Filmmaking has always been a business first and foremost, and it’s easy to see why. While there are plenty of movies that fail at the box office, a successful film can make studios and investors hundreds of millions of dollars. And with the price of movie tickets ever rising, that only means that companies are bringing in more and more money when they bankroll a movie that winds up becoming a hit.
But there are hit movies, and then there are movies that actually change the course of film history. It’s a pretty rare occurrence for any film to make more than a billion and a half dollars, and that is typically a bigger box office draw than any filmmaker would even dream of. However, it does happen (even if it’s only happened nine times in box office history). This is every movie that has made more than $1.5 billion at the box office.
Fast & Furious 7 - $1.51B
Although the original Fast and the Furious film was a pretty huge success when it was initially released, no one could have imagined quite what a juggernaut the entire Fast and Furious franchise would become over time.
Which is actually why it’s pretty wild that the seventh film in the franchise is not only a success, it’s actually the most successful film in the franchise, as well as being one of the most successful films in the world. Passing the $1.5 billion mark is a distinction that almost no movie has ever achieved, but Furious Seven is one of the few to achieve it.
The Avengers - $1.51B
It comes as absolutely no surprise that there are a few Marvel movies who have managed to make more than a billion and a half dollars at the box office, and it’s even less surprising that the first Avengers film managed to do it either.
Most MCU movies have been enormous successes in their own right, so when the entire squad of Avengers finally teamed up for their first big-screen outing the success of each individual hero seemed to be compounded by their union on screen. It doesn’t hurt that The Avengers was also a pretty awesome movie too.
The Lion King - $1.65B
Disney has been making an absolute killing by making live or “live” adaptations of their biggest animated hits, but no live-action adaptation of a Disney animated film has done better than The Lion King. The original Lion King was a monster hit too, making almost a billion dollars, but the remake has made the studio even more money.
Obviously the live-action adaptation wasn’t truly live, but it would appear that the hyper-realistic CGI production was way more than worth the cost to Disney, and it’s safe to assume that their live-action film production schedule won’t be slowing down anytime soon.
Jurassic World - $1.67B
A lot of cinephiles love to complain about how unoriginal filmmaking has become in the past few years, but to be honest it’s hard to argue with the box office results of films that are based on previous hits. Obviously another movie that is following in this trend of revamped previous hits that have gone on to become even bigger hits is Jurassic World.
The original Jurassic Park is now a permanent classic, but this bigger and better iteration of this tried and true movie franchise has become the biggest Jurassic hit yet.
Avengers: Infinity War - $2.04B
No one could have possibly predicted how big the MCU was going to become when the very first Iron Man was released, but once that ball got rolling there was truly nothing stopping it. The individual films are great, and they do great, but nothing can really compete with these heroes once they join forces in one massive movie extravaganza.
The Avengers was the first installment into these hero-paloozas, but Infinity War took things to a whole other level. As an adaptation of one of Marvel’s biggest storylines, it’s no surprise that this movie was a runaway success.
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens - $2.06B
Ever since the first installment into this seemingly never-ending franchise, Star Wars has been a force to be reckoned with. But it says a lot about the endurance of this fictional world that The Force Awakens, the first entry into the latest Star Wars trilogy, is also the most financially successful movie in the series so far.
After the prequel trilogy was met with such mixed reviews, hope for the franchise was waning. However, once Disney bought the rights and handed the newest film over to JJ Abrams, it seemed like things were really on an upswing for Star Wars.
Titanic - $2.18B
When it comes to movies becoming massive hits, it really does seem like true smash hits are hard to foresee or predict. But few successes seem more serendipitous than the former top of the box office charts, Titanic. Originally the entire world expected that Titanic, much like the ship it was named after, was going to sink like a rock and take it’s massive budget down with it.
But of course, history has proven that prediction about as wrong as anything can be. This classic romance on a massive blockbuster budget broke every record in existence when it came out, and it was the top-grossing movie of all time for quite a while.
Avatar - $2.78B
The world really has to give credit where credit is due. In a film landscape where franchises and movie adaptations seem to rule, James Cameron managed to make not one, but two original films that wound up hitting the very top of the box office record charts.
Avatar was and still is an astounding achievement in computer graphics and special effects, and this lush, imaginative world was captivating enough that Avatar wound up overtaking Titanic’s long-standing record as the highest-grossing movie of all time. But obviously, Avatar didn’t manage to hold on to that top spot forever.
Avengers: Endgame - $2.79B
It’s certainly an incredible accomplishment for any movie to top the box office charts and gross over two billion dollars, but the success of Avengers: Endgame was something that took almost a dozen years and over a dozen prior MCU movies to work towards.
The MCU has been raking in the cash from the moment it hit the big screen, and since Endgame was clearly meant to be their piece de resistance, it’s no surprise that it’s their highest-grossing movie in the franchise. And more importantly, it’s currently the highest-grossing movie of all time.
