Top Grossing Movies Of 1952

The Greatest Show On Earth was easily the biggest box office hit of 1952

This movie page looks at The Top Grossing Movies of 1952.  In 1952, 463 movies were released in theaters.  Average weekly movie attendance was 51 million.  That translates to $2.65 billion (25th best year in movie history) movie tickets sold which generated revenue of $1.24 billion.  So with all of this money flying around you would think somebody would have kept track of how each movie was performing.  Sadly that was the case!

Currently when you type in the search words….”Top Grossing Movies of 1952″ you do not get much information.  Wikipedia provides 10 movies.  The Numbers.com provides 10 movies.  Stats-a-mania offers up 7 movies.  You have to go to the 26th search result to find the next place that lists box office results….UMR’s (that’s us) Marilyn Monroe page which offers up 5 movies.  So in an effort to get more information out there…we have decided to unlock our 1952 movie database vault and share the information we have collected over the years.

To make this list a movie had to be made in 1952 (as listed on IMDB.com).  Obviously many movies made in 1951 earned box office dollars in 1952.  On the other side many movies made in 1952 made money in 1953 and later.  This page will looks at 162 Top Grossing Movies of 1952.  The movies are listed in a massive table that shows who starred in the movie, had much the movie grossed when it was released and how that gross means in today’s money.

Drivel part of the page:  Currently our movie database is down for a massive update which includes a new box office formula and a new formula for our movie ranking equation. So we do not have access to all of our information.  For some reason….Wife of Cogerson thinks her full time job takes precendent over this non-revenue generating hobby. Sometimes I just do not understand her….lol.  So without the ability to do a page on a actor or actress…I had to pick a year as our the latest movie page.

My favorite 1952 movie is The Quiet Man
My favorite 1952 movie is The Quiet Man

Our UMR Top 50 of 1952

Top Grossing Movies of 1952 Can Be Sorted 3 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Top Grossing Movies of 1952 by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
  • Sort Top Grossing Movies of 1952 by domestic actual box office grosses (in millions)
  • Sort Top Grossing Movies of 1952 by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)

Singin' In The Rain, considered the greatest musical ever, was released in 1952
Singin’ In The Rain, considered the greatest musical ever, was released in 1952

1952 Box Office Grosses – Adjusted World Wide

How the Box Office Numbers were Calculated 

Sadly in 1952….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.  According to Film Daily Yearbook the film rentals as percentage of box office grosses was 36% in 1952. That means that box office gross was 2.75 times greater than box office rentals.  It is not an exact calculation….but for 1952 the multiplier we used was 2.75.

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118 thoughts on “Top Grossing Movies Of 1952”

  1. 1952 is one of my favourite years of the ’50s for film output.

    People love to knock DeMille but the man had his hand on the pulse of the public for the kind of larger than life entertainment that they wanted, hokey characterizations and situations, or not. As proof of that look at how much more money The Greatest Show on Earth made at the 1952 box office than its nearest competition.

    And it’s still a pretty entertaining film, even though (best picture Oscar or not) it’s not nearly the best of its year.

    I see that one of my favourite films of the year, Five Fingers, came in near the bottom of the money makers that year. All these years later, that masterful Joseph L. Mankiewicz true life WW2 spy drama is still not nearly as well known as it should be. A sly, intelligent drama, set in neutral Turkey, with some great performances (a cool, immaculate James Mason is perfectly cast) and dialogue, with a marvelously ironic ending.

    As an illustration of the cleverness of some of the film’s dialogue, Danielle Darrieux (still with us today, I’m happy to say, at 98) plays a Countess known for her extravagant parties where enemy agents on both sides of the war gather. And she is used to a monied lifestyle, no matter where the money comes from.

    At one point she catches a middle class German clerk looking at her longingly:

    “Please do not look at me,” she tells him matter-of-factedly, “as if you have a source of income other than your salary.”

    Reply

    1. She is still alive? That is wonderful. James Mason and my love for his movies are responsible for me knowing a lot about real life people he played. Five fingers is another one of my favourites and I never knew until I saw this movie first on the History channel with commentary about it that the D-Day invasion was actually known about by the Nazis in advance because of the character Mason played, but of course weather changed the original date.

