100 Top Grossing Movies Of All Time

“Frozen” was one of the biggest box office smashes of 2013, raking in an eye-popping $1.4 billion worldwide. Kristin Bell lends her voice to the lead character, Princess Anna, who is joined by a motley crew on an adventure to save her frozen kingdom from her older sister Elsa (Idina Menzel). “Frozen” has a 90% Freshness rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

The first film in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy grossed the least of the three, though it also was distributed to the fewest number of theaters. The movie, which follows the hobbit Frodo as he sets out on his journey to save Middle Earth, won four Oscars. The film holds a 91% rating from critics and a 95% score from audience members on Rotten Tomatoes.

With an estimated production budget of less than $5 million in 1977 dollars, “Smokey and the Bandit” sped to the top of the box office, grossing more than $126 million in 1977, or $435.3 million in 2019 dollars. The movie follows Burt Reynolds’ character Bandit as he goes on a mission to pick up a truckload of beer in Texarkana, Texas, and deliver it to Atlanta in 28 hours.

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” launched the highly successful franchise in 2001, with a domestic gross of $437.5 million. Despite the financial success of this first film in the series, there are five Harry Potter movies with higher Rotten Tomatoes critics ratings. “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” has an 81% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

Michael J. Fox stars as Marty McFly — a teenager who finds himself transported 30 years into the past — in this comedy from director Robert Zemeckis. The movie that launched the Back to the Future franchise was the top grossing film of 1985. It currently has a rating of 96% from critics and 94% from audience members on Rotten Tomatoes. “Back to the Future” has been included in the National Film Registry.

“Iron Man 3” was the top-grossing film in 2013. The Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes says the movie is boosted by “its charismatic lead” and “some impressive action sequences.” The movie has a Freshness rating of 79% among Rotten Tomatoes critics, and a rating of 78% among audiences.

The first of four Hunger Games was the third-highest grossing movie domestically when it was released in 2012. The beginning of the story of Katniss Everdeen, who volunteers to replace her sister in a televised competition in which teenagers fight to death, has been well-received by both critics and audiences. The movie holds a score of 84% among critics and 81% among viewers.

Tim Burton’s “Batman” — starring Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Jack Nicholson as Jack Napier/Joker — was a relatively early superhero blockbuster. The movie topped the domestic box office in 1989, grossing over $50 million more than the second-highest grossing movie of the year, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

The comedy classic about a mischievous Faber College fraternity brought in slightly more than a quarter million dollars on its opening weekend in domestic theaters. It would eventually gross $141.6 million at the domestic box office, or $454.7 million in 2019 dollars. The film was an early success for director John Landis, who would follow it up with “The Blues Brothers” (1980) and “An American Werewolf in London” (1981).

“Independence Day” was released the weekend of its namesake and went on to become the top-grossing film of 1996. Cigar-chomping fighter pilot Will Smith, computer genius Jeff Goldblum, and crop-duster plane jockey Randy Quaid help save the Earth from aliens bent on conquest. The flick spent a total of 78 weeks in theaters, selling an estimated 69.3 million tickets.