List of highest-grossing films


generate income from several revenue streams, including theatrical exhibition, home video, television broadcast rights, and merchandising. However, theatrical box office earnings are the primary metric for trade publications in assessing the success of a film, mostly because of the availability of the data compared to sales figures for home video and broadcast rights, but also because of historical practice. Included on the list are charts of the top box office earners, a chart of high-grossing films by calendar year, a timeline showing the transition of the highest-grossing film record, and a chart of the highest-grossing film franchises and series. All charts are ranked by international theatrical box office performance where possible, excluding income derived from home video, broadcasting rights, and merchandise.
Traditionally, war films, musicals, and historical dramas have been the most popular genres, but franchise films have been among the best performers in the 21st century. There is strong interest in the superhero genre, with nine films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe featuring among the nominal top-earners. The most successful superhero film, , is also the highest-grossing film overall on the nominal earnings chart, and there are four films in total based on the Avengers comic books charting in the top twenty. Other Marvel Comics adaptations have also had success with the Spider-Man and X-Men properties, while films based on Batman and Superman from DC Comics have generally performed well. Star Wars is also represented in the nominal earnings chart with five films, while the Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises feature prominently. Avatar, in second place on the nominal chart, is the highest-grossing film that is not a sequel or an adaptation of a pre-existing property. Animated family films have performed consistently well, with Disney films enjoying lucrative re-releases prior to the home-video era. Disney also enjoyed later success with films such as Frozen I and II, Zootopia, and The Lion King, as well as its Pixar brand, of which Incredibles 2, Toy Story 3 and 4, and Finding Dory have been the best performers. Beyond Disney and Pixar animation, the Despicable Me, Shrek, and Ice Age series have met with the most success.
While inflation has eroded away the achievements of most films from the 1960s and 1970s, there are franchises originating from that period that are still active. Besides the Star Wars and Superman franchises, James Bond and Star Trek films are still being released periodically; all four are among the highest-grossing franchises. Some of the older films that held the record of highest-grossing film still have respectable grosses by today's standards, but no longer compete numerically against today's top-earners in an era of much higher individual ticket prices. When those prices are adjusted for inflation, however, then Gone with the Wind—which was the highest-grossing film outright for twenty-five years—is still the highest-grossing film of all time. All grosses on the list are expressed in U.S. dollars at their nominal value, except where stated otherwise.