      Mason and his role as Rommel in The Desert Fox and The Desert Rats made me much more aware of Rommel.

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      1. Hey Gregory Peck Fan….between your comment and Tom’s Five Fingers has moved up my list of movies to watch…I will have to track it down now. Thanks for the suggestion.

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    2. Hey Tom…The Greatest Show On Earth is still ranked 60th on the all-time adjusted box office list…after 64 years that is pretty impressive. Five Fingers was the 86th biggest hit in 1952….one of the many James Mason movies that year. Five Fingers is generally loved by critics and audiences. I have James Mason page that looks at 73 of movies….Five Fingers got the 5th best reviews of his entire career. That is cool that Danielle Darieux is still with us…as she closes in on 100….right there with Kirk Douglas and Olivia de Havilland who will be 100 this year. Thanks for checking out my latest movie page….it is greatly appreciated.

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  2. 1952 was a very good year for movies. My favourite of the year is Singin’ in the Rain. It’s ironic that The Snows of Kilimanjarno is so high on the list since Hemmingway was unhappy with the ending being changed. Mustn’t have Peck die in a movie…unless he is playing a real life person like Ambrose Bierce.

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    1. If Peck wasn’t allowed to get the gal in Roman Holiday, he should have been allowed to die in Snows of Killimanjarno.

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      1. Peck might not have gotten the girl in Roman Holiday….but he got her heart….forever! So you could not kill him off in Snows.

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    2. Hey GregoryPeckFan….well you can not underestimate the box office power of Gregory Peck in 1952…everything he touched was box office gold during this time period…plus you throw in Ava Gardner and Susan Hayward and they were printing money….and lots of it. The ending was the perfect Hollywood ending…..can end it on a depressing note….lol.

      Reply

  3. I’m very interested in this topic. How interesting that the Best Picture Oscar winner also grossed the most at the domestic box office that year. The Quiet Man only made a fourth of what “Biggest Show on Earth” did that year. However, I bet if you add up income from syndication, theatrical re-releases, and home theater sales and rentals, “The Quiet Man”, “High Noon”, and “Singin in the Rain” would leave The Greatest Show on Earth in the dust.

    “Greatest Show on Earth” is much like “Titanic” in that they were blockbusters that won best picture Oscar, but as time goes on they seem rather empty visual spectacles. At least “Greatestt Show on Earth” didn’t have the main character (Rose) going on endlessly about if she had to be rich just one more day she was going to jump off the ship to her death! All of those cotillions, parties, and rich food she had to look forward to! Oh, the humanity!

    Reply

    1. Hey Calvin. Not thinking that the Best Picture Oscar winner is also the top movie maker too often. In recent memory you might have to go all the way back to Lord of the Rings for the last time it happened….and that was 13 years ago. I imagine The Quiet Man and Singin In The Rain are easily creating more revenue than The Greatest Show On Earth currently is right.

      My dad really liked The Greatest Show On Earth…he was a teenager when it came out…and the trainwreck scene really fascinating him. Yes Rose had it tough….lol. Thanks for checking out my latest page.

      Reply

  4. I was 1 year old in 1952. I’m ashamed to say I’ve seen only 20 of these. # 104 is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I’m not ashamed of that.

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    1. Hey Bill…I have you beat by 2 movies…as I have seen 22 of these movies. As for #104….”Yonda lies da castle of my fadda” one of my favorite Tony Curtis movies too. He looks so young in that movie.

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      1. lol ! I mistyped – # 104, Blackbeard the Pirate is one of my all time faves. I saw it ar a Saturday matinee when I was a kid and it always stuck with me. Robert Newton;s performance is priceless, and Wiliam Bendix with his evil eye, This is the source for pirates doing the ” arrr’ thing. I was delighted to find a dvd some years back and have subjected a few people to viewings.

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        1. Actually you were correct and I was wrong….I went to #102 instead. I have not seen Blackbeard the Pirate…but you make it sound interesting. That is good trivia about “arrrr” I wonder how many people in the world have said that since 1952. I will have to check out that DVD.

          Reply

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