Jump to Domestic Box Office

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

 

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59 thoughts on “1944 Top Grossing Movies”

  1. The 1944 Re-Issue of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves {Dwarfs} should be the same as Lost in a Harem for those two had the same rental figures. I do not know if you are listing re-issues for each year, but that is where it should be. It appears your 1937 listing is the combination of 1937,1944, and 1952 combines. I could be wrong because you don’t list rentals, but that is what it appears to be to me.

    Reply

    1. Hey Chris….I generally tend to stay away from re-release movies. Which is why Snow White is not listed here. The Disney classics are the hardest movies to list….because of so many re-releases over so many years. You are correct the 1937 listing does include all of the re-releases you mentioned…..it was the number one movie of the year according to Variety….so I just went ahead and gave it credit for it’s complete box office run….which according to Box Office Mojo is the 10th biggest box office hit of all-time. Thanks for noticing….very impressive especially considering how many stats are on these two pages.

      Reply

          1. I’ll have to find the booklet I put together a while ago on those. I researched years and years ago and the hustle and bustle of life and raising a child caused me to take a hiatus. Good to see a website where someone else had done this.

            I also didn’t notice the following 1944 movies on the list.
            Jane Eyre Feb 3 1944 1,750,000 rentals
            The Happy Land NOV 10, 1943 1,500,000 rentals
            Holy Matrimony Aug 27, 1943 1,500,000 rentals
            The Sullivans Feb 3, 1944 1,000,000 rentals
            The Ox-Bow Incident May 8 1943 750,000 rentals

            I couldn’t find these in the 1943 list either. I know at least one or two of these might belong to 1943 or all since some had their world premier in 1943 and U.S. in 1944,

            I might had missed them, but if I didn’t, maybe you want to add?

          3. I missed them then. I looked and looked. I just wanted to make sure your list was complete and accurate. 🙂

          4. Hey Chris…..your input is greatly appreciated…..when you catch my many mistakes….it only helps make this website even better. So truly….Thank you for your feedback.

  2. Hey Cogerson, i get my info about the box office result of 1944 from a Feb 28, 1945 edition og National Box office Digest on ppg 18=19. But of course they were in percentage of business in a week instead of $ value. I think the titles are under each column A B C and D represent the budget of each films.you may want to check out those digitized books. there is a 1945 lists as well.

    Reply

  3. Hi Cogerson,

    Looking at the list of 1944 box office grosses ,I’ve notice some movies are not listed by studios:

    WB = Janie; Shine On Harvest Moon; The Doughgirls; The Very Thought of You; Make Your Own Bed Are they not listed on the WB ledger?

    RKO= Show Business; Experiment Perilous; Bride By Mistake

    MGM= Broadway Rhythm; An American Romance; The Canterville Ghost $1.7m

    Fox= Keys to the Kingdom $2.4m; Home In Indiana $1.75m; The Lodger $2m; The Sullivans $1m; Something For The Boys $1.250m ; Sunday Dinner for a Soldier $2m; The Eve of St. Mark $?

    Universal: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; Cobra Woman; The Merry Monahans; Chip Off The Old Block; Gypsy Wildcat; This Is the Life; Bowery to Broadway; The Climax; House of Frankenstein

    Columbia: None Shall Escape

    United Artists = Guest In The House $1.450m; Up In Mabel’s Room $? Abroad With Two Yanks $?; Dark Waters $?

    Paramount: Hail The Conquering Hero

    Reply

    1. Hey Kevin….interesting numbers…..where did you find some of these numbers? My Variety magazines do not show the Top Grossers for 1944 or 1945. I have a list from Variety that shows about 23 movies with rentals above 3 million….but that was from 1992.

      This table only has the ones that were 100% researched. My database has about 40 more movies that are only partial researched. I just updated my Laugton page so Canterville Ghost can now be added. Keys of the Kingdom was listed as a 1945 movie. I fixed that….just need to fix it on my Peck page and include it here as well.

      I will try and see if I can add some of the ones you mentioned tomorrow.

      Thanks as always for your “eagle eye” when it comes to these pages….it is greatly appreciated.

      Reply

      1. The Fox Studio info came from the book TwentiethCentury-Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. You had provided the number for the Canterville Ghost to me some time back. The Guest In The House was from Wikipedia which got the information from an article from Variety.

        Reply

        1. Hey Kevin…I have that Fox book…it is a good reference book for sure…especially the indexes in the back.

          Just got through adding in 28 more movies to the page. So the table is now up to 31. Many were the ones you listed. Some however…I do not have box office information on.

          I thought for a minute that you had some Variety numbers that I did not…..I have searched the Variety archives for 1944 and 1945 for years….and have never found a list like they have for their other years.

          🙂

          Reply

          1. Hey Kevin…Actually there were some duplicates in there….in the end…28 new movies added…and 16 more Worldwide grosses.

          2. I don’t think they made a ranking list,but they did explain that how many anywhere between 5 and one million dollar gross films each studio has in their article but does not list the titles for both of those years.

