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
I’ve seen 45 of the 132 films on the chart. Looking at my files I have 53 films from 1979 in my movie collection, my favorites are –
Airport 79 The Concorde
Alien
Amityville Horror ,The
Apocalypse Now
Black Hole ,The
Buck Rogers The Movie
Dracula
Jerk ,The
Love at First Bite
Mad Max
Meteor
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Moonraker
Murder by Decree
1941
Phantasm
Prophecy
Rocky II
Star Trek -The Motion Picture
Time After Time
Wanderers ,The
Warriors ,The
zz-China – Fearless Hyena
zz-China – Snake in the Monkey’s Shadow
zz-Italy – Zombie Flesh Eaters
zz-Japan Anime – Castle of Cagliostro
Kramer vs Kramer tops the UMR and box office charts. I’ve only seen clips of this film, sorry just wasn’t my cup of earl grey, ditto 1980 Best Picture winner Ordinary People.
Apocalypse Now on the other hand is a big favorite of mine, I also have the directors cut on blu-ray which is 50mins longer than the original theatrical version. I like some of the extra scenes but on the whole I prefer the original 1979 cut.
Good stuff Bruce. Vote Up!
Hey Steve….thanks for checking out this 1979 page….my tally is at 67….so I have you topped for this year….getting close to the 1980s….which is when I really started watching movies. So Meteor made your favorites? I have actually been trying to track that movie down for a re-viewing….especially since I just recently watched Caine battle killer bees recently. Of your favorites…I have them all, except for the “zz” ones. Prophecy and Phantasm are two movies that made me not like horror movies. Actually just re-watched Prophecy…..boy is that monster no longer scary….but back in the day it scared the hell out of me. Kramer vs Kramer is another Best Picture Oscar winner that you have missed. Hoffman and Streep are excellent as the Kramers. All this talk about Apocalypse Now, is making me want to see it again. Good feedback as always.
I only noticed this page because of the comments, as it does not appear as one of the new pages on the home page. Anyway, 1979 was a special year for me as I turned 14 and was able to go see PG films in the theater without adult supervision. I recall especially going to see Alien with a friend and being mesmerized by it. Apocalypse Now was another one I went to see, but was probably still a bit too young to appreciate it and Marlon Brando moaning about the Horror.
Altogether, I’ve seen 35 films on the list, with other favorites including Life of Brian, Manhattan, The China Syndrome, Being There, Mad Max and Hair. I remember enjoying Star Trek and Moonraker at the time, but these films have not survived for me.
Hey PhilHoF17. We are currently 700 plus miles away from the database. I was able to schedule posts for every single day we were gone….but I was unable to program menu changes in advance. So a Tony Randall page was published on Saturday, a 1979 page was scheduled on Tuesday and a third one is being released on Thursday….actually in about another hour. When we get back I will fix the “new” section.
We were about the same age…..as I was 12 in 1979. While you were seeing Alien and Apocalypse Now, I was seeing Hot Stuff, The Muppet Movie and Meatballs. I am right there with you about Star Trek 1 and Moonraker….both have aged badly….particularly Jaws in the Bond movie…..he is a complete dumb joke the whole movie. Wow, I almost double your 35…..I give credit to the video store I worked at in the mid 1980s…..these 1979 movies were good renters….and I got to watch many of them for free.
As for some of your other favorites….Hair is one of the few musicals I actually liked. Being There is a classic. The China Syndrome has three good performances from three Oscar winning performers. Not a huge fan of Life of Brian…give me the Holy Grail. Good feedback.
saw 33. one favorite, apocalypse now, a 10. 3 more tens: norma rae, alien, the rose. my hidden gem is the life of brian. monty python at its sacrilegious best.
Hey bob cox…..thanks for the tally, the visit and the comment. 33 puts you right behind PhilHoF17’s 35. I love the first 70 minutes of Apocalypse Now…..but the final third is not as impressive. It is a well known fact that Coppola could not figure out how to end the movie…to me that chaos is seen in the movie…..and it detracts from the movie more than it enhances the movie. I know some say that it depects the craziness of the Vietnam War….but to me it almost seems like bad filmmaking.
I have not seen The Rose….I have actually by-passed it many times……I watch about 500 movies a year…yet that one has never gotten the call….maybe your high marks, will finally get me to watch it. Alien is a classic. Norma Rae is good because of Sally Field….what a performance. Good feedback as always.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for the feedback on my 1979 Annual Review and Tiger posts.
Next week it’s my turn for a holiday and I’ll be away in France for 2 weeks from 12 July until 26 July so although as usual I’ll keep up with the latest happenings on the site by borrowing somebody’s tablet I will not submit posts until my return when I’ll do my best to catch up in providing comments.
Before I go I’ll have to alert Steve as I wouldn’t wanting him complaining about me to all in sundry the way he does about you when occasionally you seem to disappear for a while without saying where you have gone. Come to think of it where is HE at the moment? He isn’t saying! ..
Hey Bob…sounds like you are headed for a great vacation. I am sure Steve has been looking at the headings and the new section…..neither of the Randall, 1979 movies or Ed Harris pages have been posted there. The item I plan on mailing you has not been mailed yet, it is current in one of my travel bags…..it will be mailed when I get back…..hopefully it will arrive before your upcoming vacation. Not sure how long it takes a package to cross the Atlantic.
I’ve mentioned before how the 1970s ushered in a glut of big grossers such as Airport, Love Story and Godfather and that pattern continued throughout the decade with the likes of Jaws, Star Wars and Saturday Night Fever.
1979, the closing year of the decade, whilst it had none of the kind of monster grossers such as the 1973 Exorcist and The Sting nevertheless had its share of high-grossing films with each of the Top 6 biggest box office movies in the chart above chalking up domestic gross earnings that were round about or greatly in excess of thrice the Cogerson adjusted magical 100 million dollar domestic benchmark – Apocalypse Now, Kramer v Kramer, Alien, Amityville Horror, Rocky 2 and Star Trek, the last mentioned whilst being the lowest earner among the 6 was nevertheless just $6 million short of the adjusted domestic $300 million mark.
I also did well in catching a fair number of at least the perceived highest quality movies that year and in fact saw 6 of the 10 best reviewed pictures in the list above. 1979 was another significant year for me as it marked the end of the decade in which I became married and started raising a family so it I was great to revisit its movies again via the medium of this site. A “Vote Up” therefore for this annual review.
I should add that in 1979 Belfast’s main, massive single screen Ritz cinema where I had spent a great deal of my 1950s boyhood closed for renovation to a multi 4-screen complex. It re-opened in early 1980 under the new name of the Cannon and whilst I cannot remember the 4th movie chosen to mark the reopening the other 3 were Apocalypse Now and Dudley Moore ‘s 10 [two big 1979 films that had just arrived in Northern Ireland from the States] and a reissue of Gone with the Wind, which still attracted large queues outside the renovated complex.
Sadly about a decade ago my old happy-hunting ground was raised to the ground and a luxury hotel now stands in its place, with most of today’s young cinemagoers oblivious of the fact that a great Belfast cinema once stood there for nearly 70 years
“Alas, the very spot, where many a time it triumphed is forgot.” [The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith]]
Hey Bob
1. Thanks for the feedback on our 1979 page…..we did a slight time jump….and skipped 1973 thorough 1978….mainly due to time concerns.
2. I agree with you about the big grossers….the 1970s redefined the way movies got released.
3. Thanks for the Vote Up….60% of the best reviewed movies is pretty good……this comment goes with the one on the Tiger Theater……good feedback.