List of highest-grossing films


s 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 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 is the most represented franchise in the nominal earnings chart with five films. 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, 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, 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

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, 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. 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 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 grossYear
11Avatar$2,923,710,7082009
21Avengers: Endgame$2,797,501,3282019
33Avatar: The Way of Water$2,334,484,6202022
41Titanic$1997
55Ne Zha 2$2025
63Star Wars: The Force Awakens$2,068,223,6242015
74Avengers: Infinity War$2,048,359,7542018
86Spider-Man: No Way Home$1,922,598,8002021
99Zootopia 2 †$1,746,467,6512025
108Inside Out 2$1,698,863,8162024
113Jurassic World$1,671,537,4442015
127$1,656,943,3942019
133$1,518,815,5152012
144Furious 7$1,515,341,3992015
1511Top Gun: Maverick$1,495,696,2922022
1610Frozen 2$1,450,026,9332019
1714Barbie$1,447,138,4212023
185Avengers: Age of Ultron$1,402,809,5402015
1919Avatar: Fire and Ash †$1,382,027,8572025
2015The Super Mario Bros. Movie$1,360,879,7352023
219Black Panther$1,347,280,8382018
223Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2$2011
2320Deadpool & Wolverine$1,338,073,6452024
249Star Wars: The Last Jedi$1,332,539,8892017
2512Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom$2018
265Frozen$2013
2710Beauty and the Beast$1,263,521,1262017
2815Incredibles 2$1,242,805,3592018
2911$1,238,764,7652017
305Iron Man 3$1,214,811,2522013
3110Minions$1,159,444,6622015
3212Captain America: Civil War$1,153,337,4962016
3320Aquaman$1,148,528,3932018
342$1,147,997,4072003
3524Spider-Man: Far From Home$1,132,679,6852019
3623Captain Marvel$1,128,274,7942019
375Transformers: Dark of the Moon$1,123,794,0792011
387Skyfall$1,108,594,1372012
3910Transformers: Age of Extinction$1,104,054,0722014
407$1,081,169,8252012
4131Joker$1,074,458,2822019
4232Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker$1,074,144,2482019
4330Toy Story 4$1,073,394,5932019
444Toy Story 3$1,066,970,8112010
453Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest$1,066,179,7472006
4644Moana 2$1,059,242,1642024
4720Rogue One: A Star Wars Story$2016
4834Aladdin$1,050,693,9532019
492Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace$1,046,515,4091999
506Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides$1,045,713,8022011