Highest-grossing Films Adjusted For Inflation
Due to the long-term effects of inflation, notably the significant increase of movie theater ticket prices, the list unadjusted for inflation gives far more weight to later films. The unadjusted list, while commonly found in the press, is therefore largely meaningless for comparing films widely separated in time, as many films from earlier eras will never appear on a modern unadjusted list, despite achieving higher commercial success when adjusted for price increases. To compensate for the devaluation of the currency, some charts make adjustments for inflation, but not even this practise fully addresses the issue since ticket prices and inflation do not necessarily parallel one another. For example, in 1970 tickets cost $1.55 or about $6.68 in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars; by 1980, prices had risen to about $2.69, a drop to $5.50 in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars. Ticket prices have also risen at different rates of inflation around the world, further complicating the process of adjusting worldwide grosses.
Another complication is release in multiple formats for which different ticket prices are charged. One notable example of this phenomenon is Avatar, which was also released in 3D and IMAX: almost two-thirds of tickets for that film were for 3D showings with an average price of $10, and about one-sixth were for IMAX showings with an average price over $14.50, compared to a 2010 average price of $7.61 for 2D films. Social and economic factors such as population change and the growth of international markets also impact on the number of people purchasing theater tickets, along with audience demographics where some films sell a much higher proportion of discounted children's tickets, or perform better in big cities where tickets cost more.
The measuring system for gauging a film's success is based on unadjusted grosses, mainly because historically this is the way it has always been done due to the practices of the film industry: the box office receipts are compiled by theaters and relayed to the distributor, which in turn releases them to the media. Converting to a more representative system that counts ticket sales rather than gross is also fraught with problems due to the fact that the only data available for older films are the sale totals. As the motion picture industry is highly oriented towards marketing currently released films, unadjusted figures are always used in marketing campaigns so that new blockbuster films can much more easily achieve a high sales ranking, and thus be promoted as a "top film of all time", so there is little incentive to switch to a more economically robust system from a marketing or even newsworthy point of view.
Despite the inherent difficulties in accounting for inflation, several attempts have been made. Estimates can result in different amounts since the price index used to adjust the grosses and the exchange rates used to convert between currencies all impact upon the calculations, which can have an effect on the ultimate rankings of an inflation adjusted list. Gone with the Wind—first released in 1939—is generally considered to be the most successful film, with Guinness World Records estimating its adjusted global gross at $3.3 billion. Estimates for Gone with the Wind's adjusted gross have varied substantially: its owner, Turner Entertainment, also estimated its adjusted earnings at $3.3 billion in 2007, a few years earlier than the Guinness estimate; other estimates fall either side of this amount, with one putting its gross just under $3 billion in 2010, while Guinness provides an alternative figure of about $5.3 billion in its online edition. Which film is Gone with the Wind's nearest rival depends on the set of figures used: Guinness have Avatar in second place with nearly $2.8 billion, while other estimates see Titanic in the runner-up spot with first-run worldwide earnings of almost $2.9 billion at 2010 prices. Including the Guinness figures, estimates for Star Wars (1977) range from $2.2–2.7 billion at 2010/11 price levels, while E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial has earned approximately $1.9–2.2 billion, and the $1.9–2.0 billion figure for Jaws is corroborated by The Economist. Guinness estimates that seven films have earned in excess of $2 billion at 2011 prices.
| Rank | Title | Worldwide gross (constant $) |
Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gone with the Wind | $3,301,400,000 | 1939 |
| 2 | Avatar | $2,782,300,000 | 2009 |
| 3 | Star Wars | $2,710,800,000 | 1977 |
| 4 | Titanic | $2,413,800,000T | 1997 |
| 5 | The Sound of Music | $2,269,800,000 | 1965 |
| 6 | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | $2,216,800,000 | 1982 |
| 7 | The Ten Commandments | $2,098,600,000 | 1956 |
| 8 | Doctor Zhivago | $1,988,600,000 | 1965 |
| 9 | Jaws | $1,945,100,000 | 1975 |
| 10 | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | $1,746,100,000 | 1937 |
TThe figure for Titanic is based on the gross from its 1997 theatrical release, and does not incorporate earnings from the 2012 reissue, which has since added approximately $343 million to the total.
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