152 thoughts on “All Time Top Ticket Selling Movies”

1. I’m probably asking too much, but could you make a list with worldwide adjusted earnings? I know I can go to hollywood person’s page and see their biggest adjusted worldwide films, but I’d like to see a page with all of the biggest blockbusters ever made.

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   1. Hey Jordie…I can see what we can do on this request. My biggest fear is the list would be so incomplete that it would not really being meaningful. MGM.RKO, Warner Brothers would be well represented but studios like Paramount, Universal and Columbia might get shut out…..as they do not have any classic ledgers to rely on. Anyway….I will see what our database pulls out.

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2. Hello Bruce,

   Can you give me the number of tickets sold for Shangai Express the number one fo DIetrich but it was in 1932 a time where it cost nothing;
   It was a huge succes in France but we have nothing to day for the 30 apart some receipt for some theathers movies;
   Sorry to ask you but if you can, than you so much
   Bye
   Pierre

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   1. Hey Pierre…we have Shanghai Express selling 31.6 million tickets in North America….we have nothing for worldwide grosses….it was a pretty massive hit here….one of the Top 10 of the year. Hope that helps. 🙂

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3. Could you make a list of the best sellig home videos? Films which sold the most vhs, dvd and blu ray combined

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   1. Hey Jordie….that is a great request…..I will have to see what I can come up with….could be a challenge…but challenged accepted. 🙂

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4. Shame shame on us. This page has quietly become one of our most popular pages….YET….we have done nothing with this page since December 2015. Well no more….just added in 10 more movies that cracked the 40 million tickets sold club…..and we are efforting making this page dynamic….so when movies like The Last Jedi arrive….the table will automatically update.

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   1. Good effort. This list needs to be adjusted to ‘tickets sold per 1000 head of population’, though, as the US population used to be so much smaller. That would be the only fair way of measuring this. (Safe to say that Gone with the Wind will never be caught.)

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      1. Hey Timothy…..thanks for stopping by and commenting. I agree that the population was smaller back then….but……weekly movie attendance was much higher in the 1930s and 1940s. Back in 1946 an average of 95 million tickets were sold per week….today that averages about 20 million per week. So in our minds…..actual tickets sold is the way to go.

         As for Gone With The Wind…..I agree 100%….that movie is never going to get caught. I imagine cracking the Top 5 is also going to be very unlikely.

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         1. Even though hollywood sold 95 million tickets per week, it doesn’t make up for the over 200 million tickets sold for gone with the wind, while the u.s. population in ’39 was ‘only’ 131 million. It sold millions of tickets due to re-releases. I don’t see re-releases as an indicator to success. I think people who watch a re-release mostly watch it for the second time. I see it more as an indicator to how classic the film is and how much it stands the test of time. I would say that the first release is the best indicator to success. And yes, there were way more people who attended the cinema before the television, but I REALLY think, since I know what makes a film a blockbuster, that a film back then wouldn’t become a blockbuster as much as a film nowadays won’t become a blockbuster. And yes, there are way more cinemas nowadays, and no offence, but I think your list doesn’t include the change in amount of cinemas either. I think that a list based on something like ‘tickets sold per 1000 head of population’ would do the job. I’m not saying you need to change this list or make another. I’m saying that it would give a better indication of success.

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            1. Hey Jordie…..I understand your point….but with the exception of a few movies like Gone With The Wind and the Classic Disney Movies……this way pretty accurately shows how popular a movie really was. The tickets per 1000 would be a good stat…..but for most of the readers it would not really help understand how a movie did…..that is why we use the adjusted gross…..so you can compare a movie today to yesterday.

               We have been creating pages on movies like Gone With The Wind…that show the breakdown by years…if you look at those pages you will see how the rentals grew over the years versus it happening in one year.

               Good suggestions…..they are greatly appreciated.

      2. I agree, Timothy. I did numbers on this a while ago, and for Gone With the Wind, if I recall, it showed that it sold almost 2 tickets to every resident of the USA at the time. Impressive. Times have changed, distribtuion models have changed, social entertainment options have greatly expanded. Nothing will ever get close to that again.

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5. You report up above that the cost of a movie ticket in December 2015, when Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens came out, a movie ticket cost $8.43. Where did you see your movies? I am more curious than sarcastic. I never saw a movie theater back then, even before 6:00 PM or first showings of the day reduced price tickets, that low. I have seen most of my movies back then in Queens, New York – but during the entire course of the year 2015, I’ve also seen films in states such as Florida, New Jersey, and California. So I ask you again. What theaters did you go to?