Highest-grossing films

With a worldwide box-office gross of over $2.797 billion, Avengers: Endgame is proclaimed to be the "highest-grossing" film, but such claims usually refer to theatrical revenues only and do not take into account home video and television income, which can form a significant portion of a film's earnings. Once revenue from home entertainment is factored in it is not immediately clear which film is the most successful. Titanic earned $1.2 billion from video and DVD sales and rentals, in addition to the $2.2 billion it grossed in theaters. While complete sales data are not available for Avatar, it earned $345 million from the sale of sixteen million DVD and Blu-ray units in North America, and ultimately sold a total of thirty million DVD and Blu-ray units worldwide. After home video income is accounted for, both films have earned over $3 billion each. Television broadcast rights will also substantially add to a film's earnings, with a film often earning as much as 20–25% of its theatrical box-office for a couple of television runs on top of pay-per-view revenues; Titanic earned a further $55 million from the NBC and HBO broadcast rights, equating to about 9% of its North American gross.
When a film is highly exploitable as a commercial property, its ancillary revenues can dwarf its income from direct film sales. The Lion King earned over $2 billion in box-office and home video sales, but this pales in comparison to the $8 billion earned at box offices around the world by the stage adaptation. Merchandising can be extremely lucrative too: The Lion King also sold $3 billion of merchandise, while Pixar's Cars—which earned $462 million in theatrical revenues and was only a modest hit by comparison to other Pixar films—generated global merchandise sales of over $8 billion in the five years after its 2006 release. Pixar had another huge hit with Toy Story 3, which generated almost $10 billion in merchandise retail sales in addition to the $1 billion it earned at the box office.
On this chart, films are ranked by the revenues from theatrical exhibition at their nominal value, along with the highest positions they attained. Five films in total have grossed in excess of $2 billion worldwide, with Avengers: Endgame ranked in the top position. All of the films have had a theatrical run in the 21st century, and films that have not played during this period do not appear on the chart because of ticket-price inflation, population size and ticket purchasing trends not being considered.
RankPeakTitleWorldwide grossYearReference
11'$2,797,800,5642019
21Avatar$2,790,439,0002009
31Titanic$2,194,439,5421997
43'$2,068,223,6242015
54'$2,048,359,7542018
63Jurassic World$1,671,713,2082015
77The Lion King$1,656,943,3942019
83The Avengers$1,518,812,9882012
94Furious 7$1,516,045,9112015
1010Frozen II $1,450,026,9332019
115'$1,402,805,8682015
129Black Panther$1,346,913,1612018
133Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2$1,341,932,3982011
149'$1,332,539,8892017
1512'$1,309,484,4612018
165Frozen$2013
1710Beauty and the Beast$1,263,521,1262017
1815Incredibles 2$1,242,805,3592018
1911The Fate of the Furious$1,238,764,7652017
205Iron Man 3$1,214,811,2522013
2110Minions$1,159,398,3972015
2212'$1,153,304,4952016
2320Aquaman$1,148,161,8072018
242'$1,142,219,4012003
2524'$1,131,927,9962019
2623Captain Marvel$1,128,274,7942019
275'$1,123,794,0792011
287Skyfall$1,108,561,0132012
2910'$1,104,054,0722014
307The Dark Knight Rises$1,084,939,0992012
3131Joker $1,074,251,3112019
3232' $1,074,144,2482019
3330Toy Story 4$1,073,394,5932019
344Toy Story 3$1,066,969,7032010
353'$1,066,179,7252006
3620'$1,056,057,2732016
3734Aladdin$1,050,693,9532019
386'$1,045,713,8022011
3924Despicable Me 3$1,034,799,4092017
401Jurassic Park$1993
4122Finding Dory$1,028,570,8892016
422'$1,027,044,6771999
435Alice in Wonderland$1,025,467,1102010
4424Zootopia$1,023,784,1952016
4514$1,021,103,5682012
464The Dark Knight$1,004,934,0332008
472Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone$978,087,6132001
4810Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1$976,920,1032010
4919Despicable Me 2$970,761,8852013
502The Lion King$968,483,7771994

