This movie page looks at 1940 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 1940 it is very very frustrating. Over the years, we have researched and collected information on over 26,000 movies. So we figured we would show all the 1940 movies in our database.
So we are currently working on a massive movie western page that is taking lots of our time. So while we are working on that page that is looking at 100s and 100s of movies…we felt we should get some new material out on our website. So if you consider information on movies that are over 75 years new….then here you go. The following table is very very basic. We pretty much copied and pasted right out of our database.
Our UMR Top 50 of 1940
1940 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 1940 Top Grossing Movies by stars of the movies
- Sort 1940 Top Grossing Movies by domestic actual box office grosses (in millions)
- Sort 1940 Top Grossing Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort 1940 Top Grossing Movies by 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 1940 Top Grossing Movies received.
- Sort 1940 Movies movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Perhaps “Down Argentina Way” should be “Down Argentine Way”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032410/
There’s a 1939 B western featuring the Three Mesquiteers , New Frontier which stars John Wayne as one of the Mesquiteers and also stars Jennifer Jones, maybe the only B western with 2 Oscar winners in it.
So I’m watching 1940’s Texas Rangers Ride Again this morning (# 175 on your yearly list), a B western but not part of any series. It stars John Howard who just fell off the Oracle list, Ellen Drew and Akim Tamiroff (#509). It also has 2 future Oscar winners in the cast, Anthony Quinn and Broderick Crawford, 1 former best actress nominee, May Robson (for Lady for a Day in 1933) and another actor you profiled, Robert Ryan. Pretty good cast for a throwaway film.
Hey Dan. Thanks for sharing this information. With my local library being shut down…I have had to use NetFlix as my main source of movies. Those NetFlix movies are very hit and miss….actually when I discover a good one it surprises me…lol. Though, I recently watch Paul Rudd’s The Fundamentals of Caring…and I was very impressed with it.
Good information on New Frontier….that was one of the last of the Wayne Republic movies. As for Texas Rangers Ride Again… I agree that is a pretty stout cast for such a low budget B movie. Sounds like you are riding out the Coronavirus pretty successfully. Good stuff.
Hello, have you some box office figure for “the thief of bagdad” released in 1940 with Sabu?
Such a masterpiece ! The movie hugely inspired Disney’s Aladdin among others and it’s probably the best movie about 1001 nights !
Hey Max….not sure how I did not include that one…but the database is updating and including that movie as I type this comment. Good catch….good box office, great reviews and nominated for 4 Oscars…winning 3….it has a very good rating. Thanks again.
How come this is not on the site index
Hey Kevin….probably because it looks so horrible…..I will see if I can make this table more respectable and get it added into the site index. I actually have no memory as to what I was trying to do with this page. Good catch though.
*Went out of order in my responds to the comments….just can’t believe that I had a page that looked like this one out there
Hi
I forgot to mention The Little Shop Around The Corner. One of the best casts ever assembled together. What’s so wonderful about these films are the character actors and supporting players. Jane Darwell played Ma in The Grapes of Wrath. There was a scene where they had to leave their homes and she was there alone looking over old pictures and they were playing Red River Valley, it is genuinely moving and I’m glad she got the Oscar for support.
In Rebecca, Florence Bates played the horrible Mrs Hopper, for me she stole the show. And Ruth Hussey in Philadelphia Story. These players never became superstars but enriched the movies they were in and were actually more memorable than the stars.
Ps. I just want to say to Flora how much I enjoy her comments.
Bruce, I’m looking forward to the Westerns and appreciate the effort you put into them. You do realise this site can never be finished.
I think he realizes. It is his lifelong passion. That is why he asks for requests and does them even when he does not know much about the person himself. Just look at the Kay Francis page. He has seen one movie. Steve Lensman has seen one movie. But I requested it and there were a lot of movies – not all of them, but a lot – where there is a lot of box office information. So the page was done.
Bruce loves what he does.
Hey Flora….you are 100% correct….in some ways….doing the performers I know next to nothing about is more fun than doing the ones I am more familiar with. Leslie Howard is a great example….before doing his page…I knew of him….now I impressed with how he was off camera too. We are closing in on 400 pages….pretty sure…my pages are now well entangled in the world wide web.
Hey Chris…..I have yet to track down The Little Shop Around The Corner….seems I have been trying to see that movie since I saw You’ve Got Mail. Darwell is excellent in Grapes…as is almost everybody else in that one.
I agree Hussey and Bates were excellent character actresses. As for Flora….I am right there with you. I have been friends with Flora since 2011…..she has been very supportive of our movie pages….and she is an expert on classic movies..
The Western pages (you get two this time are done)….the Top 100 has come out of the gate very strong….so thanks for an excellent suggestion.
The site will never be finished….but hopefully it will be “dynamic” in the near future….I so look forward to updating a movie…and the changes go automatically to the right spot…..one day one day…lol.