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   1. Hey Kenneth….the average ticket cost across the country for 2015 was $8.43. Here in good old Virginia….matinee prices are just over $5.00…actually $5.21. A regular ticket (after 6 pm) is about $8.50. Something called the XD Extreme Experience is $11.00 dollars and 3D movies run about $12.00 dollars a ticket. Granted this is in Va Beach, Virginia…but it is the a Top 40 population city in the United States…..when I go down to North Carolina the prices get even lower. So the answer is….anywhere besides New York City.

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      1. My beef with “Average Movie Prices” is that any movie released in “3D” is going to have a higher average movie price than one that isn’t. Logan is a good example where I would place the “Average” Movie price around $7.75 {Non-3D} whereas the latest “Thor” {3D} was probably closer to $9.50… Same with older “epic” pics like the “Ten Commandments”… I’ve been doing a lot of research myself, and in my research, I’m looking at around 48,000,000 tickets sold for the 1956 – 1961 release of that epic pic, and about the same for Ben-Hur. The Sound of Music, I am looking at around 85,000,000 tickets sold for the 1965 to 1969 original release at the box office. Avatar is probably closer to 85,000,000 tickets also considering it’s big “push” was 3D . I would place the amount of tickets sold much less than what is traditionally listed for “epic” and “roadshow” pics and all movies released in 3D. This would also include Gone With The Wind, Duel In The Sun, Best Years of our Lives, For Whom the Bell Tolls, etc…. Even some that were released in the early 40’s released in technicolor had 2x average to 3x average movie prices that weren’t epics or roadshows. My goal is create a list based on the amount of tickets sold / comparison to population as the merits of a big movie. Gone With the Wind ( 1939 to 1943 ) would rate about 50%… Pretty high figure… 60 million tickets sold with a population of 120 million. To achieve that today would be around 160 million tickets, and the “Force Awakens” by my estimate barely passed 100 million, though every movie site rates it higher because they base it on average movie price of all movies, not necessarily that particular movie.

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         1. Example: A lot of movie sites has Duel In the Sun selling around 70 million tickets, but my research comes nowhere close to this. I don’t have my list in front of me, it’s at the office, but the real number is about half that total with original box office release, and the two re-issues of 1954 and 1960 all combined. Duel in the Sun was selling for 75c matinee and around a $1.00 evening in 1947… Way above the “average” price of 40 something cents at the time, but films like “The Bells of St. Mary’s” probably did sell what is listed on most movie sites because it was never released as a “roadshow” with a higher than normal movie price. I hope this clarifies matters for those wanting a list of “actual” tickets sold.

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            1. Also, Roadshows and Epics of times gone by usually had a higher percentage back to the distributor than a regular movie, which brings the number of tickets sold even lower. Example, Duel in the Sun I estimate at this time was about a $20,000,000 dollar movie gross in it’s original release, and lets put an average ticket price of even 85 cents, we are looking at the amount of tickets sold in the vicinity of 24 million tickets. The return to the distributor was over 50% on a movie like this, but the Bells of St. Mary’s was less, estimating around 40 to 45% return to the distributor with smaller movie prices So, if we have a gross of around $18,000,000 and an average movie price of even 50cents, we have 36,000,000 tickets sold. That is 12,000,000 more than Duel In The Sun. I hope this even shows further clarification. 🙂 If anyone can dispute this, please show me, but from all my research over the past 12 years, this is the conclusion I’m coming up with.

            2. Our most recent update has Duel in the Sun around 50 million tickets sold.

         2. I agree, and statistics can be made to say anything. Average ticket price as reported by the National American Theater Owners group (NATO) seemed to be tge best available way to model and make somewhat fair comparisons given the currently available data. I will continue to look into ways to more accurately model it.

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         3. Hey Chris…..I agree 3D prices make the price go up….but matinee prices make the price go down….it is an average…which takes the high end and the low end. After years of research….I feel pretty confident our numbers are in the ball park….certainly not exact….as those numbers will never be known. But when you are looking at grosses on 100,000 movies it is hard to not use average ticket prices. Still…I appreciate reading your thoughts on this subject….you make good points…even if I do not agree with them 100%. Good luck with your collection.

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