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, 1977 would become a trendsetter, with the first “Star Wars” leading the box-office by the end of the year. No other film even came close. The six-time Oscar-winner—strictly in the technical departments—introduced a new era in filmmaking.
According to Variety, as published in their 72nd Anniversary Edition of January 4, 1978 – back then along with the Hollywood Reporter the only truly valuable and reliable source for any insider who needed to check the domestic rentals – Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was a powerful entry at No. 9, considering the film wasn’t released until mid-November. Its continuing run in 1978 was a guarantee that the film would become a box office smash the following year as well, ranking at No. 2 in 1978’s box office results.
Most of the October-December openings of 1977 were on the market too sketchily for significance to be included in this list—except for “Close Encounters” which for obvious reasons couldn’t be ignored or overlooked.
So for the record, quite a number of films released by the end of 1977 are not—or not fully—included, such as Herbert Ross’ “The Goodbye Girl” and “The Turning Point,” Clint Eastwood’s “The Gauntlet,” or Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon.” They are listed in the 1978 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, 1977, when we were all forty years younger.
- Star Wars (May; George Lucas)
CAST Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness
$127,000,000 - Rocky (November 1976; John G. Avildsen)
CAST Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith
$54,000,000 - Smokey and the Bandit (June; Hal Needham)
CAST Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Mike Henry, Paul Williams
$39,744,000 - A Star Is Born (December 1976; Frank Pierson)
CAST Barbra Streisand, Kris Kristofferson, Gary Busey, Oliver Clark
$37,100,000 - King Kong (December 1976; John Guillermin)
CAST Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange, John Randolph, Rene Auberjonois
$35,851,283 - The Deep (June; Peter Yates)
CAST Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte, Robert Shaw, Eli Wallach, Louis Gossett Jr.
$31,000,000 - Silver Streak (December 1976; Arthur Hiller)
CAST Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, Richard Pryor, Patrick McGoohan, Net Beatty
$27,100,000 - The Enforcer (December 1976; James Fargo)
CAST Clint Eastwood, Tyne Daly, Harry Guardino, Bradford Dillman
$24,000,000 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind (November; Steven Spielberg)
CAST Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
$23,000,000 - In Search of Noah’s Ark (February; James L. Conway)
CAST Brad Candrall (narration)
$23,000,000 - The Spy Who Loved Me (July; Lewis Gilbert)
CAST Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curd Jürgens, Caroline Munro
$22,000,000 - Oh, God! (October; Carl Reiner)
CAST John Denver, George Burns, Teri Garr, Donald Pleasence, Ralph Bellamy
$21,200,000 - A Bridge too Far (June; Richard Attenborough)
CAST Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Hardy Kruger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell, Liv Ullman
$21,000,000 - The Pink Panther Strikes Again (December 1976; Blake Edwards)
CAST Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Lesley-Anne Down, Burt Kwouk
$19,500,000 - The Other Side of Midnight (June; Charles Jarrot)
CAST Marie-France Pisier, John Beck, Susan Sarandon, Raf Vallone
$17,000,000 - The Rescuers (June; Wolfgang Reitherman, Art Stevens, John Lounsbery)
CAST (animated, voice only) Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, Geraldine Chaplin
$17,000,000 - Airport ’77 (April; Jerry Jameson)
CAST Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Brenda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, Olivia de Havilland, Christopher Lee, George Kennedy, James Stewart
$14,836,000 - Network (November 1976; Sidney Lumet)
CAST Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall
$14,500,000 - Slap Shot (March; George Roy Hill)
CAST Paul Newman, Michael Ontkean, Lindsay Crouse, Jennifer Warren
$14,497,000 - Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (June; Vincent McEveety)
CAST Dean Jones, Don Knotts, Julie Sommars, Roy Kinnear
