Private Lessons backdrop
Private Lessons poster
#4,932 All-time worldwide
#32 1981 releases

Movie profile

Private Lessons

1981 · 87 min · Jensen Farley Pictures

Comedy Romance
IMDb FilmDB Where to watch

Box office snapshot

Financial performance

Reference figures based on available reported data.
Worldwide gross $26.3M
Budget $2.8M
Gross minus budget $23.5M
ROI 9.39x

Domestic gross

$10.5M

Estimated from worldwide gross

International gross

$15.8M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Opening weekend

$2.9M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Ranking context

Where Private Lessons ranks

Positioned across the all-time chart, release year, studio, franchise and genre indexes where enough mapped data exists.
Open rankings
All-time worldwide #4,932 All-time chart position of 12,922 titles Compared with every rankable movie in the current worldwide dataset. 1981 releases #32 Release-year chart position of 138 titles Ranked against movies released in 1981. Studio / company #1 Jensen Farley Pictures of 2 titles Position inside the mapped Jensen Farley Pictures movie set. Primary genre #1,912 Comedy of 4,840 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.

#4,929 Houseguest 1995 · $26.3M #4,930 Natale a New York 2006 · $26.3M #4,931 Wildcats 1986 · $26.3M #4,933 Cells at Work! 2024 · $26.3M #4,934 The Marching Band 2024 · $26.3M #4,935 How to Be a Latin Lover 2017 · $26.3M

Quick answer

How did Private Lessons (1981) perform at the box office?

High confidence

Private Lessons (1981) earned a reported $26.3M worldwide against a reported $2.8M production budget. Its gross-minus-budget figure is about $23.5M. The current gross-to-budget multiple is 9.39x. In this database it currently ranks #4,932 in the current all-time worldwide chart set and #32 among 1981 releases.

Worldwide gross
$26,279,000
Budget
$2,800,000
Gross minus budget
$23,479,000
ROI
9.39x
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

Phillip Filmore is a naive, 15-year-old, preoccupied with sex, who develops a crush on Nicole Mallow, the new 30-something, French housekeeper and sitter to look after him when Phillip's father is out of town for the summer on a "business" trip. But Mr. Filmore's unscrupulous chauffeur, Lester Lewis, takes advantage of Phillip's crush on Nicole to hire her to seduce the youth, then draws her into a plot to fake her own death in a blackmail scheme aimed to drain Phillip's trust fund.

Movie facts

Production details

Release date
May 1, 1981
Production
Jensen Farley Pictures, Barry & Enright Productions
Countries
US

Related indexes

Browse related box office pages

Studio / production companyJensen Farley Pictures Release year chart1981 box office Genre chartComedy Genre chartRomance

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AI summary

Why this movie matters

Released in 1981, Private Lessons is positioned in this dataset as a Comedy, Romance title from Jensen Farley Pictures. Its box office profile shows that available worldwide gross is $26.3M, reported production budget is $2.8M, gross-minus-budget is $23.5M, ROI is 9.39x. For comparison, it currently sits #4,932 all-time in the current chart set and #32 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.