How about a walk down memory lane to take a quick look at what happened at the box office in the U.S. and Canada forty years ago? As it turned out, Milos Forman’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” not only grabbed the five major Academy Awards (best picture, director, actor, actress, screenplay), but also topped the charts according to Variety, as published in their 71st Anniversary Edition of January 5, 1977. Back then, Variety was—along with The Hollywood Reporter—the only truly valuable and reliable source for any insider if he needed to check the domestic rentals accruing to the distributors.
For the record, as 1976 was way before the digital era, films released by the end of the calendar year are not—or not fully—included, such as Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky,” “King Kong,” “Silver Streak,” “The Pink Panther Strikes Again,” or “Network.” They are listed in the 1977 box office charts, which we’ll cover a year from now.
Information following each film title is the month of the U.S. release and the film’s director.
But, for now, why don’t we let the facts speak for themselves? Here it is, 1976 when we were all forty years younger.
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (November 1975; Milos Forman)
CAST Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd
$56,500,000 - All the President’s Men (April; Alan J. Pakula)
CAST Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Jason Robards
$29,000,000 - The Omen (July; Richard Donner)
CAST Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Billie Whitelaw
$27,851,000 - The Bad News Bears (April; Michael Ritchie)
CAST Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Vic Morrow, Joyce Van Patten
$22,266,517 - Silent Movie (July; Mel Brooks)
CAST Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters
$20,311,000 - Midway (June; Jack Smight)
CAST Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford
$20,300,000 - Dog Day Afternoon (August 1975; Sidney Lumet)
CAST Al Pacino, John Cazale, Carol Kane, Charles Durning
$19,800,000 - Murder by Death (June; Robert Moore)
CAST Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, David Niven
$18,800,000 - Jaws (June 1975, reissue; Steven Spielberg)
CAST Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
$16,077,000 - Blazing Saddles (February 1974, reissue; Mel Brooks)
CAST Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Mel Brooks, Madeline Kahn
$13,850,000 - Lucky Lady (January; Stanley Donen)
CAST Gene Hackman, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, Robby Benson
$12,107,000 - Taxi Driver (February; Martin Scorsese)
CAST Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle
$11,600,000 - Outlaw Josey Wales (July; Clint Eastwood)
CAST Clint Esatwood, Sondra Locke, Chief Dan George, John Vernon
$10,600,000 - No Deposit, No Return (January; Norman Tokar)
CAST David Niven, Darren McGavin, Don Knotts, Herschel Bernardi
$10,500,000 - Ode to Billy Joe (June; Max Baer, Jr.)
CAST Robby Benson, Glynnis O’Connor, Joan Hotchkis, Sandy McPeak
$10,400,000 - The Exorcist (December 1973, reissue: William Friedkin)
CAST Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb
$10,300,000 - Hustle (December 1975; Robert Aldrich)
CAST Burt Reynolds, Catherine Deneuve, Ben Johnson, Paul Winfield
$9,958,738 - Barry Lyndon (December 1975; Stanley Kubrick)
CAST Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Krüger
$9,100,000 - Gus (July; Vincent McEveety)
CAST Edward Asner, Don Knotts, Gary Grimes, Tim Conway
$9,000,000 - Marathon Man (October; John Schlesinger)
CAST Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, Marthe Keller
$8,800,000 - Logan’s Run (June; Michael Anderson)
CAST Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Farrah Fawcett
$8,700,000 - Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother (January; Gene Wilder)
CAST Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise
$8,635,000 - The Other Side of the Mountain (December 1975; Larry Peerce)
CAST Marilyn Hassett, Beau Bridges, Belinda Montgomery, Nan Martin
