All Time Top Ticket Selling Movies

movie ticketStar Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) is now the number one movie when it comes to North America box office grosses.  The box office success of Star Wars 7 was incredible.  But, when you look at the all-time North America ticket sales leaders…..Star Wars: The Force Awakens has not even cracked the Top 10.

So with Star Wars: The Force Awakens now being listed as the biggest box office hit of all-time….we figured it would be interesting to look at the top ticket selling movies of all-time.  The following table shows all the movies in our database that sold more than 40 million tickets in North America.  If you compare our table to Box Office Mojo’s Adjusted For Inflation Leaders you will see some differences.  Box Office Mojo is awesome when looking at movies from 1982 to today.  Easily the best source on the internet.  Movies made before 1980 are not the strength of Box Office Mojo…as they often use box office rentals versus box office grosses.

We did some massive updates on this page today.   The good news is we now have more information on each of these blockbusters.  The bad news is our database is not letting us include our estimated ticket sells in the table….so we had to create a second table with those ticket numbers.   So if you sort the first table by adjusted domestic gross….it will rank the top box office movies from #1 Gone With The Wind to #275 The Aristocats.  To see the estimated ticket sell numbers you have to go to the second table.

Star-Wars-vs-Avatar

All Time Top Ticket Selling Movies Can Be Sorted 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort All Time Top Ticket Selling movies by movie title and movie trailers
  • Sort All Time Top Ticket Selling movies by the stars of the movie
  • Sort All Time Top Ticket Selling movies by how much they earned in adjusted domestic box office (in millions)
  • Sort All Time Top Ticket Selling movies by estimated tickets sold (in millions)
  • Sort All Time Top Ticket Selling movies by critic and audience reviews
  • Sort All Time Top Ticket Selling movies by Oscar nominations and Oscar wins
  • Sort All Time Top Ticket Selling movie by UMR Score…..UMR Score combines box office, reviews and awards
I know when to update this page….when ever a current movie reaches the $350.00 domestic mark that means it has reached the mighty 40 million tickets sold mark.
 
By request we also have produced a Top 250 Worldwide Box Office Movie List.
Steve Lensman’s Top 100 Ticket Selling Movies…Lots of Great Posters in this video.
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150 thoughts on “All Time Top Ticket Selling Movies”

  1. Hello Cogerson, and WoC (of course) thank you for considering my request for ticket sales; you will see, the french site I sent you last time is quite well done but you have to be careful :

    1) sometimes the titles of the films that interest us are in French version retranslated in english (exemple : the young lions (with Brando) is called “le bal des damnés” in french and because this website is in french and have been traduced (automatically i suppose) in English you’ll find the title “the ball of the cursed” which is in fact “the young lions” but the release date is mentioned and the cover too so it will help us easily to identify the movie.

    2)The admissions in France are sometimes separated into 2 categories: “France” and “Paris” because they wants so show how many people in the capital went to theaters… To have the total number of tickets sold it is only necessary to check the column France; tickets sold in Paris are included in the “France” total !

    3)The information on the number of tickets sold depends on pages of the stars; for example the page of Peter Cushing is less well documented than that of Harrison Ford and there is more information on the entries of Star Wars in European countries on the Ford page that Cushing … And this is the case for the most pages; you have to look at all the admissions of all the films on the pages of all the actors because a film can have more or less information according to the page of the actor on which it appears !! Same thing for the pages about actresses, directors and producers ….

    I hope my explanation is good… I’m french too so i do what i can in English ! Hope it helps !! If you got a problem with some french words you still have my email 😉

    And finally, i have found another interesting page from the British Film Institute who lists the 100 biggest movies in Great Britain in tickets sold … You’ll see some astonishing numbers of admissions of great movies you have already listed on UMR !!
    http://old.bfi.org.uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/complete.php

    Reply

    1. Hey Max….thankfully I noticed your name….when you include a link in your comment…it sends it to the “approval required” section of comments……there were 245 comments waiting for approval….only one made it through….this one.

      So you are from France as well…..we have some pretty loyal readers/commenters from there….glad you are commenting as well. Your English is awesome.

      Information like this…makes me realize that WoC and myself will have to come up with a plan to get these figures included on our website.

      Love the link to the Top Great Britain Box Office Leaders….fun fun list. Thanks for sharing it…..and thanks for all of this great feedback.

