Top Grossing 1945 Movies

This movie page looks at 1945 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 1945 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 1945 movies in our database.

To make this list a movie had to be made in 1945.  Obviously many movies made in 1944 earned box office dollars in 1945.  On the other side many movies made in 1945 made money in 1946 and later.  This page will looks at 127 1945 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.

Joan Crawford in 1945’s Mildred Pierce…she won an Oscar for her role in the movie

Our UMR Top 50 of 1945

1945 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 1945 Top Box Office Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
  • Sort 1945 Top Box Office Movies by domestic actual box office grosses (in millions)
  • Sort 1945 Top Box Office Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort 1945 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 1945 Top Box Office Movies received.
  • Sort 1945 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.

1945 gave us Bela Lugosi’s Zombies on Broadway…I sure Steve Lensman has seen that one

1945 Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide

My Main Sources

Source 1: Eddie Mannix MGM Ledgers

Source 2: C.J. Tevlin RKO Ledgers

Source 3: Variety Magazines –

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

Top earners in 1945 for Adjusted USA Box Office:

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.

80 thoughts on “Top Grossing 1945 Movies

  1. HI Bruce ; i’ve watched a lot of pirate movies and thanks to your website discovered many of them !
    I was just thinking that nobody have really made a list of the most successful of them ; especially old classics with Flynn ; Power and many others …
    I’m astonished to see that “Spanish Main” made more than 400 million $ in worldwide adjusted… Good film !
    My question is : what are the top 3 “pirate” movies (worldwide adjusted) that you have in your database that were released before 1980 ? Is there another film that i missed who made more than the Spanish Main ?

    1. Hey Max..interesting question. Sadly…mainly because I did not listen to WoC….we do not have genre in many of the movies in the database….so I have to rely on my memory and knowledge to answer this question.

      My Top 3 Picks:
      Tyrone Power’s The Black Swan has an adjusted domestic gross of $265.10 million…..worldwide is unknown

      Errol Flynn’s Captain Blood has an adjusted worldwide gross of $264.30 million

      Flynn’s The Sea Hawk has an adjusted worldwide gross of $245.10 million

      Two More Stretches

      Bob Hope’s The Princess the Pirate has an adjusted domestic gross of $176.30…worldwide unknown….and it is a comedy

      Gene Kelly’s The Pirate has an adjusted domestic gross of $156.70….worldwide unknown….it is a musical

      Sorry I do not have a better answer at the current time.

      1. Thanks a lot Bruce ! My top 3 was the same as yours …. I think that with the Spanish Main ; those 3 pirate movies are the biggest in term of box office grosses … Captain Blood was apparently re-released in Russia were it made 21.3 million admissions…So it must be the most successful pirate film released before 1980… All in all ; even if it wasn’t the biggest of them all in term of box office success ; i think that Captain Blood is simply the best pirate movie ever made !..

        In term of swashbuckling i general ; i would say that “the adventures of Robin Hood” with Flynn is probably the most successful of the genre … At the Box Office and by critics …Among movies released before the 80’s… Correct me if i’m wrong …

        1. Hey Max…..glad you liked my three…..I agree Flynn’s Robin Hood is the most successful of that genre…and still a fun movie to watch. Good feedback.

  2. COGERSON HELPLINE !!

    1 Saratoga Trunk is listed in yoiur Bergman/Cooper pages as a 1946 release but is excluded from your 1946 annual review and instead included in the 1945 review page?

    2 Wiki and IMDB aren’t of much help in clarifying matters as the former says its release date was 21 Nov 45 and the latter 30 March 46 yet both list it on other parts of their pages as a 1945 film ! This one seems to be confusing all of the great movie sites including Cogerson!!

    1. Hey Bob. Well there are two answers to this question. Saratoga Trunk was made in 1945 but released in 1946. I think originally I listed it as 1946…but after doing this yearly page I switched it to 1945….but have not changed the date on the Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper pages.

      I think the best way to do it is list it as a 1945 but show it’s ranking in 1946. Gone With The Wind is in the same boat….made in 1939 but made 99.50% of it’s box office in 1940 and beyond. This is my take on your question.

  3. Hello Lupino

    I like Miss LOCKWOOD with this film with Michael Redgrave.
    Miss LOCKWOOD was very good in THE LADY VANISHES, a film i saw several time.
    a film befor the war.from Hithcock
    I know she is a very great actress in Britain but unlike Madeleine Carroll she was not
    so much known inUSA.

    I saw the remak of this film in the 70 with Cybill Sheperd ” Miss Moonligting” Gould and Lansbury;
    and by the way Bruce what do you think about a page on Sheperd, after all you get one on Bruce….Willis.

    1. Hello Pierre,

      if you like Lockwood, you should try and check out her 1955 film with Dirk Bogarde Cast a Dark Shadow. At 44, you may find yourself wondering if this is the same actress who played sweet and innocent Iris Henderson in The Lady Vanishes.

      À bientôt!

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