Finding box office information for movies made before 1980 is not an easy task. For somebody looking for box office information on 1959 it is very very frustrating. Over the years, we have researched and collected information on over 30,000 movies. So we figured we would show all the 1959 movies in our database.
To make this list a movie had to be made in 1959. This page will looks at 123 1959 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. So why 1959? There are a couple of reasons….(1) Headed to Alabama for the rest of the holiday and (2) this year gives Steve Lensman’s favorite movie….Ben-Hur….lots of respect.
Our UMR Top 50 of 1959
1959 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 1959 Top Grossing Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
- Sort 1959 Top Grossing Movies by stars of the movie
- Sort 1959 Top Grossing Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort 1959 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 each 1959 Top Grossing Movies received and how many Oscar® wins each 1959 Top Grossing Movies received.
- Sort 1959 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.
1959 Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide
Top earners in 1959 for Adjusted USA Box Office:
My Main Sources
Source 1: Variety – January 4th, 1961 Page 47
Source 2: Twentieth Century-Fox A Corporate and Financial History by Aubrey Solomon
Source 3: Wikipedia
Source 4: IMDb.com
Source 5: BoxOfficeMojo.com
How the Box Office Numbers were Calculated
Sadly in 1959….BoxOfficeMojo was not around to keep track of box office earnings. Back then earnings seem to be a secret and a secret that needed to be safely locked up. When studios did report box office stats they used “box office rentals”. Box office rentals were the amount of money the studio got back from the theaters. It is NOT the box office gross. Every year the rental to box office gross percentage changed…in 1959 this meant you had to triple the rentals to get the gross….so the multiplier used in this page was 3.0.
My Yearly Review Pages
- 1939 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? Gone With The Wind
- 1942 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? Mrs. Miniver
- 1946 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? The Best Years of Our Lives
- 1952 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? Greatest Show On Earth
- 1959 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? Ben-Hur
- 1976 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? Rocky
- 2011 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? The Help
- 2012 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? Argo
- 2013 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? Gravity
- 2014 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? American Sniper
- 2015 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? The Martian
- 2016 Movies Ranked Best to Worst Our movie of the year? Deadpool (currently)
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
Hi Mr. Cogerson,
Please review the following additions to the year 1959.
1959
1959 The Immoral Mr. Teas $1.5 million Wikipedia-source- http://www.teako170.com/box50-59.html
1959 Frontier Rangers 650,000 Wikipedia-source-The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
1959 The Beat Generation $750,000 Wikipedia-source-The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
1959 Black Orpheus $750,000 Wikipedia-source- “M-G-M Cashing In on Oscar Victory: Ben-Hur Gross Expected to Reach 7 Million by Week’s End – Spartacus Booked”, The New York Times, 7 April 1960, p. 44.
IMDB
1959 Girls Town $875,000 Wikipedia-source-The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
IMDB
1959 Horrors of the Black Museum $1 million Wikipedia-source-Mark McGee, Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures, McFarland, 1996 p100
1959 Carry On Nurse $1.5 million in the US Wikipedia-source-“Film Chief’s Daughter in Death Fall”. The Sunday Times (7260). London, England. 8 July 1962. p. 1. (218 words)
1959 Watusi $1.54 million USD Wikipedia-source- The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
1959 Sheba and the Gladiator $1.25 million in rentals Wikipedia-source-“Rental Potentials of 1960”, Variety, 4 January 1961 p 47. Please note figures are rentals as opposed to total gross.
Sources
Thx
Mike
Hey Mike…good suggestions…I will have to research these movies at another time….WoC says I have run out of time to comment….so many comments and so little time…just spent 3 hours returning comments…and I still have 206 to go.
Hey Mike…just put these in the database….Sheba and the Gladiator is known as Sign of the Gladiator. Thanks for the suggestions.
FYI- And now they are all in the tables…now 155 1959 movies….not too bad.
Hi Mr. Cogerson,
Please review data on The Killer Shrews for addition to 1959.
The Killer Shrews, B.O. 1,000,000 Wikipedia-source-Box office $1 million (U.S.) The Killer Shrews is an independently made 1959 American black-and-white, science fiction film , produced by Ken Curtis and Gordon McLendon , directed by Ray Kellogg , that stars James Best , Ingrid Goude and Ken Curtis.
The Killer Shrews – Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killer_Shrews
Type in search area for “The Killer Shrews box office info”
The Killer Shrews
TV-PG · 1959 · 1hr 9min · Sci-Fi/Horror
4/10
IMDb
Wikipedia
Release date: Jun 25, 1959
Director: Ray Kellogg
Gross revenue: $1 million USD
Music by: Harry Bluestone · Emil Cadkin
Screenwriter: Jay Simms
Story by: Jay Simms
Wikipedia
Release date: Jun 25, 1959
Director: Ray Kellogg
Gross revenue: $1 million USD
Music by: Harry Bluestone · Emil Cadkin
Screenwriter: Jay Simms
Story by: Jay Simms
Please review and advise
Thx
Mike
Hey Mike….that would put The Killer Shrews rental number around $350,000…which makes sense….so I added the movie into the database….it will not be highly ranked…as it’s UMR Score is a not so impressive 7.41. But….we now have two Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best) movies in the database. Good suggestion.
Hi Mr. Cogerson,
1959 please review.
A Dog Of Flanders (1959)
A Dog of Flanders (1960). IMDB states this was made in 1960. Should this be changed?
Thx
Mike
Hey Mike…the same update for The Killer Shrews will put A Dog Of Flanders on the 1960 UMR Movie Page.
Hi Mr. Cogerson,
Please review possible change to the year 1959.
A Touch of Larceny (1959). IMDB states movie was made in 1960.
Please review for possible change.
Thx
Mike
Hey Mike….A Touch Of Larceny will be on the 1960 UMR page on the next update. I am beginning to wonder if IMDb changes their information. I think I added A Touch of Larceny in the database back in 2012 when I produced my James Mason page. I am beginning to wonder, if I need to figure out a way to see when they change their information. I mean..the spelling mistakes are all on me….but these year errors seem like something else is happening. I mean…I know we change information whenever better information arrives….the same is true for them. Any way….good catches.
Hello Bruce, did you have some box office info for the movie “Hercules” released in 1958 or 1959 ?
It’s the first movie starring Steve Reeves as Hercules ; (the other is Hercules Unchained and you have it in your yearly review of 1959)
So the original Hercules starring Steve Reeves has, according to several sources US rentals of 5 million…
Have you some reliable info about this movie ?
Thanks a lot !
Hey Max…..Hercules is on our 1958 page……but it is only the domestic totals. https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/top-grossing-movies-of-1958/
Ok thanks for adding it !
I regularly list all the films likely to enter your rankings so that your lists are as exhaustive as possible … They are already there … Your work is absolutely incredible …. Never I could have imagined to find so much information about box office grosses… You and Woc are amazing !
As I told you before, I am listing all the films released in the USA between 1930 and 1990 having made more than 5 million admissions in Europe and whose overseas earnings have not been published on Box Office Mojo or The Numbers…
I’m almost done ; in a few days it will be ok … Do you want me to publish it on your site in comment; for example on the page “All time worldwide box office movies” or do I send it to you by mail to the address on which i have already contacted you ?
Thank you very very much for your job !!
Hey Max….interesting research……we would be glad to let you publish your stats here…..just figuring out a way to do it would be the only issue. Obviously copy and paste works ok……you can e-mail me at cogersonmoviescore@gmail.com and we can discuss some options on how to get your work shown here….with proper credit of course.