There has been a lot of talk lately about the biggest box office movies of all time due to the insane amounts of money that The Dark Knight has been raking in at the box office. The film will reach $500 million domestically, which will make it the #2 all time money making movie just behind Titanic.
However to me, when talking in the context of “all time” box office success, the dollar amounts don’t really mean all that much to me because the cost of tickets changes drastically over time. Imagine if there was a time when making a basket in basketball only counted as 1 point instead of 2. If you tried to compare between a modern player and one from the “1 point per basket” era in terms of who was the best at making baskets, looking at points would be irrelevant. You would instead look at the number of baskets each player made, not the number of points.
Thus, when looking at “all time” box office success and trying to compare films from radically different eras, it’s pointless to compare dollar amounts. The best gauge is instead to look at tickets sold. How many people bought tickets to see that movie?
So even though “The Dark Knight” is now #2 all time in the MONEY department… how does it stand up all time against other movies if it didn’t have the advantage of higher inflation ticket prices? Would it still be #2? Would it drop down to #5 or #6? Actually, if you measured movies all time by how many people actually went to the movie theater and bought tickets to see it… then “The Dark Knight” would currently only sit at #35 all time. In other words, if all the movies ever made all sold their tickets for the exact same price, The Dark Knight would be the #35 all time box office movie.
So here is your list of the all time box office champions:
| MOVIE TITLE | TICKETS | In 2008 $ |
| #1 Gone With The Wind | 202,044,600 | $1,430,476,000 |
| #2 Star Wars | 178,119,600 | $1,261,086,700 |
| #3 The Sound Of Music | 142,415,400 | $1,008,300,900 |
| #4 E.T. | 141,854,300 | $1,004,328,700 |
| #5 The Ten Commandments | 131,000,000 | $927,480,000 |
| #6 Titanic | 128,345,900 | $908,688,900 |
| #7 Jaws | 128,078,800 | $906,798,000 |
| #8 Doctor Zhivago | 124,135,500 | $878,879,000 |
| #9 The Exorcist | 110,568,700 | $782,826,200 |
| #10 Snow White | 109,000,000 | $771,720,000 |
| #11 101 Dalmatians | 99,917,300 | $707,414,100 |
| #12 Empire Strikes Back | 98,180,600 | $695,118,900 |
| #13 Ben-Hur | 98,000,000 | $693,840,000 |
| #14 Return Of The Jedi | 94,059,400 | $665,940,600 |
| #15 The Sting | 89,142,900 | $631,131,400 |
| #16 Raider Of The Lost Ark | 88,141,900 | $624,044,300 |
| #17 Jurassic Park | 86,205,800 | $610,337,400 |
| #18 The Graduate | 85,571,400 | $605,845,500 |
| #19 The Phantom Menace | 84,825,800 | $600,566,700 |
| #20 Fantasia | 83,043,500 | $587,947,800 |
