Finding box office information for movies made before 1980 is not an easy task. For somebody looking for box office information on 1979 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 1979 movies in our database.
To make this list a movie had to be made in 1979. This page will looks at 136 1972 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. This only represents about 40% of the movies made in 1979….but should cover the top box office movies.
Our UMR Top 50 of 1979
1979 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 1979 Movies by movie titles and movie trailers
- Sort 1979 Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
- Sort 1979 Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort 1979 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 1979 Movies received and how many Oscar® wins each 1979 Movies received.
- Sort 1979 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.
Top earners in 1979 for Adjusted USA Box Office:
My Main Sources
Source 1: Variety – January 1980, January 14th, 1981
Source 2: Twentieth Century-Fox A Corporate and Financial History by Aubrey Solomon
Source 3: Wikipedia
Source 4: IMDb.com
Source 5: BoxOfficeMojo.com
French Fried Vacation 2
highly rated French Comedy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078907
You and Box Office Mojo differ greatly on the grosses for CUBA. You have $1.4 million, they have $5,610,280. Just sayin’.
Hey Robert. According to my records Cuba did not reach one million in rentals. It was released in late 1979 (December 21st). It was a flop, and did not reach Variety’s Top Rentals of 1980. See Variety January 14th 1981 Pages 29 and 50. To earn $5,610,280 it would have had to cross the 2 million mark in rentals. It would be awesome if Mojo listed their resources…..their $5,651,280 is now considered gospel…..but where did the number come from? Pretty sure Variety was the be all source for box office in 1979/1980. As I just stated in your 1981 comment….after 1980 they are the best source….before 1980 they are not a good source (in my opinion). But…these are all estimates….which is right…which is wrong…..that might never be answered. That does sound like another Sean Connery movie….Wrong Is Right (1982). Thanks for the question.
Hey Bob
1. Thanks for checking out our 1979 movie page.
2. I figured you of all people would have been able to track down Arthur’s UMR box office…..so disappointing…..lol.
3. So Arthur won Sir John a Best Supporting Oscar….those winners have their own page….https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/best-supporting-actor-oscar-winners/.
4. We have Arthur at $347 million in adjusted gross.
5. Glad your tally improved when looking at the Top 10 Critically Acclaimed Movies.
6. Dudley Moore had a nice 10 year run….from his supporting role in Foul Play…..to his monster hit in 10 to being a “go to” romantic lead throughout the 1980s…..in my mind he took over the George Segal roles in the 1980s.
7. Yep….Bo Derek’s stay at the top was short lived…..now she is a celebrity versus being an actress….then again…I think she was probably that way all along.
8. FYI…..Bo Derek’s husband in 10 was Sam Jones….Sam Jones glad to fame is playing Flash Gordon.
Good feedback.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for the feedback on my post about your 1979 Review. Appreciate you giving me the $347 million adjusted gross for Arthur – wow!
Hey Bob…here to help….lol. Glad you found your requested Arthur box office information.
Things were looking up for me a bit more in 1979. I have mentioned that I saw only 3 of your top 10 best reviewed 1978 films but that ratio rose to 6 in 1979.
However I have said that I don’t like war films such as The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now and truth be told Alien was the 1979 movie I most enjoyed [I never liked Kramer v Kramer].
7 of the Top Grossing movies in your domestic chart closely approach or exceed the adjusted $300 million mark. 10 was a very much hyped movie in 1979 and sure enough it has a whopping adjusted domestic gross of nearly $270 million in your chart.
It briefly made a star of Dudley Moore who consolidated it two years later with Arthur, another big hit for him. I couldn’t find a Cogerson figure for it but Mojo gives it an adjusted domestic gross of around $300 million.
However Bo Derek was not able to build on to any great extent the short term prominence that she gained from 10 and after a modest hit [$118 million in adjusted domestic dollars according to you] in 1981 as Jane in Tarzan the Ape Man her career virtually disappeared. Tarzan was directed by her husband John Derek, who was a leading B list star/supporting actor in the Hollywood classic era.
Once again my sincerest congratulations on completing 50 years of annual reviews