1933 Top Box Office Movies

This movie page looks at 1933 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 1933 it is very very frustrating.  Over the years, we have researched and collected information on over 36,000 movies.  So we figured we would show all the 1933 movies in our database.

To make this list a movie had to be made in 1933.  Obviously many movies made in 1932 earned box office dollars in 1933.  On the other side many movies made in 1933 made money in 1934 and later.  This page will looks at 133 1933 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 1933 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 1933

1933 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 1933 Top Box Office Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
  • Sort 1933 Top Box Office Movies by domestic actual box office grosses
  • Sort 1933 Top Box Office Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
  • Sort 1933 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 1933 Top Box Office Movies received.
  • Sort 1933 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.

Cary Grant and Mae West in 1933’s I’m No Angel

Top earners in 1933 for Adjusted USA Box Office:

My Main Sources

Source 1: Eddie Mannix MGM Ledgers

Source 2: C.J. Tevlin RKO Ledgers

Source 3: William Schaefer Warner Brothers Ledgers

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

Adjusted 1933 Worldwide Box Office

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) $360,025,742.00
Queen Christina (1933) $297,637,264.00
Tugboat Annie (1933) $293,303,883.00
Footlight Parade (1933) $275,514,034.00
Dancing Lady (1933) $274,373,685.00
42nd Street (1933) $260,118,972.00
Dinner at Eight (1933) $245,864,342.00
Little Women (1933) $236,057,164.00
The Bowery (1933) $228,132,217.00
The White Sister (1933) $190,670,317.00
Flying Down to Rio (1933) $176,187,581.00
Mystery of the Wax Musuem (1933) $166,266,324.00
Hell Below (1933) $158,397,788.00
The Working Man (1933) $139,467,545.00
Night Flight (1933) $123,046,205.00
Hold Your Man (1933) $122,361,983.00
Today We Live (1933) $118,028,582.00
Going Hollywood (1933) $109,703,874.00
The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) $106,396,797.00
Voltaire (1933) $87,238,504.00
Bombshell (1933) $82,958,705.00
The House on 56th Street (1933) $79,141,900.00
The Kennel Murder Case (1933) $77,773,401.00
The World Changes (1933) $77,659,403.00
Mayor of Hell (1933) $74,922,451.00
I Loved a Woman (1933) $73,782,102.00
Son of a Sailor (1933) $73,668,105.00
Little Giant (1933) $73,440,000.00
Reunion in Vienna (1933) $73,325,966.00
Broadway to Hollywood (1933) $73,325,966.00
Storm at Daybreak (1933) $72,527,710.00
What No Beer? (1933) $72,185,581.00
The Son Of Kong (1933) $70,246,957.00
Lady Killer (1933) $68,422,368.00
The King’s Vacation (1933) $67,624,112.00
Winner Takes All (1933) $66,027,545.00
Elmer The Great (1933) $60,211,657.00
The Keyhole (1933) $60,211,656.00
Picture Snatcher (1933) $59,185,332.00
Hard To Handle (1933) $58,501,147.00
Mary Stevens M.D. (1933) $56,904,590.00
Double Harness (1933) $56,220,358.00
Melody Cruise (1933) $55,308,059.00
Ever in My Heart (1933) $54,965,966.00
Baby Face (1933) $51,544,865.00
Female (1933) $51,430,830.00
Made on Broadway (1933) $50,746,600.00
Private Detective 62 (1933) $50,290,436.00
Employees’ Entrance (1933) $49,720,238.00
Men Must Fight (1933) $49,492,171.00
Parachute Jumper (1933) $44,930,675.00
After Tonight (1933) $43,334,190.00
Wild Boys On The Road (1933) $42,992,052.00
Ladies They Talk About (1933) $42,763,956.00
The Women In His Life (1933) $39,228,821.00
From Headquarters (1933) $38,544,626.00
Blondie Johnson (1933) $38,088,463.00
The Mind Reader (1933) $35,807,701.00
Lucky Devils (1933) $32,500,634.00
Ex Lady (1933) $32,272,565.00
Fast Workers (1933) $32,044,516.00
The Chief (1933) $28,053,162.00
The Telegraph Trail (1933) $23,833,795.00
Somewhere in Sonora (1933) $22,465,333.00
The Man from Monterey (1933) $22,009,206.00
Cross Fire (1933) $11,175,649.00
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42 thoughts on “1933 Top Box Office Movies”

