Our last Power of Film featured the top 25 highest-grossing movies of 2008, and our latest feature takes a step back to look at the top 25 All-Time Box Office Winners -- but with a twist. Most all-time movie lists you'll see have the latest figures from the latest releases, but our list adjusts ticket prices for inflation, so you can get a true look at what the biggest movies of all-time really are. Putting the success of movies past into context for the modern era, you'll only find two releases from the past 15 years on this list -- the rest will make you remember and realize how big those hits of yesteryear really were. Below you'll find the top 25 films, the year they were made, a vintage poster, their adjusted box office gross, and a piece of trivia you may or may not have known.
Check out our previous Power of Film features: the Top 25 Box-Office Films of 2008 and the MOVIEMeter™ Top 25 Films of 2008
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Adjusted Gross: $513 million
Trivia: Paul Newman and Robert Redford really leaped off the cliff; however, they landed on a ledge with a mattress roughly six feet below. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $532 million
Trivia: Holds the record for reaching the $500 million mark the fastest, after 45 days. The former record holder was Titanic (98 days). More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $539 million
Trivia: At the time, the climactic battle in outer space featured more optical effects in one scene than had ever been previously committed to film. More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $541 million
Trivia: Produced at a then-staggering cost of $13 million, the film went on to become Paramount's biggest-grossing movie to that time. For years it ranked second only to Gone with the Wind. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $575 million
Trivia: None of the older characters has their first name identified in the film; only the younger characters of Benjamin, Elaine and Carl do, increasing the sense of a generation gap. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $583 million
Trivia: Principal photography lasted over 170 days, the longest shoot of any of the "Star Wars" movies. More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $602 million
Trivia: In compliance with the tradition of the stage version, the same actor, Hans Conried, performed the roles of both Mr. Darling and Captain Hook. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $583 million
Trivia: This was the only film personally produced by Walt Disney to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $643 million
Trivia: Though it is partially based on a story called "Happy, the Whistling Dog", this is considered the first fully-original Disney animated story. More trivia |
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Adjusted Gross: $653 million
Trivia: This film grossed more than every other film David Lean had directed put together; the soundtrack sold more than 600,000 copies during the film's initial release. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $661 million
Trivia: First Universal Studios film to win the Best Picture Oscar since All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $670 million
Trivia: Early publicity for the film was a teaser campaign featuring just the "no ghosts" logo. As the campaign built, the Ectomobile was also driven around the streets of Manhattan. More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $678 million
Trivia: At $200 million, the movie cost more than the Titanic itself. The cost to construct the ship in 1910-1912 was £1.5 million, equivalent to $7.5 million at the time and about $120 to $150 million in 1997 dollars. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $726 million
Trivia: The original teaser trailer, which consisted of nothing but images of the white-faced demon quickly flashing in and out of darkness, was banned in many theaters, as it was deemed "too frightening". More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $781 million
Trivia: The 19th animated feature in Disney animated features canon, and the last to be personally supervised by Walt Disney himself. More trivia |
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Adjusted Gross: $865 million
Trivia: Almost 10% of the surprisingly low $10.5 million budget went on the alien creature puppets and related animatonics. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $889 million
Trivia: When it was initially released in the summer 1975, over 67 million Americans went to see the movie, making it the first summer "blockbuster". More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $942 million
Trivia: Someone counted all black spots in the movie, frame-by-frame, and reached the total of 6,469,952. More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $953 million
Trivia: Among kids who auditioned to play one of the Von Trapp children were Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Veronica Cartwright, Patty Duke and the four eldest Osmond Brothers. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $1.01 billion
Trivia: The animators secretly modeled elements of the Sorcerer in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" on their boss, Walt Disney. The raised eyebrow was regarded as a dead giveaway. More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $1.11 billion
Trivia: The first animated film to win an Academy Award in a competitive category (song and score). Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs won an honorary Oscar two years earlier. More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $1.13 billion
Trivia: Prior to the release of this movie, the greatest profit 20th Century Fox had every made in one year was $37,000,000. In 1977, because of the film, their year-end profit was $79,000,000. More trivia |
Adjusted Gross: $1.16 billion
Trivia: Unusually for the time, Disney insisted on children providing the voices for the animals when they were young, instead of using adults mimicking youngsters. More trivia
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Adjusted Gross: $1.39 billion
Trivia: Held the title of highest grossing film ever for exactly one year, after which it was knocked out of the top spot by Gone with the Wind. Moretrivia |
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Adjusted Gross: $1.75 billion
Trivia: One month after the book was published, David O. Selznick purchased the movie rights from Margaret Mitchell for an unprecedented $50,000. At the time it was the highest sum that had ever been paid for an author's first novel. Realizing he had underpaid Mitchell, Selznick gave her an additional $50,000 as a bonus when he dissolved Selznick-International Pictures in 1942. More trivia
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