Highest-grossing films adjusted for inflation

Because of the long-term effects of inflation, notably the significant increase of movie theater ticket prices, the list unadjusted for inflation gives far more weight to later films. The unadjusted list, while commonly found in the press, is therefore largely meaningless for comparing films widely separated in time, as many films from earlier eras will never appear on a modern unadjusted list, despite achieving higher commercial success when adjusted for price increases. To compensate for the devaluation of the currency, some charts make adjustments for inflation, but not even this practice fully addresses the issue, since ticket prices and inflation do not necessarily parallel one another. For example, in 1970, tickets cost $1.55 or about $6.68 in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars; by 1980, prices had risen to about $2.69, a drop to $5.50 in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars. Ticket prices have also risen at different rates of inflation around the world, further complicating the process of adjusting worldwide grosses.
Another complication is release in multiple formats for which different ticket prices are charged. One notable example of this phenomenon is Avatar, which was also released in 3D and IMAX: almost two-thirds of tickets for that film were for 3D showings with an average price of $10, and about one-sixth were for IMAX showings with an average price over $14.50, compared to a 2010 average price of $7.61 for 2D films. Social and economic factors such as population change and the growth of international markets also impact on the number of people purchasing theater tickets, along with audience demographics where some films sell a much higher proportion of discounted children's tickets, or perform better in big cities where tickets cost more.
The measuring system for gauging a film's success is based on unadjusted grosses, mainly because historically this is the way it has always been done because of the practices of the film industry: the box office receipts are compiled by theaters and relayed to the distributor, which in turn releases them to the media. Converting to a more representative system that counts ticket sales rather than gross is also fraught with problems because the only data available for older films are the sale totals. As the motion picture industry is highly oriented towards marketing currently released films, unadjusted figures are always used in marketing campaigns so that new blockbuster films can much more easily achieve a high sales ranking, and thus be promoted as a "top film of all time", so there is little incentive to switch to a more robust analysis from a marketing or even newsworthy point of view.
Despite the inherent difficulties in accounting for inflation, several attempts have been made. Estimates depend on the price index used to adjust the grosses, and the exchange rates used to convert between currencies can also impact upon the calculations, both of which can have an effect on the ultimate rankings of an inflation adjusted list. Gone with the Wind—first released in 1939—is generally considered to be the most successful film, with Guinness World Records in 2014 estimating its adjusted global gross at $3.4 billion. Estimates for Gone with the Winds adjusted gross have varied substantially: its owner, Turner Entertainment, estimated its adjusted earnings at $3.3 billion in 2007, a few years earlier than the Guinness estimate; other estimates fall either side of this amount, with one putting its gross just under $3 billion in 2010, while another provided an alternative figure of $3.8 billion in 2006. Which film is Gone with the Winds nearest rival depends on the set of figures used: Guinness had Avatar in second place with $3 billion, while other estimates saw Titanic in the runner-up spot with first-run worldwide earnings of almost $2.9 billion at 2010 prices.
RankTitleYear
1Gone with the Wind$1939
2Avatar$2009
3Titanic$2,516,000,000$1997
4Star Wars$1977
5'$2019
6The Sound of Music$1965
7E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial$1982
8The Ten Commandments$1956
9Doctor Zhivago$1965
10'$2015

