The Web 4 People Of World

The following list ranks the most popular 21 movies of all time after adjusting for inflation, population and per capita ticket purchasing trends:

 
1. The Sound of Music…………….1965……….$1,678 million
2. The Exocist………………………1973……….$1,283 million
3. Star Wars………………………..1977……….$1,237 million
4. E.T.……………………………….1982……….$1,202 million
5. Jaws………………………………1975……….$1,171 million
6. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs…1937…..$1,066 million
7. Doctor Zhivago…………………1965……….$1,153 million
8. Gone With The Wind…………..1939……….$1,093 million
9. Mary Poppins……………………1964……….$1,065 million
10. The Jungle Book………………1967……….$1,019 million
11. The Graduate………………… 1967……….$1,002 million
12. The Sting………………………1973……….$1,001 million
13. 101 Dalmations………………1959………..$973 million
14. Bambi………………………….1942………..$946 million
15. Titanic…………………………1997………..$902 million
16. Return of the Jedi…………1983………….$885 million
17. Raiders of the Lost Arc…..1981………….$778 million
18. Ben Hur…………………….1959………….$697 million
19. The Empire Strikes Back….1980………..$690 million
20. Jurassic Park………………1993………….$660 million
21. The Ten Commandments.1956………….$547 million

 
I was surprised the Gone With The Wind ranked so low in as much as it’s usually #1 in charts corrected for inflation. The reason is that none of them take into consideration the effects of population and per capita ticket purchasing rates.

 
Two weeks after posting the list above I realized that there was something wrong with it. Because of the rapid release of movies on VHS and DVD, for the last 25 years popular films have not been re-released in theaters. This puts them at a disadvantage when comparing them to older films whose box office gross includes the receipts for multiple re-releases. For example, Gone With The Wind was re-released 6 times and the box office gross of $200 million accredited to it includes money from all these releases. It’s modern counterpart, Titanic, only had a single release from which to earn money.

To treat all the movies fairly, I’ve decided to put together a second list comparing their box office grosses from only their initial release. The following grosses are corrected for inflation, population, and per capita ticket purchasing trends:

 
1. The Sound of Music………1965……….$1,678 million…
2. The Exocist………………..1973……….$1,283 million…
3. E.T.…………………………1982……….$1,202 million…
4. Jaws………………………..1975……….$1,678 million…
5. Dr. Zhivago……………….1965……….$1,153 million…
6. Mary Poppins……………..1964……….$1,065 million…
7. The Graduate……………. 1975……….$1,002 million…
8. The Sting………………….1973……….$1,001 million…
9. 101 Dalmations…………..1959……….$973 million…
10. The Jungle Book………..1967……….$934 million…
11. Titanic…………………….1997……….$902 million…
12. Star Wars…………………1977……….$869 million…
13. Raiders of the Lost Arc…1981……….$778 million…
14. Bambi…………………….1942………..$709 million…
15. Ben Hur…………………..1959……….$697 million…
16. Return of the Jedi……….1983……….$668 million…
17. Jurassic Park……………..1993……….$660 million…
18. Forest Gump……………..1994……….$579 million…
19. The Lion King…………….1994……….$579 million…
20. The 10 Commandments,.1956……….$547 million…
21. The Empire Strikes Back.1980……….$451 million…
22. Shrek II…………………..2004………..$436 million…
23. Gone With The Wind,……1939……….$416 million…

 
What, you may ask, happened to Gone With The Wind? Why did it move so far down the list? The answer is simply that while it was a great hit it only took in $32 million from its initial release. (This figure has been confirmed by three different and independent sources.) The bulk of its total box office gross came from the six times it has been re-released. Counting these would be as unfair to the new movies as it would be to count their DVD and VHS sales and not count them for GWTW. Similarly, this is why the three original Star Wars movies dropped so low: much of their total take was from their re-releases.

Data for this page was obtained from www.imdb.com, www.the-numbers.com, www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/5924/facts.htm, www.natoonline.org, www.worldwideboxoffice.com, and the text Movie Time by Gene Brown.

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