      Reply

      1. Hello again WoC and Cogerson, I am glad that you like this information and that you plan to use it soon; the best would be to finish the yearly reviews at least until the end of the 80s in order to have a complete list of films released in the USA from this period (1930-1990). Then it would take each film individually and see its tickets sales or gross overseas ! Hard work in perspective but essential because it does not exist anywhere else and only you can do it! 😉

        I focus mainly on the 1930-1990 period for two reasons :

        1) I prefer the cinema before … From an artistic point of view and nostalgic, although I’m only 27 years old, I was educated with classics of the golden age of Hollywood and old vhs of the 80s!

        2) Box office Mojo exhaustively records all films since 1990 with their domestic and foreign gross; it is therefore not very useful to work on the period from 1990 to today (in terms of research on box office figures); I stop at 1990 and not at 1979 or 1980 like some people because even if from the 80s, the gross were published instead of rentals, it is still a little incomplete and sometimes some films do not have information on foreign income ; ex : Platoon has worked well in Europe and BOM lists only his gross usa, same for excalibur (1981) and many many others movies from the 80’s who have worked well overseas.
        From 1990 on the other hand, all the information is available, it is only necessary to classify them …

        In my opinion, (and that’s what I want more than anything since I’m interested in box office figures and I’m not the only one, believe me … lol;) ) what should be done, once you have arrived at the yearly reviews of 1990, it would be a special page that would list all the movies from 1930 to 1990 (those in your yearly reviews lists, i mean the movies released in the usa) classified according to their ticket sales in the world !
        Believe me, it will be a hit !!
        What’s your opinion about that ??

        I am also making a list of the films that were released in the Usa between 1930 and 1990 which made more than 5 million tickets sold in Europe, once I finished I will send it to you or publish it in comment!
        In the coming days I will also send another comment on this page and I will put a link to another website in French and I will explain to you how you can use it to have access to information on tickets sold for old movies instantly … You and WoC will like it;)
        Do you prefer that I send you this on this page or I write you an email for that?

        Reply

  2. Cogerson

    As warned, here is the list of top ticket-selling b/w movies. Obviously, if I screwed up on which movies were in color and b/w, I screwed up, but I think I am accurate about this

    1—–The Birth of a Nation (1915)
    2—–The Big Parade (1925)
    3—–Ben-Hur (1926)
    4—–The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
    5—–The Kid (1921)
    6—–The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
    7—–Going My Way (1944)
    8—–Mrs. Miniver (1942)
    9—–From Here to Eternity (1953)
    10—San Francisco (1936)

    Reply

    1. Hey John. Looks good to me. One pre-1920 movie…..then 3 in the 1920s…..only one in the 1930s, 4 in the 1940s and one in the 1950s. Not surprised that the 1940s had so many…..as it was the height of the movies. Good feedback. I am now convinced this is JohnHoF15…..which is John UMR Hall of Fame inductee of 2015. Glad to see you again.

      Reply

  3. Cogerson

    I really wonderful list and thanks for all the hard work to post this.

    what is impressive is how it reflects all eras. I will probably plow through this list to ferret out the top ticket-selling movies of the 1920’s, 1930’s, etc. And I think I will try to get a list of just the top ten b/w movies. Might be interesting.

    One small question–for The Big Parade (1925), who is Alan Parker? This movie starred John Gilbert and Renee Adoree. I don’t blame you young folks for not being that familiar with the actors of the silent era.

    Reply

    1. Hey John
      1. Is this the John of UMR Hall of Fame Class of 2015?
      2. If yes….glad to see you on the page again…..if not…..still appreciate the comment John.
      3. Glad you like this page….it has quietly become one of most popular pages….actually in February it was our most viewed page….knocking our Marvel vs DVC movie page to second place.
      4. Not sure where I got Alan Parker as the star of the Big Parade…..but Gilbert and Adoree are now listed as the stars.
      Good feedback.

      Reply

      1. Cogerson

        “Is this the John of UMR Hall of Fame Class of 2015?”

        Heavens, no. I don’t think I would be allowed into any Hall of Fame even if only to sweep out the place. You must have me confused with someone else.

        Reply

  4. The power of WoC….this table now includes the estimated tickets sold…versus having them at the bottom of the page. Thank you WoC.

