Highest Grossing Movies Adjusted for Inflation

Traditionally, war films, musicals and historical dramas have been the most popular genres and Gone With the Wind held the record of highest-grossing film for 25 years but doesn’t even make it into the top fifty in the modern market. But purchasing power varies widely over the time period since Gone With the Wind was first released in 1939. But the true key to determining how revenues really compare is when you adjust them for inflation.

Highest-grossing films (Nominal)

First we will look at nominal gross box office revenues. That is the actual number of dollars (not adjusted for inflation) earned strictly in the box office. Modern films have an advantage because in addition to box office revenues there are home video sales, pay-per-view sales, and merchandising sales. These revenues can dwarf box office revenues such was the case with Pixar’s movie Cars which was only moderately successful in the theater grossing $461 million but it generated almost $10 Billion in merchandise sales. In addition, box office receipts are almost purely profit while merchandise has additional production and distribution costs.

Modern films also have an advantage in non-inflation adjusted terms because each dollar is worth less than the dollars in an earlier era. Remember back when Gone With the Wind was released you could buy an ounce of gold for $35! Now you can barely get a movie for two with popcorn and drinks for that. Also with modern world wide distribution and the increase in world population, modern films have a wider audience than early films, so we would expect to see more modern films in the list than early films. So it is doubly impressive when we see early films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs still on the list.

Highest Grossing Movies by Year

Due to release schedules—especially in the case of films released towards the end of the year—and different release patterns across the world, many films can do business in two or more calendar years; therefore the grosses are not limited to just the year of release. Grosses are not limited to original theatrical runs either, with many older films (especially Disney) often being re-released periodically so the figures represent all the business a film has done since its original release. This will skew the inflation adjusted total since not all of the revenue was actually earned during the initial year.  Since 1967, at least one film every year has generated $100 million in gross revenue at the box office, and from 2008 each year has succeeded in producing a billion dollar grossing film.

In an effort to look at just first run revenues and avoid the skewing, this table includes only  first run revenues and the inflation adjustment. Also note that during the first run Gone with the Wind actually lost money because it cost so much to produce. Eventually it went on to be one of the top grossing films but only after it went into world-wide distribution.

Inflation Adjusted First Run Movie Gross

Top Movies Based on Inflation Adjusted World Wide Gross

Note: World Wide Gross revenues are estimates and can vary based on the source of the estimates so this list may not match other lists exactly. Also note that the top three movies were released several times over a long period so the inflation adjustment will be skewed higher because some of the later dollars will actually be worth less than the original dollars on an inflation adjusted basis.

Image courtesy of Digital Art / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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