As of 2006,"Gone With The Wind" is the top-grossing film of all time, based on inflation-adjusted figures, according to new research compiled by Ginca.
David O. Selznick's Oscar-winning Civil War drama, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, racks up an adjusted U.S. gross of $1.26 billion, beating out "Star Wars" at $1.11 billion. The figures were based on original U.S. grosses, not the number of admissions or worldwide box-office receipts.
Top 10
The top 10 list includes: "The Sound of Music," "E.T.," "The Ten Commandments," "Titanic," "Jaws," "Doctor Zhivago," "The Exorcist," and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Mostly Hollywood
Screen Digest has compiled a list of the top 100 grossing films. Not surprisingly, most of them are Hollywood productions. The highest-ranked not exclusively American production is 1965s Thunderball, United Artists US/UK co-production in the James Bond franchise, which ranks at number 26.
There is quite a lot of interesting data over time. You notice patterns, genres going up and down according to consumer tastes and studio tastes, said David Hancock, Screen Digests senior analyst.
Animation
Animation was popular in the 1930s and 1940s but was out of fashion in the 1970s and 1980s. Now in the 1990s and 2000s were seeing a resurgence in animation, Hancock said. Among recent animated hits, "Shrek 2" comes in at number 30 with an adjusted U.S. gross of $441.23 million. That film was beaten by older animated works such as "101 Dalmations" (11th), "Fantasia" (20th Fox), "The Lion King" (24th), and "The Jungle Book" (27th).
Dramas and Horror
Dramatic films dominated the top 100, but horror films boasted the highest revenue per title.
Spielberg, King of Box-Office
Spielberg is the only director to have two movies of the top 10, and many more among the top 100.
Of the studios, Twentieth Century-Fox showed the most success, with 17 titles in the top 100. Paramount and Disney each had 15, Universal had 11, Warner Bros had 10, and Sony/Columbia had 9. Among newer studios, New Line had three entries with its "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and DreamWorks also scored three with "Shrek," "Shrek 2," and "Saving Private Ryan."
"Shrek 2" also marks the highest entry for the current decade, followed by such recent hits as "Spider-Man" at number 33 and "The Passion Of The Christ" at number 54.
Hancock pointed out that the relative success of older films doesnt signal doom for todays industry. Obviously the way cinema is consumed has changed, he said. Now we have a lot more media to contend with, such as video/DVD and television."