          3. Hey Kevin…..thanks for that information. I was hoping you would say….Variety April 20th 1945….page 21…..but that was not meant to be. My search for 1944 and 1945 box office continues….lol.

    2. Did the WB ledger did not have The Doughgirls or Make your own Bed? MGM did not have Broadway Rhythm either? Found only House of Frankenstein in the Universal list huh?
      Too bad Universal,Columbia, and Paramount does not have a ledger of all their films of the Golden Age. I found that their is a U/A ledger in a Wisconsin University. Thought about going there?

      Reply

      1. Hey Kevin….my WB ledgers and MGM ledgers drew a big goose egg on the movies you listed. Unless it was a big hit….it is very hard to find results for Universal, Columbia and Paramount. As for the ledgers in Wisconsin…..I am aware they have lots of UA information…..but a few emails and phone calls have not made me think a trip there would be very useful….as the return communication has been sketchy at best…in other words they might not have the information we seek. 🙂

        Reply

  4. Cogerson

    Well, I have seen 45 of the movies listed. My tops would the noirs, Double Indemnity, Laura, with Gaslight and Murder, My Sweet slightly behind (I didn’t care for MMS’s ending that much). Of the “happy” movies, Meet Me in St. Louis is by far the best. My vote for the Oscar would come down to Double Indemnity and Meet Me in St. Louis. Other favorites are Lifeboat, the fun Two Girls and a Sailor, and The Uninvited. Going My Way? Well, watchable, but wouldn’t be in my top ten. Since You Went Away? :Not bad but not all that good either. Wilson? Well, I did my thesis back in the day on the League of Nations controversy and, well, as history this movie is grotesque in my judgment. However, I think Zanuck had his heart in the right place. He and most opinion leaders felt the United States could not afford another withdrawal into isolation and joining a United Nations organization would be a major step in showing we were going to stay involved and work toward a more peaceful international order. So I give Wilson a pass, but despite the all out production effort, it falls rather flat today.

    Reply

    1. Hey John
      1. Thanks for the visit and the comment.
      2. Tally counts: Dan 161 (Total all 1944 movies), Lupino 51, John 45, Flora 40, Steve 25, Pierre 20 and Cogerson at 17.
      3. I like all 4 of your noirs….I just recently watched Murder, My Sweet for the first time. I liked the ending better than you did.
      4. Another attempt by me to watch Meet Me In St. Louis failed…though I did watch enough of it to see the song…”Meet Me In St. Louis”..be song. Ran out of time and it was due back…one day I will finish that one for sure.
      5. I have read lots of information on Wilson….but I have never seen it…..seems overall….the Academy voters and critics loved it….but the general public stayed away. Kind of like this year’s Oscar winner….Moonlight.
      6. Our your favorites listed….I have seen and enjoyed all of them with the exception of St. Louis and Two Girls and A Sailor.
      7. Really enjoyed The Uninvited…..as I just saw that one for the first time a few months ago.
      Thanks for the tally, comment and visit….all are greatly appreciated.

      Reply

  5. Hi

    Not a lot of love for Going My Way it seems. It’s actually not a bad show, a bit sentimental but it probably didn’t deserve Best Picture. Over the likes of Double Indemnity or Meet Me In St. Louis. But nevertheless it was box office champ for the year so someone must have liked it.
    Some great movies in ’44, Miracle at Morgan Creek is definitely worth seeing and Laura, with one of the best soundtracks ever.
    Another favourite would be National Velvet, arguably Elizabeth Taylor’s best movie. Although some commentators have it for 1945.
    As for Dragonseed, I don’t think the casting would work today in this PC culture. Another good year for Davis with Mr Skeffington.
    PS. Has anyone seen Feud yet? Apparently it’s got great reviews.
    Congratulations of your 10million hits, here’s to 10 million more!

    Reply

    1. Hey Anonymous
      1. I am not a musical person…..but I enjoyed Going My Way….Crosby’s two Father O’Malley movies were massive hits…..over a billion dollars in adjusted worldwide gross…..so I think there are many fans of that one.
      2. I think Double Indemnity and Laura have gotten better with time….but back then….Going My Way had the edge with Oscar voters…..but kudos to them for getting those two Film Noir movies Best Picture nominations.
      3. I really enjoyed National Velvet too…especially Donald Crisp’s role…..which I think is the best of his awesome career.
      4. Gotta admit….I am not too familiar with Dragonseed….other than I made a huge error with the box office totals of that one.
      5. I have not seen Feud…..I rarely watch tv….but when season 1 gets released on DVD….that is a series I will be binge watching.
      6. Thanks for the congrats on 10 million…..the march to 11 million is off to a good start…almost 25,000 views on the first two days.
      Thanks for the visit and the comment.

      Reply

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