  1. Hi there,
    I don’t get how you are coming up with these numbers. In Variety Jan. 21, 1953, it claims that King Kong made $1,600,00, for 1952 re-issue of the film, making the gross of the combined releases of the film, $3,900,00, which put it $100,000 shy of getting on their Golden Circle of money making charmers list, which need 4 million to get on. This is Domestic, US and Canada. Funny I did not think they added Canada to Domestic, but they do, or at least did back in the 50’s.

    I am just confused at how Variety could be so off.

    Thanks in advance for any help you can give me on this.

    Reply

    1. These are the figures for King Kong that I have researched:
      Domestic, which is US and CANADA

      1933 $ 745,000
      1938 $ 155,000
      1942 $ 170,000
      1952 $ 1,608,000
      Total Rental Income to 1952 $2,678,000

      There was a 1956 and a 1971 re-issue which Variety estimated at $2,300,000 for both and placed King Kong at $5,000,000 in the 70’s. I do think, though, that included foreign and just listed it as domestic, but i am not totally sure. { Variety was never known for being accurate, just as close estimate as possible }. Foreign totals I also have, but I do believe in 1933 foreign total was $1,145,000 and there was other foreign releases also. I believe the 1938 foreign was $151,000 and there was a 1944 foreign release that brought in I think $515,000 off the top of my head, and the 1952 foreign release was $900,000

      So, I am guessing from the $3,200,000 that is listed here that the domestic is taking into account $522K from 1956 and 1971 domestic totals. ? as an estimate? or maybe just the 1956 domestic? I’m going to look back into that one myself. I see hundreds of movie theaters played it in 1956 from my online newspaper subscription. It would be an interesting question for UMR on how the figures were arrived at. That is my guess. This is an excellent website but not everything is an exact science without digging into a lot of research into every movie, and as stated, there is a lot of movies to research…. and we all probably have day jobs and a life.

      I have another article that has an exact Domestic Figure of King Kong at $711,xxx.xx dollars in exact figures somewhere, so which one is correct or not is beyond me at the moment.

      These are the figure’s I have listed from various sources. These are off the top of my head as I was reading your question. I believe it to be accurate except maybe the 1944 foreign release. My head is fuzzy on that one.

      Reply

  2. The worldwide gross for Gold Diggers of 1933. I had to do some math to figure that one out. It is a mistake. What you have is based on the Domestic Rentals + Worldwide Rentals instead of Domestic Rentals + International Rentals = Worldwide Rentals … So the figure is ballooned. Just thought I’d let you know so it can be corrected. 🙂

    Reply

    1. Hey Chris….hmmmm…..your comment sent me scrabbling around the house. Currently in the data base I have the domestic rentals at 2,202,000 million and at the international rentals at 3,231,000 million in worldwide rentals for a total of 5,433,000 million. Somewhere are the house I have a list of the Top 15 Warner Brothers movies of 1933….my first go around informed me that I have no idea where that Ledger notebook is…..but I will track it down after I get off work today. What rental numbers do you have? I can see the mistake you are saying….just want to see the actual ledger numbers again before switching it. Thanks as always for the heads up.

      Reply

        1. Hey Chris…..that error is fixed. Thanks for letting us know….not sure which is more frustrating….make the mistake….or not being able to find my first Warner Brothers Ledger notebook I had…..tore the house apart looking for it. Thanks again for the help.