$14,000,000 - Fun With Dick and Jane (February; Ted Kotcheff)
CAST George Segal, Jane Fonda, Ed McMahon, Dick Gauthier
$14,000,000 - Exorcist II: The Heretic (June; John Boorman)
CAST Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher, Max von Sydow, Paul Henreid
$13,900,000 - Black Sunday (April; John Frankenheimer)
CAST Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver
$13,325,501 - One-On-One ((June; Lamont Johnson)
CAST Robby Benson, Annette O’Toole, G.D. Spradlin, Melanie Griffith
$13,100,000 - The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (July; Michael Pressman)
CAST William Devane, Clifton James, Jackie Earle Haley, Jimmy Baio
$13,077,324 - Annie Hall (April; Woody Allen)
CAST Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane
$12,000,000 - Freaky Friday (December 1976; Gary Nelson)
CAST Barbara Harris, Jodie Foster, John Astin, Patsy Kelly
$11,500,000 - The Shaggy D.A. (December 1976; Robert Stevenson)
CAST Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, Tim Conway, Keenan Wynn
$10,275,000 - Heroes (November; Jeremy Kagan)
CAST Henry Winkler, Sally Field, Harrison Ford, Val Avery
$9,960,000 - Orca (July; Michael Anderson)
CAST Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, Will Sampson, Bo Derek
$9,230,958 - Looking for Mr. Goodbar (October; Richard Brooks)
CAST Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, Richard Gere
$9,087,240 - Semi-Tough (November; Michael Ritchie)
CAST Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Robert Preston
$9,000,000 - Rollercoaster (May; James Goldstone)
CAST George Segal, Richard Widmark, Timothy Bottoms, Harry Guardino, Susan Strasberg, Henry Fonda
$8,234,000 - MacArthur (July; Joseph Sargent)
CAST Gregory Peck, Dan O’Herlihy, Ed Flanders, Ivan Bonar
$8,165,000 - Young Frankenstein (December 1974, reissue; Mel Brooks)
CAST Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr
$8,000,000 - Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (May; Sam Wanamaker)
CAST Patrick Wayne, Taryn Power, Margaret Whiting, Jane Seymour
$7,700,000 - Final Chapter: Walking Tall (June; Jack Starrett)
CAST Bo Svenson, Lurene Tuttle, Forrest Tucker, Leif Garrett
$7,500,000 - Greased Lightning (July; Michael Schultz)
CAST Richard Pryor, Beau Bridges, Pam Grier, Cleavon Little
$7,200,000 - The Island of Dr. Moreau (July; Don Taylor)
CAST Burt Lancaster, Michael York, Nigel Davenport, Barbara Carrera
$6,500,000 - You Light Up My Life (September; Joseph Brooks)
CAST Didi Conn, Joe Silver, Michael Zaslow, Stephen Nathan
$6,500,000 - The Last Remake of Beau Geste (July; Marty Feldman)
CAST Marty Feldman, Ann-Margret, Michael York, Peter Ustinov
$6,338,000 - It’s Alive (October 1974, reissue; Larry Cohen)
CAST John Ryan, Sharon Farrell, Andrew Duggan, Guy Stockwell
$6,300,000 - Bobby Deerfield (October; Sydney Pollack)
CAST Al Pacino, Marthe Keller, Anny Duperey, Walter McGinn
$6,000,000 - New York, New York (June; Martin Scorsese)
CAST Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro, Lionel Stander, Barry Primus
$6,000,000 - Nickelodeon (December 1976; Peter Bogdanovich)
CAST Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds, Tatum O’Neal, Brian Keith
$6,000,000 - Sorcerer (June; William Friedkin)
CAST Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou
$5,942,173 - The Sting (December 1973, reissue; George Roy Hill)
CAST Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning
$5,860,000 - Damnation Alley (October; Jack Smight)
CAST Jan-Michael Vincent, George Peppard, Dominique Sanda, Paul Winfield
$5,500,000 - The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (October 1976; Herbert Ross)
CAST Alan Arkin, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Duvall, Laurence Olivier
$5,472,000 - A Piece of the Action (October; Sidney Poitier)
CAST Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, James Earl Jones, Denise Nicholas
$5,400,000 - For the Love of Benji (June; Joe Camp)
CAST Patsy Kensit, Art Vasil, Ed Neslon, Bridget Armstrong
$5,000,000 - The Town That Dreaded Sundown (November 1976; Charles B. Pierce)
CAST Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells, Jimmy Clem
$5,000,000 - Twilight’s Last Gleaming (February; Robert Aldrich)
CAST Burt Lancaster, Roscoe Lee Browne, Joseph Cotten, Richard Widmark
