List of highest-grossing films

thumb|upright=1|right|[[Gone with the Wind (film)|Gone with the Wind held the record for the highest-grossing film for twenty-five years and, when adjusted for inflation, has earned more than any other film|alt=A screencap of the title card from the trailer of Gone with the Wind.]]

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 (ranked by both the nominal and real value of their revenue), 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 of the 21st century. There is strong interest in the superhero genre, with eleven films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe featuring among the nominal top-earners. The most successful superhero film, Avengers: Endgame, is also the second-highest-grossing film 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. Beyond the superhero genre, Star Wars, with five films, is the most represented franchise in the nominal earnings chart. Although the nominal earnings chart is dominated by films adapted from pre-existing properties and sequels, it is headed by Avatar, which is an original work. 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 and its sequel, Zootopia and its sequel, and The Lion King (along with its computer-animated remake), as well as its Pixar division, of which Inside Out 2, Incredibles 2, and Toy Story 3 and 4 have been the best performers. Beyond Disney and Pixar animation, China's Ne Zha 2 (the highest-grossing animated film), and the Despicable Me and Shrek series have met with the most success.

While inflation has eroded 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 franchise, James Bond films are still being released periodically; both 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

alt=A portrait of a middle aged man with greying hair.|right|thumb|upright|Three of the four highest-grossing films, including Avatar at the top, were written and directed by [[James Cameron.]]

With a worldwide box-office gross of over $2.9 billion, Avatar 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 also substantially add to a film's earnings and, as of 2010, a film often earned the equivalent of as much as 20–25% of its theatrical box office for two television runs, on top of pay-per-view revenues; Titanic earned a further $55 million from the NBC and HBO broadcast rights, The Lion King (1994) earned over $2 billion in box-office and home video sales, 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. Seven films in total have grossed in excess of $2 billion worldwide, with Avatar ranked in the top position. All of the films have had a theatrical run (including re-releases) 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.

:

{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders sticky-header col4right col5center col6center"

