Eye of the Needle backdrop
Eye of the Needle poster
#5,984 All-time worldwide
#43 1981 releases

Movie profile

Eye of the Needle

1981 · 108 min · Kings Road Entertainment

Drama Thriller
IMDb FilmDB Where to watch

Box office snapshot

Financial performance

Reference figures based on available reported data.
Worldwide gross $18.0M
Budget —
Gross minus budget —
ROI —

Domestic gross

$9.0M

Estimated from worldwide gross

International gross

$9.0M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Opening weekend

$1.6M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Ranking context

Where Eye of the Needle ranks

Positioned across the all-time chart, release year, studio, franchise and genre indexes where enough mapped data exists.
Open rankings
All-time worldwide #5,984 All-time chart position of 12,922 titles Compared with every rankable movie in the current worldwide dataset. 1981 releases #43 Release-year chart position of 138 titles Ranked against movies released in 1981. Studio / company #2 Kings Road Entertainment of 7 titles Position inside the mapped Kings Road Entertainment movie set. Primary genre #2,422 Drama of 5,859 titles Genre context based on the first mapped genre on this profile.

Nearby worldwide ranks

Comparable titles immediately around this movie by reported worldwide gross.

#5,981 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask 1972 · $18.0M #5,982 The Country Bears 2002 · $18.0M #5,983 Space Pirate Captain Harlock 2013 · $18.0M #5,999 Everybody Knows 2018 · $18.0M #6,000 Quills 2000 · $18.0M #6,001 Kalank 2019 · $18.0M

Quick answer

How did Eye of the Needle (1981) perform at the box office?

Medium confidence

Eye of the Needle (1981) has a reported worldwide box office gross of $18.0M. In this database it currently ranks #5,984 in the current all-time worldwide chart set and #43 among 1981 releases.

Worldwide gross
$18,000,000
Budget
Not available
Gross minus budget
Not available
ROI
Not available
Source: TMDb. Last updated: Jul 13, 2026. View source Gross-minus-budget is not studio net profit. It excludes marketing, distribution fees, revenue splits, tax incentives and later home/streaming revenue.

Synopsis

Story

Great Britain, 1944, during World War II. Relentlessly pursued by several MI5 agents, Henry Faber the Needle, a ruthless German spy in possession of vital information about D-Day, takes refuge on Storm Island, an inhospitable, sparsely inhabited island off the coast of northern Scotland.

Movie facts

Production details

Release date
Jul 24, 1981
Production
Kings Road Entertainment, Juniper Films
Countries
GB, US

Related indexes

Browse related box office pages

Studio / production companyKings Road Entertainment Release year chart1981 box office Genre chartDrama Genre chartThriller

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AI summary

Why this movie matters

Released in 1981, Eye of the Needle is positioned in this dataset as a Drama, Thriller title from Kings Road Entertainment. Its box office profile shows that available worldwide gross is $18.0M. For comparison, it currently sits #5,984 all-time in the current chart set and #43 among 1981 releases. Streaming availability should be checked against the selected United States region because provider rights can change.

AI-generated contextual summary based on available movie, genre, ranking and box office data. It does not replace official distributor notes or financial reporting.
Data noteGross minus budget is not studio net profit. It excludes marketing, distribution fees, revenue splits, tax incentives and downstream revenue. Domestic, international and opening weekend figures marked as estimated are modelled estimates.