$4,500,000 - The Van (May; Sam Grossman)
CAST Stuart Goetz, Deborah White, Steve Oliver, Danny DeVito
$4,500,000 - The Eagle Has Landed (March; John Sturges)
CAST Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter
$4,500,000 - The Cassandra Crossing (September; George Pan Cosmatos)
CAST Sophia Loren, Richard Harris, Martin Sheen, Ava Gardner
$4,184,000 - The Sentinel (March; Michael Winner)
CAST Cristina Raines, Ava Gardner, Chris Sarandon, Burgess Meredith
$4,404,000 - The Greatest (May; Tom Gries)
CAST Muhammad Ali, Ernest Borgnine, John Marley, Lloyd Haynes
$3,800,000 - Outlaw Blues (July; Richard T. Heffron)
CAST Peter Fonda, Susan Saint James, John Crawford, James Callahan
$3,500,000 - Wizards (February; Ralph Bakshi)
CAST (animated, voice only) Bob Holt, Jesse Welles, Richard Romanus
$3,300,000 - Murder by Death (June 1976, reissue; Robert Moore)
CAST Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, David Niven
$3,200,000 - I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (July; Anthony Page)
CAST Bibi Andersson, Kathleen Quinlan, Ben Piazza, Lorraine Gary
$3,200,000 - Across the Great Divide (November 1976; Stewart Raffill)
CAST Robert Logan, Heather Rattray, Mark Edward Hall, George Flower
$3,189,950 - Islands in the Stream (March; Franklin J. Schaffner)
CAST George C. Scott, David Hemmings, Gilbert Roland, Claire Bloom
$3,152,376 - Thunder and Lightning (May; Corey Allen)
CAST David Carradine, Kate Jackson, Stanley Holloway, Patrick Cranshaw
$3,100,000 - Shout at the Devil (November 1976; Peter Hunt)
CAST Lee Marvin, Roger Moore, Barbara Parkins, Ian Holm
$3,000,000 - Tentacles (June; Oliver Hellman [Ovidio G. Assonitis])
CAST John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, Henry Fonda
$3,000,000 - The People That Time Forgot (June; Kevin Connor)
CAST Patrick Wayne, Doug McClure, Sarah Douglas, Dana Gillespie
$3,000,000 - Breaker! Breaker! (April; Don Hulette)
CAST Chuck Norris, George Murdock, Terry O’Connor, Don Gentry
$3,000,000 - The Car (May; Elliot Silverstein)
CAST James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, John Marley, R.G. Armstrong
$2,916,000 - The Late Show (February; Robert Benton)
CAST Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche
$2,900,000 - Day of the Animals (May; William Girdler)
CAST Christopher George, Leslie Nielsen, Linda Day George, Richard Jaeckel
$2,858,000 - Fantasia (November 1940, reissue; Ben Sharpsteen, and others [all uncredited])
CAST (animated, voice only) Deems Taylor, Leopold Stokowski
$2,500,000 - Empire of the Ants (June; Bert I. Gordon)
CAST Joan Collins, Robert Lansing, John David Carson, Robert Pine
$2,500,000 - Grand Theft Auto (June; Ron Howard)
CAST Ron Howard, Nancy Morgan, Elizabeth Rogers, Marion Ross
$2,500,000 - Viva Knievel! (June; Gordon Douglas)
CAST Evel Knievel, Gene Kelly, Lauren Hutton, Red Buttons
$2,400,000 - The Teasers (February; George Lancer)
CAST Gloria Guida, Alice Ames, Sherry Wilson
$2,363,000 - The Boatnicks (July 1970, reissue; Norman Tokar)
CAST Robert Morse, Stefanie Powers, Phil Silvers, Norman Fell
$2,300,000 - The Gnobe-Mobile (July 1967, reissue; Robert Stevenson)
CAST Walter Brennan, Tom Lowell, Matthew Garber, Karen Dotrice
$2,300,000 - Ruby (June; Curtis Harrington)
CAST Piper Laurie, Stuart Whitman, Roger Davis, Janit Baldwin
$2,233,128 - The Outlaw Josey Wales (July 1976, reissue; Clint Eastwood)
CAST Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Chief Dan George, Bill McKinney
$2,200,000 - Rabid (June; David Cronenberg)
CAST Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Joe Silver, Howard Ryshpan
$2,200,000 - The Littlest Horse Thieves (March; Charles Jarrot)
CAST Alastair Sim, Peter Barkworth, Maurice Colbourne, Susan Tebbs
$2,100,000 - Audrey Rose (April; Robert Wise)
CAST Anthony Hopkins, Marsha Mason, John Beck, Susan Swift
$2,000,000 - Demon Seed (April; Donald Cammell)
CAST Julie Christie, Fritz Weaver, Gerrit Graham, Berry Kroeger
$2,000,000 - Never a Dull Moment (June 1968, reissue; Jerry Paris)
CAST Dick Van Dyke, Edward G. Robinson, Dorothy Provine, Henry Silva
$1,950,000 - Suspiria (August; Dario Argento)
CAST Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé
$1,800,000 - The Gumball Rally (July 1976, reissue; Charles Bail)