    Reply

    1. Hello ! Congratulations to WoC for the inclusion of the estimated ticket sold in the table !!
      You will do that also for all the yearly reviews or only on this particular page ??

      Thanks !

      Reply

      1. Cogerson resists. He has a good point that it is just too many columns.

        The thing I want him to include is the percentage of the US population these tickets represent at the time. One notable movie sold tickets to 154% of the population. Wow.

        Reply

        1. I will add your graph to this page…as well as The Black Panther which has joined this page after only 10 days of release. Thank you WoC.

          Reply

        1. Yes it is a very good idea to include the percentage in relation to the population, we would see how some films were successful in their time! …

          1) But I insist and I think that as far as the information of the box office is concerned, it will never have enough columns lol especially for the period 1930-1979 which is incomplete and for which I look for years the most information possible in particular in ticket sales! ….
          I imagine how busy you are, but once the yearly reviews are completed until 1980; it would be really good to make a global estimate of tickets sold or in $ adjusted for inflation for all those movies…
          And if dollars incomes are not available as it is often the case; you should add the entries in Europe that are available and there are many ticket sold figures available!! …Do you know that War and Peace 1955 is the biggest hit it Italy in ticket sold and that particular movie sold more than 20 million tickets in Europe ! And total Europe tickets sold are the same for Ulysses (1954) ; 20 000 leagues under the sea ; The Great Escape ; The Magnificient Seven … Do you know that From Here To Eternity has had more than 30 million tickets sold in Europe !! And there are a lot of similar cases that make everything change in the total ranking! it’s too important to be put aside…

          What do you think about it ?

          2)
          I also wanted to know how WoC makes its global estimates; for example for a 1962 film that brings in $ 10 million to the USA and $ 5 million abroad: in 1962 the ticket costs 70 cents so I guess it’s 10 + 5 = $ 15 million in total
          and 15 divided by 0.70 to have the number of entries that it multiplies then by the price of a current ticket … That’s right?
          Basically you suppose that the price of a ticket in the rest of the world is the same as that in the USA? That’s right ?

          So for example if I take a film of 1962 or any other year in the period 1930-1979 with a worldwide adjusted for inflation total and I want to know the number of tickets sold worldwide I take the total adjusted worldwide of this film and I divide it by the price of the current ticket …. I’m always right?

          Thanks !

          Reply

          1. And just another infos about Europe ticket sold :
            -Bridge on the river Kwai : 50 millions tickets sold
            -Doctor Zhivago : 64 million tickets sold
            … An absolute madness !!

            Nearly all the European available infos about tickets sold are available on this particluar website ; they got a page called “box office foreign actors” and “foreign actress boards”and also “box office foreign directors” ; On those pages, you can find all the US or international co-productions that you listed on UMR with the numbers of tickets sold overseas… It might interest you…
            http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://www.boxofficestory.com/france-1956-c22750159
            Look at the link I send you; everything is translated into English;) the pages that will interest you are in the left column, just go down a little and check, then you’ll see :
            “box office foreign actors” and “foreign actress boards”and also “box office foreign directors”

            Hope it helps !

          2. Hey Max…..your suggestion of looking more at the global ticket sells is a good one.

            “the ticket costs 70 cents so I guess it’s 10 + 5 = $ 15 million in total
            and 15 divided by 0.70 to have the number of entries that it multiplies then by the price of a current ticket”……that is how we do it…..it is not exact….but the average ticket price in USA and other parts of the world had to be close.

            I remember when we first started…we discussed worldwide grosses….I felt pretty confident nobody was interested in those stats…..I think it is safe to say….I got that one wrong….lol.

          3. Hey Max….I have saved this website for future research work….thanks for finding it and sharing it. It is greatly appreciated.

  5. Great job, like always !
    I just have a question about how you calculate the number of tickets sold …
    I prefer (and I’ve already said in other comments lol) compare movies from ticket sales so i often converted them by myself into ticket sold … The only problem is that when I take (for example among others) the total of Spartacus which is in your table: $ 412 300 000 and that I divide it by the price of a ticket of 2018 according to box office mojo : 9.18 $, I arrive at a total of 44 912 854 tickets sold vs 45 962 732 on your page ….
    There is always a slight difference between my calculation and yours …. Why? … Are you weighting or rounding up to …?

    Thanks !

    Reply

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