$8,333,333 - The Sunshine Boys (November 1975; Herbert Ross)
CAST Walter Matthau, George Burns, Richard Benjamin, Lee Meredith
$7,000,000 - The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea (April; Lewis John Carlino)
CAST Sarah Miles, Kris Kristofferson, Jonathan Kahn, Earl Rhodes
$7,000,000 - Family Plot (March; Alfred Hitchcock)
CAST Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, William Devane
$6,825,000 - Missouri Breaks (May; Arthur Penn)
CAST Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Harry Dean Stanton
$6,752,000 - Mother, Jugs & Speed (June, Peter Yates)
CAST Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, Harvey Keitel, Allen Garfield
$6,546,000 - Grizzly (May; William Girdler)
CAST Christopher George, Andrew Pine, Richard Jeackel, Joan McCall
$6,272,000 - Survive! (August; René Cardona)
CAST Pablo Ferrel, Hugo Stigliz, Norma Lazareno, Luz María Aguilar
$6,176,925 - The Gumball Rally (August; Chuck [Charles] Bail)
CAST Michael Sarrazin, Tim McIntire, Raul Julia, Gary Busey
$5,800,000 - Gable and Lombard (January; Sidney J. Furie)
CAST James Brolin, Jill Clayburgh, Allen Garfield, Red Buttons
$5,800,000 - The Love Bug (March 1969, reissue; Robert Stevenson)
CAST Dean Jones, Michele Lee, David Tomlinson, Buddy Hackett
$5,500,000 - Two-Minute Warning (November; Larry Peerce)
CAST Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Gena Rowlands
$5,385,000 - Hawmps! (April; Joe Camp)
CAST James Hampton, Christopher Connelly, Slim Pickens, Denver Pyle
$5,350,000 - Peter Pan (February 1953, reissue; Clyde Geronimo, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske)
CAST (animated, voice only) Bobby Driscoll, Kathryn Beaumont, Hans Conreid
$5,250,000 - Monty Python and the Holy Grail (May 1975, reissue; Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones)
CAST Graham Chapman, John Clesse, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
$5,170,000 - Food of the Gods (April; Bert I. Gordon)
CAST Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin, Ralph Meeker, Ida Lupino
$5,000,000 - The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (May; John Badham)
CAST Billy Dee Williams, James Earl Jones, Richard Pryor, Rico Dawson
$4,825,000 - Eat My Dust (April; Charles B. Griffith)
CAST Ron Howard, Christopher Norris, Brad David, Kathy O’Dare
$4,800,000 - Alice in Wonderland (April; Bud Townsend)
CAST Kristine De Bell, Larry Gelman, Allan Novak, Tony Tsengoles
$4,800,000 - Gator (May; Burt Reynolds)
CAST Burt Reynolds, Jack Weston, Lauren Hutton, Jerry Reed
$4,602,000 - Let’s Do It Again (October 1975; Sidney Poitier)
CAST Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Calvin Lockhart, Ossie Davis
$4,600,000 - Harry and Walter Go to New York (June, Mark Rydell)
CAST Michael Caine, James Caan, Diane Keaton, Elliott Gould
$4,600,000 - Blackbeard’s Ghost (February 1968, reissue; Robert Stevenson)
CAST Peter Ustinov, Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, Elsa Lanchester
$4,500,000 - The Pom Pom Girls (March; Joseph Ruben)
CAST Robert Carradine, Jennifer Ashley, Michael Mullins, Lisa Reeves
$4,300,000 - Futureworld (July; Richard T. Heffron)
CAST Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner, Arthur Hill, Yul Brynner
$4,200,000 - Tunnelvision (April; Neal Israel, Bradley Swirnoff)
CAST Phil Proctor, Howard Hesseman, Beans Morocco, Ron Silver
$4,200,000 - Car Wash (August; Michael Schultz)
CAST Richard Pryor, Franklyn Ajaye, Antonio Fargas, The Pointer Sisters
$4,190,000 - The Shootist (August; Don Siegel)
CAST John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, James Stewart
$4,185,497 - Lipstick (April; Lamont Johnson)
CAST Margaux Hemingway, Chris Sarandon, Perry King, Anne Bancroft
$4,181,874 - The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (April; Melvin Frank)
CAST George Segal, Goldie Hawn, Conrad Janis, Thayer David
$4,116,000 - The Killer Elite (December 1975; Sam Peckinpah)
CAST James Caan, Robert Duvall, Arthur Hill, Bo Hopkins
$4,000,000 - Obsession (September; Brian De Palma)
