List of highest-grossing films

The following is a non-definitive list of the all-time highest-grossing films ranked by theatrical box office performance, excluding income derived from home video, broadcasting rights and merchandise. Included on the list are a chart 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 account for international grosses where possible, and are expressed in US dollars at their nominal value.

Background color       indicates films playing as of 16 February 2012 in theaters around the world

Highest-grossing films

All the films on the list have had a theatrical run in the last twenty years, and films that have not played during this period do not appear in the chart due to ticket-price inflation, population size and ticket purchasing trends not being considered. 2009 is the most represented year on the chart with seven films, and 2011 currently stands at five.

Chronology

Issues with calculation

Due to 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 more recent films.^[2] 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.^[3] Another complication that has mainly arisen since 2000 is releases in multiple formats for which different ticket prices are charged. One notable example of this phenomenon is Avatar, which was 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.^[4] The audience demographic for a particular film can also impact on profits, with some films selling a much higher proportion of discounted children's tickets, or play better in big cities where tickets cost more.^[3]

To compensate for the devaluation of the currency, some charts make adjustments for inflation, but not even this practise fully addresses the issue since movie ticket prices and inflation do not necessarily parallel one another. For example, in 1970 movie tickets cost $1.55 or about $6.68 in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars; by 1980, movie ticket prices had risen to about $2.69, a drop to $5.50 in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars.^[5] Social and economic factors also impact on the number of the number of people purchasing theater tickets, such as population changes^[6] and the growth of international markets.^[7][8][9] Even if these could be accounted for, any system that is purely based on measuring theatrical performance is still inherently flawed in that it does not take account of home entertainment revenue.^[3]

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 due to the practices of the film industry. The box office receipts are compiled by theaters and relayed to the distributor, which in turn release them to the media.^[10] There are also practical difficulties in converting to a more representative system: ticket prices have risen at different rates of inflation around the world, making it a complicated process to adjust worldwide grosses;^[2] moving to a system that counts ticket sales rather than gross is also fraught with problems due to the fact that the only data available for older films are the sale totals.^[6] As the motion picture industry is highly oriented towards marketing currently released films, non-inflation 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",^[5] so there is little incentive to switch to a more economically robust system from a marketing or even newsworthy point of view.^[10]

High-grossing films by year

This is a chart of high-grossing films by year of initial release. The grosses include income from later releases, so represent the film released in a particular year that went on to earn the most money.

* Canada and U.S. gross only.
^R Theater rentals. The rentals are the theatrical gross less the exhibitor's share, and in the case of some older films the rentals were reported instead of the box office gross. As a rule of thumb, the distributor typically receives half of the gross.
^B Production costs were shared with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.

Timeline of highest-grossing films

This list includes those films which have held the record for highest grossing film, before inflation. Years represent the point of establishing the box office record, not the year of release.^[11] Due to re-releases, some of the films went on to ultimately gross more than the film they lost the record to.

* Canada and U.S. gross only.
^R Theater rentals. The rentals are the theatrical gross less the exhibitor's share, and in the case of some older films the rentals were reported instead of the box office gross. As a rule of thumb, the distributor typically receives half of the gross.
^a Birth of a Nation was still the highest grosser as of 1932.^[12]
b Some sources dispute that Gone With the Wind took back the record, stating that The Sound of Music held it until it was overtaken by The Godfather.^[18]

Highest-grossing franchises and film series

Prior to 2000, only seven franchises had grossed over $1 billion at the box office: James Bond,^[19] Star Wars,^[20] Indiana Jones,^[21] Rocky,^[22][23][24] Batman,^[25] Jurassic Park^[26] and Star Trek.^[27] Since the turn of the century that number has increased to over thirty franchises;^[28] 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 (The Lord of the Rings) or an established character (Indiana Jones). The methodology is based on the idea 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.^[29] While the Harry Potter series is the highest grossing series in nominal dollars, the James Bond series is the highest grossing series adjusted for inflation.^[29]

^N Due to incomplete Box Office Mojo data, the grosses for this franchise are sourced from The Numbers instead.^[28]
TS Gross also includes revenue from the 3D releases of Toy Story and Toy Story 2.^[31][32]
T Gross also includes revenue from the Twilight and New Moon double feature.^[33]

References

Box-office references

Bibliography

• Barrier, Michael (2003). Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-516729-5. 
• Hayes, Dade; Bing, Jonathan (September 22, 2004). Open Wide: How Hollywood Box Office Became a National Obsession. Miramax. p. 448. ISBN 978-1401352004. 
• Reid, John Howard (2006). Success in the Cinema: Money-Making Movies and Critics' Choices. Lulu. ISBN 9781847280886. 

External links

• All-Time Top Grossing Movies Worldwide at The Numbers
• All-Time Box Office: World-wide at Internet Movie Database
• Box-Office Top 100 Films of All-Time at Filmsite.org