High-grossing films by year

Audience tastes were fairly eclectic during the 20th century, but several trends did emerge. During the silent era, films with war themes were popular with audiences, with The Birth of a Nation, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Big Parade and Wings becoming the most successful films in their respective years of release, with the trend coming to an end with All Quiet on the Western Front in 1930. With the advent of sound in 1927, the musical—the genre best placed to showcase the new technology—took over as the most popular type of film with audiences, with 1928 and 1929 both being topped by musical films. The genre continued to perform strongly in the 1930s, but the outbreak of World War II saw war-themed films dominate again during this period, starting with Gone with the Wind in 1939, and finishing with The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946. Samson and Delilah saw the beginning of a trend of increasingly expensive historical dramas set during Ancient Rome/biblical times throughout the 1950s as cinema competed with television for audiences, with Quo Vadis, The Robe, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur and Spartacus all becoming the highest-grossing film of the year during initial release, before the genre started to wane after several high-profile failures. The success of White Christmas and South Pacific in the 1950s foreshadowed the comeback of the musical in the 1960s with West Side Story, Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music and Funny Girl all among the top films of the decade. The 1970s saw a shift in audience tastes to high concept films, with six such films made by either George Lucas or Steven Spielberg topping the chart during the 1980s. The 21st century has seen an increasing dependence on franchises and adaptations, with the box office dominance of films based on pre-existing intellectual property at record levels.
Steven Spielberg is the most represented director on the chart with six films to his credit, occupying the top spot in 1975, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1989 and 1993. Cecil B. DeMille and William Wyler are in second and third place with five and four films respectively, while D. W. Griffith, George Roy Hill, James Cameron and the Russo brothers all feature heavily with three films apiece. George Lucas directed two chart-toppers in 1977 and 1999, but also served in a strong creative capacity as a producer and writer in 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984 and 1989 as well. The following directors have also all directed two films on the chart: Frank Lloyd, King Vidor, Frank Capra, Michael Curtiz, Leo McCarey, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, Guy Hamilton, Mike Nichols, William Friedkin, Peter Jackson, Gore Verbinski, and Michael Bay; Mervyn LeRoy, Ken Annakin and Robert Wise are each represented by one solo credit and one shared credit, and John Ford co-directed two films. Disney films are usually co-directed and some directors have served on several winning teams: Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, David Hand, Ben Sharpsteen, Wolfgang Reitherman and Bill Roberts have all co-directed at least two films on the list. Only seven directors have topped the chart in consecutive years: McCarey, Nichols, Spielberg, Jackson, Verbinski and the Russo brothers.
Because of release schedules—especially in the case of films released towards the end of the year—and different release patterns across the world, many films can do business in two or more calendar years; therefore the grosses documented here are not confined to just the year of release. Grosses are not limited to original theatrical runs either, with many older films often being re-released periodically so the figures represent all the business a film has done since its original release; a film's first-run gross is included in brackets after the total if known. Because of incomplete data it cannot be known for sure how much money some films have made and when they made it, but generally the chart chronicles the films from each year that went on to earn the most. In the cases where estimates conflict both films are recorded, and in cases where a film has moved into first place because of being re-released the previous record-holder is also retained.
YearTitleWorldwide grossBudgetReference
1915The Birth of a Nation–100000000
+
1916Intolerance
1917Cleopatra
1918Mickey
1919The Miracle Man
1920Way Down East
1921The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse –800000
1922Robin Hood
1923The Covered Wagon
1924The Sea Hawk
1925The Big Parade–22000000
1925Ben-Hur
1926For Heaven's Sake
1927Wings
1928The Singing Fool
1929The Broadway Melody–4800000
1929Sunny Side Up
1930All Quiet on the Western Front
1931Frankenstein
1931City Lights
1932The Sign of the Cross
1933King Kong
1933I'm No Angel+
1933Cavalcade–4000000
1933She Done Him Wrong+
1934The Merry Widow
1934It Happened One Night
1935Mutiny on the Bounty
1936San Francisco+
1937Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs+
1938You Can't Take It With You
1939Gone with the Wind–402352579
–4250000
1940Pinocchio
1940Boom Town
1941Sergeant York
1942Bambi –2000000
1942Mrs. Miniver
1943For Whom the Bell Tolls
1943This Is the Army
1944Going My Way
1945Mom and Dad/
1945The Bells of St. Mary's
1946Song of the South
1946The Best Years of Our Lives
1946Duel in the Sun
1947Forever Amber
1947Unconquered
1948Easter Parade
1948The Red Shoes
1948The Snake Pit
1949Samson and Delilah
1950Cinderella
1950King Solomon's Mines
1951Quo Vadis–26700000
1952This Is Cinerama
1952The Greatest Show on Earth
1953Peter Pan –4000000
1953The Robe–
1954Rear Window
1954White Christmas
195420,000 Leagues Under the Sea
–9000000
1955Lady and the Tramp
1955Cinerama Holiday
1955Mister Roberts
1956The Ten Commandments
1957The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958South Pacific
1959Ben-Hur
1960Swiss Family Robinson
1960Spartacus
1960Psycho+
1961One Hundred and One Dalmatians–4000000
1961West Side Story
1962Lawrence of Arabia
1962How the West Was Won
1962The Longest Day
1963Cleopatra
1963From Russia with Love/
1964My Fair Lady
1964Goldfinger
1964Mary Poppins–
1965The Sound of Music
1966'
1966Hawaii
1966Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1967The Jungle Book –4000000
1967The Graduate
1968'–
1968Funny Girl–100000000
1969Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1970Love Story
1970Airport
1971The French Connection
1971Fiddler on the Roof
1971Diamonds Are Forever
1972The Godfather–
–7200000
1973The Exorcist
1973The Sting
1974The Towering Inferno
1975Jaws
1976Rocky
1977Star Wars
1978Grease
1979Moonraker
1979Rocky II
1980The Empire Strikes Back –32000000
1981Raiders of the Lost Ark
–22800000
1982E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
–12200000
1983Return of the Jedi –42700000
1984Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom–28200000
1985Back to the Future –22000000
1986Top Gun –19000000
1987Fatal Attraction
1988Rain Man
1989Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade–494000000–55400000
1990Ghost
1991'
1992Aladdin
1993Jurassic Park$ –70000000
1994The Lion King –79300000
1995Toy Story
1995Die Hard with a Vengeance
1996Independence Day
1997Titanic$
1998Armageddon
1999'$ –127500000
2000'–125000000
2001Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
2002'
2003'$
2004Shrek 2
2005Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2006'$
2007'
2008The Dark Knight$
2009Avatar$
2010Toy Story 3$
2011Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2$
2012The Avengers$
2013Frozen$
2014'$
2015'$
2016'$
2017'$
2018'$–400000000
2019$
2020Bad Boys for Life $$