|+Highest-grossing films

! Rank

! Peak

! class="unsortable" | Title

! class="unsortable" | Worldwide gross

! Year

! class="unsortable" |

|-

! scope="row" | Avatar

| $2,923,710,708

| 2009

! scope="row" | Avengers: Endgame

| $2,797,501,328

| data-sort-value="2019-04" | 2019

! scope="row" | Avatar: The Way of Water

| $2,334,484,620

| data-sort-value="2022-12" | 2022

! scope="row" | Titanic

| $

| 1997

! scope="row" | Ne Zha 2

| $

| data-sort-value="2025-01" | 2025

! scope="row" | Star Wars: The Force Awakens

| $2,068,223,624

| data-sort-value="2015-12" | 2015

! scope="row" | Avengers: Infinity War

| $2,048,359,754

| data-sort-value="2018-04" | 2018

! scope="row" | Spider-Man: No Way Home

| $1,922,598,800

| data-sort-value="2021-12" | 2021

! scope="row" style="background:#b6fcb6;" | Zootopia 2 †

| $1,866,647,950

| data-sort-value="2025-11" | 2025

|10

! scope="row" | Inside Out 2

| $1,698,863,816

| data-sort-value="2024-06" | 2024

|11

! scope="row" | Jurassic World

| $1,671,537,444

| data-sort-value="2015-06" | 2015

|12

! scope="row" |

| $1,656,943,394

| data-sort-value="2019-07" | 2019

|14

! scope="row" | Furious 7

| $1,515,341,399

| data-sort-value="2015-03" | 2015

|15

|11

! scope="row" style="background:#b6fcb6;" | Top Gun: Maverick †

| $1,503,260,455

| data-sort-value="2022-05" | 2022

|16

! scope="row" | Avatar: Fire and Ash

| $1,485,999,890

| data-sort-value="2025-12" | 2025

|17

|10

! scope="row" | Frozen 2

| $1,450,026,933

| data-sort-value="2019-11" | 2019

|18

|14

! scope="row" | Barbie

| $1,447,138,421

| data-sort-value="2023-07" | 2023

|19

! scope="row" | Avengers: Age of Ultron

| $1,402,809,540

| data-sort-value="2015-04" | 2015

|21

! scope="row" | Black Panther

| $1,347,280,838

| data-sort-value="2018-02" | 2018

|22

! scope="row" | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2

| $

| data-sort-value="2011-07" | 2011

|23

|20

! scope="row" | Deadpool & Wolverine

| $1,338,073,645

| data-sort-value="2024-07" | 2024

|24

! scope="row" | Star Wars: The Last Jedi

| $1,332,539,889

| data-sort-value="2017-12" | 2017

|25

|12

! scope="row" | Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

| $

| data-sort-value="2018-06" | 2018

|27

|10

! scope="row" | Beauty and the Beast

| $1,263,521,126

| data-sort-value="2017-03" | 2017

|28

|15

! scope="row" | Incredibles 2

| $1,242,805,359

| data-sort-value="2018-06" | 2018

|31

|10

! scope="row" | Minions

| $1,159,444,662

| data-sort-value="2015-06" | 2015

|33

|20

! scope="row" | Aquaman

| $1,148,528,393

| data-sort-value="2018-12" | 2018

|35

|24

! scope="row" | Spider-Man: Far From Home

| $1,132,679,685

| data-sort-value="2019-06" | 2019

|37

! scope="row" | Transformers: Dark of the Moon

| $1,123,794,079

| data-sort-value="2011-06" | 2011

|39

|10

! scope="row" | Transformers: Age of Extinction

| $1,104,054,072

| data-sort-value="2014-06" | 2014

|40

! scope="row" |

| $1,081,169,825

| data-sort-value="2012-07" | 2012

|41

|31

! scope="row" | Joker

| $1,074,458,282

| data-sort-value="2019-10" | 2019

|45

! scope="row" | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

| $1,066,179,747

| 2006

|46

|44

! scope="row" | Moana 2

| $1,059,242,164

| data-sort-value="2024-11" | 2024

|47

|20

! scope="row" | Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

| $

| data-sort-value="2016-12" | 2016

|48

|34

! scope="row" | Aladdin

| $1,050,693,953

| data-sort-value="2019-05" | 2019

| Following a limited re-release in 2020, Box Office Mojo incorrectly added $7 million to the original release total. By the end of 2021, Box Office Mojo had corrected the original release total, but added the $7 million figure to both the 2012 and 2017 reissue totals, incorrectly increasing the lifetime total by $14 million to $2.202 billion. At the beginning of 2023, Box Office Mojo corrected the total for the 2017 reissue, bringing the lifetime gross down to $2.195 billion, but retained the error in the 2012 reissue. | The Numbers does not log individual releases, but had the lifetime total recorded as $2.186 billion in September 2014 (roughly equating to $1.843 billion for the original release and $343.6 million for the 3D reissue). A couple of weeks later, The Numbers increased the lifetime gross to $2.208 billion, without explanation.

Highest-grossing films adjusted for inflation

thumb|right|Inflation rates around the world vary, complicating inflation adjustment|alt=A map of the world with different regions colored in correlating to inflation rates

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. Social and economic factors such as population change and the growth of international markets also have an effect 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. 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. so there is little incentive to switch to a more robust analysis from a marketing or even newsworthy point of view. 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.

! scope="col" | Rank

! scope="col" | Title

! scope="col" data-sort-type="currency" |

! scope="col" | Year

| 1

! scope="row" | Gone with the Wind

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 1939

| 2

! scope="row" | Avatar

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 2009

| 3

! scope="row" | Titanic

| style="text-align:right;" | <span style="display:none">$2,516,000,000</span>$

| style="text-align:center;" | 1997

| 4

! scope="row" | Star Wars

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 1977

| 5

! scope="row" | Avengers: Endgame

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 2019

| 6

! scope="row" | The Sound of Music

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 1965

| 7

! scope="row" | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 1982

| 8

! scope="row" | The Ten Commandments

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 1956

| 9

! scope="row" | Doctor Zhivago

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 1965

| 10

! scope="row" | Jaws

| style="text-align:right;" | $

| style="text-align:center;" | 1975

High-grossing films by year