1946 Top Box Office Movies

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James Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

This page looks at the 1946 Top Box Office Movies. World War II ended in 1945 and as the soldiers returned home…they did two things….one they made lots of babies and two they went to lots of movies. 1946 was the peak of people going to movies. In 1946 an average of 90 million admissions were sold on a weekly basis. That 90 million represented almost 60% of the population of the United States. As a comparison, we can look at our current movie going habits…weekly admissions are now roughly 27 million and represent 10% of the population.

This page will look at the biggest box office hits during the biggest box office year ever.I thought when I came up with this idea of doing the biggest box office hits of 1946 that it would be an easy movie page to write. I already had the January 8th 1947 Variety magazine that listed the Top 60 hits of the year so I figured I could knock out the movie page in a few hours….boy was I wrong. The first thing I noticed was that many of top box office hits of 1946 were actually made in 1945.

The second thing I noticed was many of the top box office hits of 1947 were really made in 1946. The third thing I noticed was many of the Oscar® nominated and Oscar® winning films did not make the Variety Top Box Office charts. The final thing I noticed was an issue with foreign films…it sometimes took years after a foreign movie was made for it to make it to North America….the best example of this is Henry V…it was made in 1944 yet it took 2 years to reach North America.

Here is how I came up with the 113 movies on the Ultimate Movie Rankings list…..any box office hit on the Variety lists made in 1946 or was released for the first time in 1946 in North America made the list , and any movie that got an Oscar® nomination or Oscar® win for the 1946 year made the list.

Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Harold Russell in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Our UMR Top 50 of 1946

1946 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 by the stars of the 1946 Top Box Office Movies.
  • Sort 1946 Top Box Office Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort 1946 Top Box Office Movies by domestic yearly box office rank
  • Sort 1946 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 1946 Top Box Office Movies received.
  • Sort 1946 Top Box Office Movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

Possibly Interesting Facts About 1946 Top Box Office Movies

1. The five films that received Oscar® nominations for Best Picture were: The Best Years of Our Lives, Henry V, It’s A Wonderful Life, The Razor’s Edge and The Yearling….the winner was The Best Years of Our Lives.

2. Disabled veteran Harold Russell actually won two Oscars® for his performance in The Best Years of Our Lives….one for Best Supporting Actor and a Special Award for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.

3. Other Oscar® acting winners in 1946 were Frederic March as Best Actor for Best Years of Our Lives, Olivia de Havilland as Best Actress for To Each His Own, and Anne Baxter as Best Supporting Actress for The Razor’s Edge.

4. The biggest Oscar® snubs in 1946? I vote three movies/performances…..#1 Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious should have either gotten a Best Picture nomination or a Best Director nomination. 2.Henry Fonda in My Darling Clementine gave one of his greatest screen performances in that movie…… and finally 3. Myrna Loy in The Best Years of Our Lives. During Loy’s long and successful career she never got an Oscar® nomination…this would have been the perfect movie to right that wrong.

5. According to Variety the Top Box Office Movie Stars of 1946 were: #1 Bing Crosby, #2 Ingrid Bergman. #3 Fred Astaire, #4 Dorothy Lamour and #5 Gregory Peck.

6. Actors/actresses that made their screen debuts in 1946: Burt Lancaster (The Killers #28), Kirk Douglas (The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers #22), Alec Guinness (Great Expectations #36), Dean Martin and Natalie Wood.

7. Two famous entertainers who passed away in 1946….W.C. Fields and H.G. Wells.

8. Currently a successful box office mark to cross is 100 million... in 2011 thirty movies crossed $100 million, in 2012 thirty-one movies crossed that mark, in 2013 thirty-five got there and in 2014 thirty-three did it. In 1946…when looking at adjusted box office numbers…..an incredible 65 movies would have crossed $100 million.

1946 Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide

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94 thoughts on “1946 Top Box Office Movies”

  1. Shouldn’t Calcutta assigned to 1947 as Release date in US 23. April 1947 (New York City, New York)?
    Same for 13 Rue Madeleine which was release in the US on 15. Januar 1947 (New York City, New York).

    Reply

    1. Also “Lady in the lake” was released in the US in 1947 (19. January 1947) and also “The imperfect lady” 25. April 1947.

      Reply

  2. Hello,
    To whom it may help
    My research on movie “Shoeshine” 1946.
    Estimated U.S. Box Office data was $145,700 dollars.
    No Foreign data at this time.
    Just for fun.
    Hope this helps

    Reply

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