Since grosses are not limited to original theatrical runs, a film's first-run gross is included in brackets after the total if known.

Timeline of highest-grossing films

At least eleven films have held the record of 'highest-grossing film' since The Birth of a Nation assumed the top spot in 1915. Both The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind spent twenty-five consecutive years apiece as the highest-grosser, with films directed by Steven Spielberg holding the record on three occasions and James Cameron twice. Spielberg became the first director to break his own record when Jurassic Park overtook E.T., and Cameron emulated the feat when Avatar broke the record set by Titanic. When it took over the top spot in 2019, Avengers: Endgame became the first sequel to hold the record of highest-grossing film, and in doing so ended thirty-six years of Spielberg/Cameron dominance.
Some sources claim that The Big Parade superseded The Birth of a Nation as highest-grossing film, eventually being replaced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which in turn was quickly usurped by Gone with the Wind. Exact figures are not known for The Birth of a Nation, but contemporary records put its worldwide earnings at $5.2 million as of 1919. Its international release was delayed by World War I, and it was not released in many foreign territories until the 1920s; coupled with further re-releases in the United States, its $10 million earnings as reported by Variety in 1932 are consistent with the earlier figure. At this time, Variety still had The Birth of a Nation ahead of The Big Parade on distributor rentals and—if its estimate is correct—Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would not have earned enough on its first theatrical run to take the record; although it would have been the highest-grossing 'talkie', displacing The Singing Fool. Although received wisdom holds that it is unlikely The Birth of a Nation was ever overtaken by a silent-era film, the record would fall to 1925's Ben-Hur if The Birth of a Nation earned significantly less than its estimated gross. In addition to its gross rental earnings through public exhibition, The Birth of a Nation played at a large number of private, club and organizational engagements which figures are unavailable for. It was hugely popular with the Ku Klux Klan who used it to drive recruitment, and at one point Variety estimated its total earnings to stand at around $50 million. Despite later retracting the claim, the sum has been widely reported even though it has never been substantiated. While it is generally accepted that Gone with the Wind took over the record of highest-grossing film on its initial release—which is true in terms of public exhibition—it is likely it did not overtake The Birth of a Nation in total revenue until a much later date, with it still being reported as the highest earner up until the 1960s. Gone with the Wind itself may have been briefly overtaken by The Ten Commandments, which closed at the end of 1960 with worldwide rentals of $58–60 million compared to Gone with the Winds $59 million; if it did claim the top spot its tenure there was short-lived, since Gone with the Wind was re-released the following year and increased its earnings to $67 million. Depending on how accurate the estimates are, the 1959 remake of Ben-Hur may also have captured the record from Gone with the Wind: as of the end of 1961 it had earned $47 million worldwide, and by 1963 it was trailing Gone with the Wind by just $2 million with international takings of $65 million, ultimately earning $66 million from its initial release.
Another film purported to have been the highest-grosser is the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat. In 1984, Linda Lovelace testified to a United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on juvenile justice that the film had earned $600 million; this figure has been the subject of much speculation, since if it is accurate then the film would have made more money than Star Wars, and finished the 1970s as the highest-grossing film. The main argument against this figure is that it simply did not have a wide enough release to sustain the sort of sums that would be required for it to ultimately gross this amount. Exact figures are not known, but testimony in a federal trial in 1976—about four years into the film's release—showed the film had grossed over $25 million. Roger Ebert has reasoned it possibly did earn as much as $600 million on paper, since mobsters owned most of the adult movie theaters during this period and would launder income from drugs and prostitution through them, so probably inflated the box office receipts for the film.
The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. and Avatar all increased their record grosses with re-releases. The grosses from their original theatrical runs are included here along with totals from re-releases up to the point that they lost the record; therefore the total for The Birth of a Nation includes income from its reissues up to 1940; the total for Star Wars includes revenue from the late 1970s and early 1980s reissues but not from the 1997 Special Edition; the total for E.T. incorporates its gross from the 1985 reissue but not from 2002; the total for Avatar includes revenue from the 2010 Special Edition, which represents all of its earnings up to the point it relinquished the record. Gone with the Wind is represented twice on the chart: the 1940 entry includes earnings from its staggered 1939–1942 release along with all of its revenue up to the 1961 reissue prior to losing the record to The Sound of Music in 1966; its 1971 entry—after it took back the record—includes income from the 1967 and 1971 reissues but omitting later releases. The Godfather was re-released in 1973 after its success at the 45th Academy Awards, and Jaws was released again in 1976, and their grosses here most likely include earnings from those releases. The Sound of Music, The Godfather, Jaws, Jurassic Park and Titanic increased their earnings with further releases in 1973, 1997, 1979, 2013 and 2012 respectively, but they are not included in the totals here because they had already conceded the record prior to being re-released.
EstablishedTitleRecord setting grossReference
1915The Birth of a Nation$5,200,000
1940The Birth of a Nation$15,000,000
1940Gone with the Wind$32,000,000
1963Gone with the Wind$67,000,000
1966The Sound of Music$114,600,000
1971Gone with the Wind$116,000,000
1972The Godfather$127,600,000–142,000,000
1976Jaws$193,700,000
1978Star Wars$410,000,000/$268,500,000
1982Star Wars$530,000,000
1983E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial$619,000,000–664,000,000
1993E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial$701,000,000
1993Jurassic Park$914,691,118
1998Titanic$1,843,201,268
2010Avatar$
2010Avatar$2,789,679,794
2019$2,797,800,564

