The Top Grossing Movies in the Last 30 Years

People have varying opinions on what constitutes a good movie. And while it’s nearly impossible to identify a film’s intrinsic quality—at least, in an objective way—one thing that can be measured is the revenue that a movie generates.

With this in mind, here’s a look at the top grossing movies worldwide since the early 1990s, using data from Box Office Mojo. These figures include box office revenue as of May 2021, but don’t consider other revenue sources like merchandise sales.

The Full List: Top 50 Highest Grossing Movies

Coming in at number one on the list is Avatar—since its release in 2009, this Oscar-winning hit has grossed $2.84 billion in box office sales.

Rank	Title	Lifetime Gross	Year
1	Avatar	$2,847,246,203	2009
2	Avengers: Endgame	$2,797,501,328	2019
3	Titanic	$2,201,647,264	1997
4	Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens	$2,068,455,677	2015
5	Avengers: Infinity War	$2,048,359,754	2018
6	Jurassic World	$1,670,516,444	2015
7	The Lion King	$1,657,870,986	2019
8	The Avengers	$1,518,815,515	2012
9	Furious 7	$1,515,255,622	2015
10	Frozen II	$1,450,026,933	2019
11	Avengers: Age of Ultron	$1,402,809,540	2015
12	Black Panther	$1,347,597,973	2018
13	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2	$1,342,321,665	2011
14	Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi	$1,332,698,830	2017
15	Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom	$1,310,464,680	2018
16	Frozen	$1,281,835,246	2013
17	Beauty and the Beast	$1,264,434,525	2017
18	Incredibles 2	$1,243,089,244	2018
19	The Fate of the Furious	$1,236,005,118	2017
20	Iron Man 3	$1,214,811,252	2013
21	Minions	$1,159,444,662	2015
22	Captain America: Civil War	$1,153,337,496	2016
23	Aquaman	$1,148,485,886	2018
24	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	$1,142,630,912	2003
25	Spider-Man: Far from Home	$1,131,927,996	2019
26	Captain Marvel	$1,128,462,972	2019
27	Transformers: Dark of the Moon	$1,123,794,079	2011
28	Skyfall	$1,108,569,499	2012
29	Transformers: Age of Extinction	$1,104,054,072	2014
30	The Lion King	$1,083,720,877	1994
31	The Dark Knight Rises	$1,081,142,612	2012
32	Joker	$1,074,251,311	2019
33	Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker	$1,074,148,486	2019
34	Toy Story 4	$1,073,394,593	2019
35	Toy Story 3	$1,066,970,811	2010
36	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest	$1,066,179,747	2006
37	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	$1,056,057,720	2016
38	Aladdin	$1,050,693,953	2019
39	Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides	$1,045,713,802	2011
40	Despicable Me 3	$1,034,800,131	2017
41	Jurassic Park	$1,033,928,303	1993
42	Finding Dory	$1,028,570,942	2016
43	Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace	$1,027,082,707	1999
44	Alice in Wonderland	$1,025,468,216	2010
45	Zootopia	$1,023,792,558	2016
46	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey	$1,017,003,568	2012
47	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone	$1,006,968,171	2001
48	The Dark Knight	$1,005,973,645	2008
49	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1	$977,043,483	2010
50	Despicable Me 2	$970,766,005	2013

Avatar cost $237 million to produce, meaning it’s turned a considerable profit over the years. But Avatar’s success was fairly unsurprising, considering the stellar track record of the film’s writer and director, James Cameron.

Cameron also directed Titanic, which broke records back in 1998 when it became the first film to break $1 billion in worldwide box office revenue. In fact, Titanic was the top grossing movie for years, until Avatar stole its title in 2009.

Interestingly, in 2019, Avatar was temporarily dethroned by Avengers: Endgame, which held the number one spot for a couple of years. But thanks to a recent theatrical reissue in China (which alone grossed an estimated $21.1 million) Avatar has since reclaimed its title as the top grossing movie worldwide.

Avengers: Endgame remains a close second, with $2.80 billion in gross revenue. It’s one of 23 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and besides Endgame, eight other movies from the MCU also appear on the top grossing movies list:

Avengers: Infinity War – #5
The Avengers – #8
Avengers: Age of Ultron – #11
Black Panther – #12
Iron Man 3 – #20
Captain America: Civil War – #22
Spider-man: Far From Home – #25
Captain Marvel – #26

Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment back in 2009. And while Marvel honored its existing contracts with other distributors, Disney owns the lion’s share of Marvel film rights and has earned over $18.2 billion as a result.

The Top Distributors

Marvel movies aren’t the only Disney productions to make the list. In fact, 26 of the 50 top grossing films were originally released by Disney, making it the top distributor.

Rank	Film Studio	# of Top Grossing Titles
1	Disney	26
2	Universal Studios	8
3	Warner Bros	8
4	20th Century Fox	2
5	Paramount	2
6	New Line Cinema	1
7	Dreamworks	1
8	Sony	2

Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures tie for second. Warner Bros. was the domestic distributor of some pop culture classics like Harry Potter, The Dark Knight, and The Hobbit, while Universal Pictures released Fast and Furious, Despicable Me, and Jurassic Park.

It’s worth mentioning that several of the distributors on the list are labels of larger studios. For instance, Warner Bros. is the parent company of New Line Cinema, Dreamworks is a branch of Universal, and 20th Century Fox was recently bought by Disney and rebranded to 20th Century Studios.

The COVID-19 Impact

The entertainment business was significantly impacted by the global pandemic, like many other industries across the globe. In 2020, global box office revenue totaled $12.4 billion—a 70% dip from 2019.

Despite recent setbacks, industry professionals are feeling confident that things will recover post-pandemic. In a recent interview with The Deadline, Chairman of STXfilms Adam Fogelson said, “People like leaving their homes and having fun, emotional, communal experiences together…I don’t think that will change.”

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