1941 Top Grossing Movies

Orson Welles in Citizen Kane

This movie page looks at 1941 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 1941 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 1941 movies in our database.

To make this list a movie had to be made in 1941.  Obviously many movies made in 1940 earned box office dollars in 1941.  On the other side many movies made in 1941 made money in 1942 and later.  This page will looks at 139 1941 Top Grossing 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 1941 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.

Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon

Our UMR Top 50 of 1941

1941 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 1941 Top Grossing Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
  • Sort 1941 Top Grossing Movies by domestic actual box office grosses (in millions)
  • Sort 1941 Top Grossing Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort 1941 Top Grossing 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 1941 Top Grossing Movies received.
  • Sort 1941 Top Grossing 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.

Gary Cooper in Sergeant York

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 – 1941,1942,1947,1954,1961,1968,1971,1974

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

My Yearly Review Pages

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

If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.

(Visited 1,195 times)

39 thoughts on “1941 Top Grossing Movies”

  1. Hello Bruce.
    I’ve been noticing that some of the gross figures are actually worldwide gross. For instance you have THE MALTESE FALCON having grossed $5,700,000. Warner Bros. reports that the film had
    $967,000 domestic rentals, $805,000 foreign rentals and $1,772,000 worldwide rentals. You have
    Bright Eyes (1934) having a gross of $5,800,000, and I’m wondering if this is a worldwide gross as
    well. Please let me know if I’m wrong.
    Thanks, Bruce, this is still a favorite site for box office information.

    Reply

    1. Hey Lyle……it seems I remember a reason for having the box office a little higher than the domestic rentals would calculate to on Maltese Falcon…..but I do not remember why. I know it got re-released a few times but did not make enough to give it such a higher gross. You are correct if you look at the worldwide gross it would be what I had listed for the domestic. So I went back and fixed that….with a little added in for the re-releases I have info on. It will show up on the tables in the correct order the next time I can get the entire website to do an update…which right now is driving me crazy since the bridge from database to website is out of service…like I-95 in Philadelphia…lol.

      As for Bright Eyes….that number comes from Variety and a Fox Studio Book….it says it is the domestic total…it was one of the first Temple features to take off….so I that would I am willing to stick with. Good stuff as always.

      Reply

  3. Hi Bruce, i just have a question about the domestic rentals of Tarzan’s Secret Treasure …
    Variety didn’t list the movie in his list of films that made more than 1 million $ in theatrical rentals … I find it nowhere … So, because it’s an MGM movie what says the eddie mannix ledger ? Did the movie made more than 1 million rental domestically or not ?
    Thanks !

    Reply

    1. Hey Max. My MGM ledger numbers show a domestic rental of $1,425,000 and a worldwide rental of $1,826,000 for a grand total of $3,251,000 in rentals. Movie cost $978,000 to make. Returned a profit of $1,271,000 or a 130% return on investment. That unloads all the information that I have on that movie. Hope that helps.

      Reply

      1. Ok thanks a lot for sharing this with me !….
        I just have three another questions….

        1) concerning the ledgers from MGM/RKO/WB….vs ….. Variety
        What is the most reliable source between the rentals figures from the different editions of the “all time rental champs of variety + top grossers of the year” and the rentals coming from the 3 studios ledgers ?
        I asked this question simply because when i compare the sources i have for the same movie ; sometimes the domestic rental figure coming from the eddie mannix ledger for exemple is not the same as the domestic rental figure published in Variety …..I take the 1961 movie “King of Kings” Variety gives a domestic rental of 6 520 000 million dollars and eddie mannix ledger 8 million domestically ….Why ? And this is just an exemple among others because i have found a lot of differences …. I know that concerning Variety all time rental champs and top grosser of the year, it’s better to look at the more recent version because they sometimes make adjustments but even in this case there are differences…. The exemple i gave above “Tarzan secret treasure” is also a good one … The ledgers says it make 1 425 000 domestic rentals but this movie never appears in any ranking from Variety in their list of movies that have made more than 1 million in rentals (i’m 100% sure of that) …..So who to believe between Variety box office surveys or the ledgers figures ?

