The following is a non-definitive list of the all-time highest-grossing films.

Worldwide highest-grossing films

2009 has the most films on the list with seven, next stands 2007 with six. Eighty percent of the films in the top 50 were released after 2000, while no film prior to 1977 appears in the list because ticket-price inflation, population size and ticket purchasing trends are not considered. A North-America-only ticket price inflation-adjusted list can be found at List of highest-grossing films in Canada and the United States. Figures are given in United States dollars (USD).

Background color       indicates films currently in theaters

Issues with calculation

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; a film in 1910, given much lower ticket prices at that time, would have to sell close to 100 times as many tickets as a 2007 film in order for the two to have equal gross takings.^[1] Further complications are added by changing currency values. 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.^[2] Some have suggested that studios prefer not to make inflation adjustments because doing so would reduce the grossing numbers and eliminate the ability to advertise new box-office records.^[2] Yet another complication that has mainly arisen since 2000 is releases in multiple formats for which different ticket prices are charged. One notable example was Mamma Mia!, which benefitted from a sing-a-long rerelease for kareoke fans. Another 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.^[3]

In the United States and Canada, which the U.S. film industry considers to be a single market, Box Office Mojo, Guinness World Records, and Entertainment Weekly all claim that Gone With The Wind is domestically the highest-grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation.

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.^[4]

Social, political, and economic factors influence the number of people willing to pay to go to the movies as well.^[5] These factors can be determined by calculating the per capita ticket-purchasing rate for a particular year. Normalizing this to the reference year normalizes all social, economical, and political factors such as the availability of expendable cash, number of theater screens, relative cost of tickets, competition from television, the rapid releases of movies on DVDs, the improvement of home theater equipment, and film bootlegging. For example, in 1946 the per capita movie ticket purchasing rate for the average person was 34 tickets a year. In 2004, this average rate had dropped to only five tickets per person per year, in response mainly to competition from television.^[6] Another often ignored factor is population growth.^[7] The 1910 Census in the United States, for example, had less than 100 million people while the 2010 Census is expected to have more than three times that at over 300 million. The measure of popularity for a movie can also be normalized for the size of the population at the time, as well as the various factors listed above.

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".^[8] Since inflation adjusted sales figures are therefore not widely publicized by the film industry, inflation adjusted sales rankings and ticket sales comparisons across the last 100 years are difficult to compile.

Highest-grossing films by year

This is a list of the highest-grossing films by year.^[9][10][11] Gross numbers prior to 1977 include every release of the film. Clicking on a year will direct you to that year in film.

Highest-grossing film series

Highest worldwide openings

This list includes those films which have held the record for worldwide openings.^[13]

Biggest opening day gross (US and Canada)

This is a list of the highest-grossing movies on opening day (US and Canada), before inflation.^[14]

Highest-grossing films

This list includes those films which have held the record for highest grossing film, before inflation.^[15] Years represent the point of establishing the box office record, not the year of release.

See also

• Lists of box office number-one films

References

Worldwide highest-grossing films before inflation

Further reading

• Open Wide: How Hollywood Box Office Became a National Obsession. Miramax. September 22, 2004isbn=978-1401352004. p. 448. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help)

External links