Highest-grossing franchises and film series

Prior to 2000, only seven film series had grossed over $1 billion at the box office: James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Rocky, Batman, Jurassic Park, and Star Trek. Since the turn of the century that number has increased to over fifty. This is partly due to inflation and market growth, but also to Hollywood's adoption of the franchise model: films that have built-in brand recognition, such as being based on a well-known literary source or an established character. The methodology is based on the concept that films associated with things audiences are already familiar with can be more effectively marketed to them, and as such are known as "pre-sold" films within the industry.
A franchise is typically defined to be at least two works derived from a common intellectual property. Traditionally, the work has a tautological relationship with the property, but this is not a prerequisite. An enduring staple of the franchise model is the concept of the crossover, which can be defined as "a story in which characters or concepts from two or more discrete texts or series of texts meet". A consequence of a crossover is that an intellectual property may be utilized by more than one franchise. For example, belongs to not only the Batman and Superman franchises, but also to the DC Extended Universe, which is a shared universe. A shared universe is a particular type of crossover where a number of characters from a wide range of fictional works wind up sharing a fictional world. The most successful shared universe in the medium of film is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a crossover between multiple superhero properties owned by Marvel Comics. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is also the highest-grossing franchise, amassing over $22 billion at the box office.
The Star Wars films are the highest-grossing series based on a single property, earning over $10 billion at the box office. If ancillary income from merchandise is included, then Star Wars is the most lucrative property; it holds the Guinness world record for the "most successful film merchandising franchise" and was valued at £19.51 billion in 2012. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had the most films gross over $1 billion with nine. The four Avengers films and the two Frozen films are the only franchises where each installment has grossed over $1 billion. Along with The Lion King, these are also the only franchises to have a series average of over $1 billion per film.

Box office sources

Franchise and series sources