          Reply

  3. Hello Bruce,

    Great year for movie, great job for team Cogerson and very interresting to read and of course with a glass of white Alsace wine, Riesling, very good, that normal for a very good page;
    I saw 13 films, my favorites Kong, Life of Henri WIII, Dinner at eight with a memorable scene between Marie Dressler and Jean Harlow, of course Mae West with No Angel and She doing wrong and of course Laurel and Hardy;
    I never see The Song of Songs, with Dietrich, but i know that in this picture, that was the beginning of the contrôle of her image by herself and the contrôle of the lights to recreate the Marlene of JVS.
    For me, i am very surprised that in the same year of Kong there is already a film which is call The son of Kong.
    I Know that Kong was a very great and huge box office …so why not!
    And 1933 is the last year if my memory is good before the CODE HAYES for the moralisation of the Movie and the Stars….on the silver screen!
    When i read the top earners, i never heard about Dick Powell, who is first but in the mean time i know Marie Dressler,Bruce Cabot , Will Rogers and Fay Wray who have no page on UMR.
    Bravo et excellente journée à tous
    Pierre

    Reply

    1. Hey Pierre. Thanks for checking out our 1933 yearly page. 13 is a pretty impressive taly. Of your favorites…..King Kong, The Private Lives of Henry VIII and She Done Him Wrong are my favorites too. Pretty sure Son Of Kong…was a low budget movie that probably took 7 to 10 days to make…their attempt to capitalize on Kong’s success…..as it rarely gets mentioned whenever Kong movies are mentioned.

      Good thoughts on Song Of Songs. Dick Powell had a pretty amazing career…..at this point he was a boy wonder….he eventually excelled at directing and starring in film noir classics. Rogers, Dressler and Wray will eventually get UMR pages……it might take awhile for Cabot to get one……thanks for the visit and the comment.

      Reply

  4. Big fan of KONG here! Ever since I’ve seen that movie as a young man, I wanted to stand on top of the Empire State Building myself…well, done it twice, so mission completed 🙂
    Other favs are Dinner at Eight, the Mae West movies, Little Women,Queen Christina, Jenny Gerhardt, Pick-Up, The Private Live of Henry VIII (I just adore Elsa Lanchester’s portrayal as Anne of Cleves), Golddiggers, 42nd Street (saw it at the London West End as a stage show last year, just amazingly imaginative), Song of Songs, the first american Dietrich movie not directed by Josef von Sternberg (reportetly, Dietrich was heard whispering during takes “Joe, where are you now that I need you”, driving Mamoulian nuts), Bombshell, Mystery at the Wax Museum, Design for Living and The bitter Tea of General Yen. Margaret Sullavan’s debut in Only Yesterday is one of the few films of her career I have not been able to track down yet. Great piece of work, Team Cogerson!

    Reply

    1. Hey Lupino
      1. So you are in the Kong fan club with Steve….sounds like a cool club.
      2. That is awesome that you have been on top of the Empire State Building….I am 7 hours away by car from that and have never been to do that.
      3. I have seen about half of your favorites….with the West movies (though I admit I get She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel mixed up all the time), Henry VIII and Wax Musuem being my favorites too.
      4. What? A Margaret Sullavan movie you have not seen…..”say it ain’t so Joe”.
      Thanks as always for the kind words.

      Reply

  5. I’ve seen 22 of the 133 films listed on the chart. Favorites include- King Kong, Duck Soup, 42nd Street, Golddiggers of 1933, Footlight Parade and The Invisible Man.

    I have 46 films from 1933 in my movie collection. I haven’t seen them all.

    Good to see Kong was such a huge hit in 1933, the Jurassic Park of it’s time. No worldwide figures on this landmark film?

    Looking at the worldwide grosses chart, musicals were massive in 1933. The success of 42nd Street early that year heralded the beginning of 4 decades of successful musicals.

    Good work as always Bruce. Vote Up!

    Reply

    1. Hey Steve
      1. Thanks for checking out our 1933 movie review page. We now have 1933 through 1961 covered….pretty happy with that.
      2. I have seen 4 of your favorites…have not seen all of the Invisible Man or Gold Diggers.
      3. I included a picture of Kong at the beginning of the page….just for you.
      4. No love for Son Of Kong?…..I imagine that put that one together pretty quickly….in the aftermath of the success of King Kong.
      5. I agree those musicals were massive back then…….a trend that would last almost a quarter of a century……then having a rebirth in the 1960s.
      Thanks for the vote up.

      Reply

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