CAST Cliff Robertson, Genevieve Bujold, John Lithgow, Sylvia Kuumba Williams
$4,000,000 - Treasure of Matecumbe (July; Vincent McEveety)
CAST Robert Foxworth, Joan Hackett, Peter Ustinov, Vic Morrow
$4,000,000 - Robin and Marian (March; Richard Lester)
CAST Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Shaw, Richard Harris
$4,000,000 - Drive-In (May; Rod Amateau)
CAST Lisa Lemole, Glenn Morshower, Gary Lee Cavagnaro, Billy Millikin
$3,800,000 - Tidal Wave (December 1975; Shiro Moritani)
CAST Lorne Greene, Keiju Kobayashi, Rhonda Leigh Hopkins, Hiroshi Fujioka
$3,700,000 - Greatest Scout and Cathouse Thursday (August; Don Taylor)
CAST Lee Marvin, Oliver Reed, Robert Culp, Elizabeth Ashley
$3,600,000 - The Blue Bird (June; George Cukor)
CAST Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, Cicely Tyson, Ava Gardner
$3,500,000 - The Front (September; Martin Ritt)
CAST Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Michael Murphy
$3,500,000 - A Small Town in Texas (June; Jack Starrett)
CAST Timothy Bottoms, Susan George, Bo Hopkins, Morgan Woodward
$3,200,000 - At the Earth’s Core (July; Kevin Connor)
CAST Doug McClure, Peter Cushing, Caroline Munro, Cy Grant
$3,000,000 - Norman… Is That You? (September; George Schlatter)
CAST Redd Foxx, Pearl Bailey, Dennis Dugan, Tamara Dobson
$2,800,000 - Swashbuckler (July; James Goldstone)
CAST Robert Shaw, James Earl Jones, Genevieve Bujold, Peter Boyle
$2,750,000 - Lifeguard (March; Daniel Petrie)
CAST Sam Elliott, Anne Archer, Stephen Young, Kathleen Quinlan
$2,583,607 - Carrie (November; Brian De Palma)
CAST Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta
$2,581,000 - The Man Who Fell to Earth (March; Nicolas Roeg)
CAST David Bowie, Rip Torn, Candy Clark, Buck Henry
$2,568,000 - The Ritz (October; Richard Lester)
CAST Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller, F. Murray Abraham
$2,500,000 - J.D.’s Revenge (June; Arthur Marks)
CAST Glynn Turman, Louis Gossett Jr., Joan Pringle, Carl W. Crudup
$2,400,000 - Drum (July; Steve Carver)
CAST Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Ken Norton, Pam Grier
$2,395,000 - Seven Alone (December 1975; Earl Bellamy)
CAST Dewey Martin, Aldo Ray, Anne Collings, Dean Smith
$2,391,446 - Giant Spider Invasion (January; Bill Rebane)
CAST Steve Brodie, Barbara Hale, Robert Easton, Alan Hale Jr.
$2,347,000 - Crazy Mama (July, Jonathan Demme)
CAST Cloris Leachman, Stuart Whitman, Ann Sothern, Jim Backus
$2,300,000 - Jackson County Jail (April; Michael Miller)
CAST Yvette Mimieux, Tommy Lee Jones, Lisa Copeland, Cliff Emmich
$2,300,000 - St. Ives (July; J. Lee Thompson)
CAST Charles Bronson, Jacqueline Bisset, John Houseman, Maximilian Schell
$2,300,000 - Against a Crooked Sky (December 1975; Earl Bellamy)
CAST Richard Boone, Stewart Petersen, Henry Wilcoxon, Clint Ritchie
$2,273,000 - Shadow of the Hawk (July; George McCowan)
CAST Jan-Michael Vincent, Marilyn Hassett, Chief Dan George, Pia Shandel
$2,200,000 - Breakheart Pass (February; Tom Gries)
CAST Charles Bronson, Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Jill Ireland
$2,130,000 - Hester Street (November 1975; Joan Micklin Silver)
CAST Steven Keats, Carol Kane, Mel Howard, Dorrie Kavanaugh
$2,055,497 - A Matter of Time (October; Vincente Minnelli)
CAST Liza Minnelli, Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Spiros Andros
$2,000,000 - Ride a Wild Pony (December 1975; Don Chaffey)
CAST Michael Craig, John Meillon, Robert Bettles, Eva Griffith
$2,000,000 - That’s Entertainment, Part II (May; Gene Kelly)
CAST Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly
$2,000,000 - The Big Bus (June; James Frawley)
CAST Joseph Bologna, Stockard Channing, John Beck, Rene Auberjonois
$1,794,680 - El kárate, el Colt y el imposter, a.k.a. The Stranger and the Gunfighter (April; Antonio Margheriti)
CAST Lee Van Cleef, Lieh Lo, Patty Shepard, Femi Benussi
$1,850,000 - The Rogue (January; Gregory Simpson)
CAST Milan Galvonic, Barbara Bouchet, Margaret Lee
$1,800,000 - I Will, I Will… For Now (March; Norman Panama)
CAST Elliott Gould, Diane Keaton, Paul Sorvino, Victoria Principal
