Every Monday morning, the various movie studios tout how well their many new releases did over the weekend. It has gotten to the point where discussing the weekend grosses of different films has become a common conversation even among people that aren't interested in the movie business, and the numbers keep getting bigger and bigger. Titanic made $600 million in the United States alone. The Phantom Menace made $28 million on a single Wednesday. Spider-Man grossed $100 million in its opening weekend. The numbers are rising faster than the home run count of a steroid-addled baseball player.
But what does all this really mean? Sure Spider-Man made $100 million, but that number is a lot easier to reach when the tickets cost $7.50. Sure Gone With the Wind made only $200 million over its entire run, but that was put together with nickels and dimes, not $10 bills. In an attempt to give every movie a level playing field in the box office race, these are the top 20 grossing movies of all time, adjusted for inflation.
Film Adjusted Gross Original Gross Year
- Gone With the Wind $1,181,960,729 $198,655,278 1939
- Star Wars $1,041,999,630 $460,998,007 1977
- The Sound of Music $833,129,950 $158,671,368 1965
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial $829,847,861 $434,974,579 1982
- The Ten Commandments $766,350,000 $65,500,000 1956
- Titanic $755,830,302 $600,788,188 1997
- Jaws $749,261,086 $260,000,000 1975
- Doctor Zhivago $726,192,415 $111,721,910 1965
- The Exorcist $646,826,717 $232,671,011 1967
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs $637,650,000 $184,925,486 1937
- 101 Dalmatians $584,515,918 $144,880,014 1961
- The Empire Strikes Back $573,915,031 $290,475,067 1980
- Ben-Hur $573,300,000 $74,000,000 1959
- Return of the Jedi $550,247,550 $309,306,177 1983
- The Sting $521,485,713 $156,000,000 1973
- Raiders of the Lost Ark $515,629,852 $242,374,454 1981
- Jurassic Park $504,552,535 $357,067,947 1993
- The Graduate $500,592,652 $104,397,100 1967
- The Phantom Menace $496,430,421 $431,088,297 1999
- Fantasia $485,804,348 $76,400,000 1940
It goes without saying that the numbers aren't reflective of the relative merits of each film. This list will be updated if there are any new additions.
Numbers are from www.boxofficemojo.com |
