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. Steve’s epic Top 100 Ticket Selling movies has been added to this page. Our thoughts found on his channel. First of all….welcome back. Hope you enjoyed your mini-break. Secondly….Happy New Year. Thirdly epic video. Of the 100 movies listed I have seen 99 of them. My only miss is This Is The Army….which was a massive hit in the middle of World War 2. Poor Ronald Reagan the actor, he gets his massive hit and then has to serve in the military……and when comes back he is almost a forgotten actor….I wonder what became of him?….lol. Lots of favorites sprinkled throughout the video….but would say Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws, Avengers Endgame and The Dark Knight would make a good Top 5 for me. Voted up and shared

    Reply

    1. Happy New Year Bruce. Thanks for letting me borrow your film stats for this video. I thought it would make a fascinating change from my usual ratings videos. It was originally meant to be a Top 50 but there were too many great films to leave out and I expanded it to 100.

      Your 99 beats my 93, Flora has seen 52. I wouldn’t mind checking out This is the Army, I’m not much interested in The Bells of St. Mary’s or Going My Way, or Billy Jack for that matter. Thanks for the comment, vote and share, always appreciated.

      Reply

  2. Bruce, one of my upcoming videos is based on your ‘all time ticket sellers’ chart.

    It’s one of your most fascinating movie pages, I’m only disappointed that the stats are domestic and not worldwide. I know how hard it is to get these kind of stats for old movies.

    Question: Domestic as in US/Canada or just US? I remember in the past Variety’s yearly domestic box office rentals were for US & Canada.

    Reply

    1. Hey Steve….your upcoming video sounds like a good idea. This page has become our most popular page….the leader of the pack in 2018 and 2019. Earlier in the year, George, wanted me to delete this page….because it did not match the list he liked. I was able to resist that suggestion.

      We do have a Top 250 Adjusted Worldwide Page….not nearly as popular as this one….and it lacks many older box office hits…but I still think it is a solid page. https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/all-time-top-worldwide-box-office-grosses-movies/

      The domestic totals are USA/Canada numbers…at least for the older actors…pretty sure The Numbers adds the USA/Canada numbers. My boycott on Box Office Mojo continues…actually at this point I only go there when The Numbers has a confusing number. Good stuff as always.

      Reply

      1. Thanks for replying! I wasn’t sure whether to put ‘USA only’ or ‘USA/Canada’ on the video.

        Btw I can’t find this chart on the index page, am I blind? How are people discovering it? I found it by searching the forum comments.

        Reply

        1. Hmmm….so this is not in the index?……I will fix that. Makes the fact this page is so popular even more impressive….when we do not even include in on our own site index.

          Reply

          1. Hey Steve. Now on the index…under UMR research…third column of links. Once again…thanks for the headsup on that.

    1. Hey George….I think we will continue to tweak and update this page versus deleting it. I appreciate the attached lists….but I will stick with our UMR estimates….which is what any list like this is….thanks for the feedback.

      Reply

      1. Hey Taylor…..no current plans to delete this page. This has actually been our most popular page the last two years (2017 & 2018)…and unless a miracle would happen (Marvel vs DC would need to get a quarter of million views in 30 some days) it will be number one in 2019 too. Good to hear from you.

        Reply

  4. i missed 17 of 279. mostly 2019 and the 1920s. thanks to UMR i saw about 50 for the first time in last 2 years. YEA Cogerson..

    Reply

    1. Hey bob cox….glad our list has helped expand your movies watched when looking at the biggest box office hits of all time. Thanks for the feedback.

      Reply

  5. Even though it will take Avengers:End Game until Monday to actually crack this list…we went ahead and added that movie to this page. It has already qualified for our Adjusted Worldwide Box Office page.

    Reply

      1. Through Wednesday’s box office we have Avengers:End Game selling 72.8 million tickets in North America, 184.6 million tickets overseas for a worldwide total of 257.4 million tickets……or over a quarter of a billion tickets. We update that number every afternoon the grosses come out. Thanks for stopping by.

        Reply

          1. Hey George…..I like the Box Office Mojo list….but I do not always agree with it. One of the main issues is they change their average ticket price pretty often….we here at UMR wait for the official yearly total. Also they (Box Office Mojo) ignore many classic box office movies. So in the end…you end up with some differences when comparing the two massive lists. Thanks for the visit and the comment….both are greatly appreciated.

        2. But in this case, they are right. All I am saying is that the ticket numbers are right here.
          https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_lifetime_gross_adjusted/?adjust_gross_to=2019&ref_=bo_tt_ar
          But for Avatar…
          The figure of 97,309,600 is an average value based on Box Office Mojo estimating the number of admissions by dividing gross revenue by the cost of an average ticket. However in the case of Avatar, ticket sales are a combination of the three formats of standard projection, 3D and IMAX used during its theatrical run. Since box office admissions are not tracked, the total number of admissions cannot therefore be accurately determined simply by dividing the gross receipts by the average ticket price. Box Office Mojo revised estimate – by taking account of the ticket prices for all three different formats – is that Avatar sold 75 million tickets by April 21, 2010, by which time it had grossed $745 million of its $760 million total.[5] An extra $15 million of sales would be equivalent to about 2 million more ticket sales, at the average 2D ticket price of $7.50 in 2009; using this revision, Avatar probably sold closer to 77,000,000 tickets.[6]

          Reply

          1. Hey George….I will have to check out The Avatar numbers again. With Box Office Mojo recent changes….I have been boycotting that website…..so I will have to see what the new box office websites have in their rankings. I see your point about the 3D tickets…..those additional costs are reflected in the average for the year….which is the number we use. Back then…..price tickets could fluctuate between the high costs of 3D to the low cost of matinees.

            Box Office Mojo is great with current movies…but there list severely under values hits from previous decades….they either ignore the movie totally….or they use the Varitey box office rental number…see Clint Eastwood’s page….oh wait….you know have to pay to see Clint’s Box Office Mojo page….the boycott continues.

            I will see if I can check out the Avatar numbers later tonight. Good stuff.

          1. Hey George….I have looked at the numbers again….and while I like their list…..I do not agree with it 100%. Tweaked the Titanic number a slight bit….but feel very confident in our number. Is it different from others? Yes….but I stand by my calculations. Sadly Box Office Mojo’s list has disappeared….and I refuse to pay for it. I do appreciate your comments and feedback.

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