        2) Has Variety already published yearly box office domestic grosses like Box Office Mojo did in 1980 when rentals were discontinued or have they always published rentals until today?

        3) Is Variety the main reference in box office figures from movies from 1930 to 1979 ? (during “the rental era” i mean….)

        Thanks a lot for your time and keep going, your website rules !!

        Reply

        1. Hey Max.
          1. I view the ‘ledgers” as the best source. Many times Variety used the estimations that the studio executive provided. I am thinking….based on how many times I have seen it happened….that Variety asked for the domestic totals….and the studio provided the worldwide totals.
          2. Studio bean counters were always trying to hide the grosses….especially when bonuses were attached to box office levels. So that makes the Variety estimates even more suspect.
          3. Growing up and for years…I thought Variety was the gospel…after spending almost a decade of research…I think they are a good number….but not as accurate whenever a “ledger” number is available.
          4. As for the Tarzan movie…Variety did not really start showing massive yearly lists until 1942. Before that they would include some movies but would exclude lots of other movies. I have a set of notes from a Variety article that lists about 40 1941 movies….it does not provide any grosses…but ranks by success….Tarzan’s Secret Treasure made that list….and it was listed with the 1 million rental movies.
          5. As for Kong….my RKO ledger provides information for it’s first release…which covers about 2 years….all the re-releases are not listed in the ledgers….Variety’s 4 million rental number includes all the re-releases (I think)…..it gets confusing….too bad Box Office Mojo was not around.
          6. I do not think Variety still does the rental numbers…..think the total gross has become the be all way to look at movies. But…I have not looked at a new Variety in many many moons.
          7. As for your last question….I would say between 1941 and 1980 Variety is indeed the main reference for many movies…especially those movies made by studios other than Fox, MGM, RKO and Warners.
          Hope that helps….thanks for the kind words about the website….Merry Christmas.

          Reply

          1. Thanks a lot for all those explanations !
            I was not speaking about king kong but king of kings 1961 lol variety lists the movie around 6 million domestic vs the ledger 8 million…and i think you use the variety number ….
            For your variety article that lists 40 1941 movies , is it the article called 101 pixels in millions dating back from 1943 ? Or another one ? If you still have the reference i will be so happy to see it because it is very difficult to find those articles today … it could be interesting to see what films they listed at the time ..
            Thanks a lot again and merry christmas to you and all you family !

          2. Hey Max….sorry…I got the wrong King. I am currently away from my beloved database….so can not access my “research” on that movie…..but will when I get home. As for the article….that is in one of my first notebooks…..I will see if I can get the source as well. Hope your holiday went well.

  4. Hi

    I suppose 1941 will be remembered for the year of Citizen Kane. A film I can say I admire but not particularly like. Nevertheless it done quite well at the box office. It was a great year for Barbara Stanwyck, Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve, Meet John Doe, and yet surprisingly her name never appeared in the top 10 list throughout the 40’s which would have been her peak time. Of course it was Bogart’s big breakthrough year with The Maltese Falcon. Ingrid Bergman, Betty Grable and Greer Garson were all starting to make waves.
    Crawford, although her star fading with MGM, still had 2 big hits. A Woman’s Face is really worth watching. I would say one of my favourites of the year is The Little Foxes. One of Davis best films, in fact the whole cast were superb.
    Just a request, could you list the movies by gross like before, instead of alphabetically?
    Thanks

    Reply

    1. Hey Chris
      1. Thanks for your movie thoughts on our 1941 movie page.
      2. I am right there with you about Citizen Kane. Roger Ebert loved that movie…the last couple of times I have watched Kane it was while listening to Ebert’s DVD commentary. I am glad he loved the movie so much and his enthusiasm is very apparent but it is not my favorite movie at all.
      3. I agree a huge year for Stanwyck….and a breakthrough year for Bogie.
      4. The Little Foxes is one of Davis’ best roles…..I will have to check out Joan in A Woman’s Face.
      5. One of the glitches in our database is it will not let me sort by box office from Best to worst…but once it gets to this table the sort button works….so if you use the sort button it will put the movies from biggest hit to least hit. When I do it…I have to place the movies in the right order…WoC is trying to fix this problem in the near future.
      Good comment as always.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.