$1,737,000 - Sky Riders (March; Douglas Hickox)
CAST James Coburn, Susannah York, Robert Culp, Charles Aznavour
$1,734,000 - Baby Blue Marine (April; John D. Hancock)
CAST Jan-Michael Vincent, Glynnis O’Connor, Katherine Helmond, Richard Gere
$1,730,000 - Sparkle (April; Sam O’Steen)
CAST Philip Michael Thomas, Irene Cara, Lonette McKee, Dwan Smith
$1,700,000 - Travolti da un insolito destino nell’azzurro mare d’agosto, a.k.a. Swept Away (January; Lina Wertmuller)
CAST Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Riccardo Salvino, Isa Danieli
$1,656,717 - The Hindenburg (December 1975, Robert Wise)
CAST George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, William Atherton, Roy Thinnes
$1,644,000 - Shout at the Devil (November; Peter Hunt)
CAST Lee Marvin, Roger Moore, Barbara Parkins, Ian Holm
$1,600,000 - Hearts of the West (October 1975; Howard Zieff)
CAST Jeff Bridges, Andy Griffith, Donald Pleasence, Blythe Danner
$1,600,000 - Burnt Offerings (August; Dan Curtis)
CAST Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart
$1,561,000 - Cannonball! (July; Paul Bartel)
CAST David Carradine, Bill McKinney, Veronica Hamel, Robert Carradine
$1,500,000 - Follow Me, Boys! (December 1966, reissue; Norman Tokar)
CAST Fred MacMurray, Vera Miles, Lillian Gish, Charles Ruggles
$1,500,000 - Beyond the Door (November 1974, reissue; Ovidio G. Assonitis, Robert Barrett)
CAST Juliet Mills, Richard Johnson, Gabriele Lavia, Nino Segurini
$1,390,000 - The Return of a Man Called Horse (August; Irvin Kershner)
CAST Richard Harris, Gale Sondergaard, Geoffrey Lewis, William Lucking
$1,382,000 - Pasqualino Settebellezze, a.k.a. Seven Beauties (January; Lina Wertmuller)
CAST Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler, Elena Fiore
$1,322,076 - Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (June; Robert Altman)
CAST Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Kevin McCarthy, Harvey Keitel
$1,287,000 - Cousin Cousine (July; Jean-Charles Tachella)
CAST Marie-Christine Barrault, Victor Lanoux, Marie-France Pisier, Guy Marchand
$1,236,232 - Emmanuelle: L’antivierge, a.k.a. Emmanuelle: The Joys of a Woman (February; Francis Giacobetti)
CAST Sylvia Kristel, Umberto Orsini, Frédéric Lagache, Catherine Rivet
$1,248,884 - Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (May; Michael Winner)
CAST Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, Art Carney, Phil Silvers
$1,197,330 - L’histoire d’Adèle H., a.k.a. The Story of Adele H. (December 1975, François Truffaut)
CAST Isabelle Adjani, Bruce Robinson, Sylvia Marriott, Joseph Blatchley
$1,100,000 - Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (December 1974, reissue; Martin Scorsese)
CAST Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel
$1,100,000 - Trackdown (March; Richard Heffron)
CAST James Mitchum, Karen Lamm, Anne Archer, Erik Estrada
$1,100,000 - Alex and the Gypsy (October; John Korty)
CAST Jack Lemmon, Genevieve Bujold, James Woods, Gino Ardito
$1,062,000 - Next Stop, Greenwich Village (February; Paul Mazursky)
CAST Lenny Baker, Shelley Winters, Ellen Greene, Christopher Walken
$1,061,000 - Girls Who’ll Do Anything (March; Boaz Davidson)
$1,035,000 - Ansikte mot ansikte, a.k.a. Face to Face (April; Ingmar Bergman)
CAST Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Aino Taube, Gunnar Björnstrand
$1,003,802 - Hollywood Boulevard (March; Alan Arkush, Joe Dante)
CAST Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, George Wagner, Jonathan Kaplan
$1,000,095 - The Song Remains the Same (October; Peter Clifton, Joe Massot)
CAST Led Zeppelin [Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham]
$1,000,000 - Give ’em Hell, Harry! (September 1975, reissue; Steve Binder, Peter Hunt)
CAST James Whitmore
$1,000,000 - Dumbo (October 1941, reissue; Ben Sharpsteen)
CAST (animated, voice only) Sterling Holloway, Edward Brophy, James Baskett
$1,000,000 - Fantasia (November 1940, reissue; Ben Sharpsteen, and others [all uncredited])
CAST (animated, voice only) Deems Taylor, Leopold Stokowski
$1,000,000