CAST Michael Sarrazin, Norman Burton, Gary Busey, Raul Julia
$1,800,000 - First Love (November; Joan Darling)
CAST William Katt, Susan Dey, John Heard, Beverly D’Angelo
$1,774,771 - Bugsy Malone (January; Alan Parker)
CAST Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Florrie Dugger, John Cassisi
$1,756,146 - Voyage of the Damned (December 1976; Stuart Rosenberg)
CAST Faye Dunaway, Max von Sydow, Oskar Werner, Malcolm McDowell, Orson Welles, James Mason, Lee Grant, Katharine Ross, Maria Schell
$1,750,000 - The Domino Principle (March; Stanley Kramer)
CAST Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen, Richard Widmark, Mickey Rooney
$1,700,000 - Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown (June; Bill Melendez, Phil Roman)
CAST (animated, voice only) Duncan Watson, Greg Felton, Stuart Brotman
$1,549,922 - The Slipper and the Rose (April; Bryan Forbes)
CAST Richard Chamberlain, Gemma Craven, Annette Crosbie, Edith Evans
$1,549,000 - Cross of Iron (May; Sam Peckinpah)
CAST James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason, Senta Berger
$1,509,000 - The White Buffalo (May; J. Lee Thompson)
CAST Charles Bronson, Jack Warden, Will Sampson, Kim Novak
$1,500,000 - Valentino (October; Ken Russell)
CAST Rudolf Nureyev, Leslie Caron, Michelle Philips, Carol Kane
$1,500,000 - Alice in Wonderland (December 1951, reissue; Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske)
CAST (animated, voice only) Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Sterling Holloway
$1,500,000 - The Farmer (February; David Berlatsky)
CAST Lewell Akins, Gary Conway, Michael Dante, Dave Graig
$1,500,000 - Tian huang ju xing, a.k.a. Exit the Dragon – Enter the Tiger (December 1976; Tso Nam Lee)
CAST Bruce Li, Yi Chang, Kang Chin, Shao Chun Chao
$1,455,235 - The Song Remains the Same (October 1976, reissue; Peter Clifton, Joe Massot)
CAST Led Zeppelin [Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham]
$1,400,000 - Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (March; Richard Williams)
CAST (animated, voice only) Claire Williams, Didi Conn, Mark Baker
$1,350,000 - Starship Invasions (October; Ed Hunt)
CAST Robert Vaughn, Christopher Lee, Daniel Pilon, Helen Shaver
$1,300,000 - Mr. Billion (March; Jonathan Kaplan)
CAST Terence Hill, Valerie Perrine, Jackie Gleason, Slim Pickens
$1,300,000 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (March 1938, reissue; David Hand and five others)
CAST (animated, voice only) Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell
$1,250,000 - The Next Man (November 1976; Richard C. Sarafian)
CAST Sean Connery, Cornelia Sharpe, Albert Paulsen, Adolfo Celi
$1,250,000 - Cinderella (May; Michael Pataki)
CAST Cheryl Smith, Kirk Scott, Brett Smiley, Sy Richardson
$1,160,000 - The Last Tycoon (February; Elia Kazan)
CAST Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson
$1,154,536 - Moonshine County Express (April; Gus Trikonis)
CAST John Saxon, Susan Howard, William Conrad, Jeff Corey
$1,100,000 - The Crater Lake Monster (April; William R. Stromberg)
CAST Richard Cardella, Glen Roberts, Mark Siegel, Bob Hyman
$1,050,000 - Land of the Minotaur (May; Costas Carayian)
CAST Donald Pleasence, Peter Cushing, Luan Peters, Costas Carayian
$1,020,000 - Thieves (February; John Berry)
CAST Marlo Thomas, Charles Grodin, Hector Elizondo, Mercedes McCambridge
$1,002,900 - The Food of the Gods (July 1976, reissue; Bert I. Gordon)
CAST Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin, Ralph Meeker, Ida Lupino
$1,000,000 - Darby O’Gill and the Little People (June 1959, reissue; Robert Stevenson)
CAST Albert Sharpe, Janet Munro, Sean Connery, Jimmy O’Dea
$1,000,000 - Let’s Do It Again (October 1975, reissue; Sidney Poitier)
CAST Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Calvin Lockhart, John Amos
$ 1,000,000 - All the President’s Men (April 1976, reissue; Alan J. Pakula)
CAST Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Jason Robards
$1,000,000 - March or Die (August; Dick Richards)
CAST Gene Hackman, Terence Hill, Max von Sydow, Catherine Deneuve
$1,000,000 - Grizzly (May 1976, reissue; William Girdler)
CAST Christopher George, Andrew Pine, Richard Jaeckel, Joan McCall
$1,000,000
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