# List of highest-grossing films
A list of highest-grossing films ranks theatrical motion pictures by their cumulative worldwide box-office revenue, almost always in nominal U.S. dollars and without adjustment for inflation or ticket-price changes. The rankings are compiled from studio disclosures and industry trackers such as [Box Office Mojo](https://www.edgepedia.org/box-office-mojo) and The Numbers.[1](https://nutanica.com/Highest-grossing_films) As of the Box Office Mojo Top Lifetime Grosses chart dated October 20, 2026, *Avengers: Endgame* (2019) leads with a worldwide lifetime gross of $2,941,317,763, ahead of *Avatar* (2009) at $2,923,710,708 and *Spider-Man: Brand New Day* (2026) at $2,516,264,412.[2](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Basis of ranking | Cumulative worldwide theatrical gross in nominal U.S. dollars; no inflation or ticket-price adjustment[1](https://nutanica.com/Highest-grossing_films) |
| Current leader | *Avengers: Endgame* (2019), $2,941,317,763 worldwide lifetime gross[2](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0) |
| First $1 billion film | *Titanic* (1997), the first film to earn $1 billion worldwide[3](https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/highest-grossing-films-all-time) |
| Inflation-adjusted leader | *Gone with the Wind* (1939), estimated at $3.44 billion in adjusted dollars[4](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-box-office-film-gross-inflation-adjusted) |
| Highest foreign share in the top 10 | *Ne Zha 2* (2025): 99.0% of its $2,270,700,370 gross came from foreign markets[2](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0) |
| Gross is not profit | Subtracting a reported budget from worldwide gross does not produce a reliable profit figure[5](https://outbragger.com/lists/100-highest-grossing-films-worldwide/) |
## What the list measures
The standard metric is worldwide ticket revenue: Box Office Mojo separates receipts in the United States and Canada, described as "domestic," from foreign-market revenue, and ranks films by the sum.[6](https://nutanica.com/List_of_highest-grossing_films_of_2026) All figures are nominal dollars, so a film released when average ticket prices were high benefits relative to an older film that sold more tickets.[1](https://nutanica.com/Highest-grossing_films)
Yearly and all-time charts measure different things. The Numbers defines its annual chart as money earned during the calendar year, which can include films first released the previous year; its all-time cumulative chart instead tracks each film's total gross over its whole theatrical life.[6](https://nutanica.com/List_of_highest-grossing_films_of_2026) These figures are receipts, not profits or admissions, and no inflation adjustment is applied in the standard lists.[5](https://outbragger.com/lists/100-highest-grossing-films-worldwide/)
## Current leaders
The top of the Box Office Mojo all-time worldwide chart as of October 20, 2026 reads as follows.[2](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0)
| Rank | Title | Worldwide gross | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | *Avengers: Endgame* | $2,941,317,763 | 2019 |
| 2 | *Avatar* | $2,923,710,708 | 2009 |
| 3 | *Spider-Man: Brand New Day* | $2,516,264,412 | 2026 |
| 4 | *Avatar: The Way of Water* | $2,334,484,620 | 2022 |
| 5 | *Ne Zha 2* | $2,270,700,370 | 2025 |
| 6 | *Titanic* | $2,264,812,968 | 1997 |
| 7 | *Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens* | $2,071,310,218 | 2015 |
The 2026 releases rank unusually high: *Spider-Man: Brand New Day* stands third all-time, *The Odyssey* eleventh at $1,788,792,045, *Toy Story 5* thirty-sixth at $1,148,881,610, *Michael* sixtieth at $1,028,703,388, and *The Super Mario Galaxy Movie* sixty-fourth at $1,012,633,975.[2](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0) The Associated Press reported *Spider-Man: Brand New Day* at $2.34 billion and as the third-highest-grossing film ever in early September 2026; by the October 20 chart its total had grown and it remained third.[7](https://apnews.com/article/a61fcf4ebe57b31dd83bf14d10a0321b) • [2](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0) • [14](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt22084616/)
Franchise films dominate the list. Nearly all entries in the worldwide top ranks are series entries, and the foreign share of the gross is large: *Ne Zha 2* earned 99.0% of its total outside the United States and Canada, and *Spider-Man: No Way Home* 57.6%.[2](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0)
## Record holders over time
The all-time lead has changed hands several times in the nominal-dollar era. [James Cameron](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-cameron)'s *[Titanic](https://www.edgepedia.org/titanic-1997-film)* (1997) became the first film to earn $1 billion worldwide, and *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial* had crossed $600 million worldwide in 1982 as the previous benchmark.[3](https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/highest-grossing-films-all-time) Cameron's *Avatar* (2009) later became the highest-grossing film at the global box office; [Guinness World Records](https://www.edgepedia.org/guinness-world-records) cites its worldwide lifetime gross as $2,923,706,026 according to The Numbers as of 14 March 2023.[8](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-box-office-film-gross) In July 2019 Disney's *Avengers: Endgame* officially surpassed *Avatar*, several months after setting opening-weekend records.[9](https://www.axios.com/2019/07/22/avengers-surpasses-avatar-highest-grossing-film) *Avatar* reclaimed the title in 2021 thanks to a re-release in China.[3](https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/highest-grossing-films-all-time) The current Box Office Mojo chart again places *Avengers: Endgame* narrowly ahead of *Avatar*, a gap of about $17.6 million between the two totals.[2](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0)
Re-releases matter to these totals: China's 2021 re-release of *Avatar* was enough to move it back to first place, and re-release grosses occur outside the yearly windows used in per-year charts.[3](https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/highest-grossing-films-all-time)
## Inflation adjustment
Because cinema ticket prices rise over time, films released recently earn far more in absolute dollars than comparably attended films from earlier decades. Guinness World Records maintains a separate inflation-adjusted record in which *Gone with the Wind* (USA 1939) comes first with a total gross of $3.44 billion, worked out by estimating the total number of tickets sold and multiplying by the average U.S. ticket price for the current year; that film took just $393.4 million in unadjusted dollars.[4](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-box-office-film-gross-inflation-adjusted) In domestic inflation-adjusted comparisons, *Titanic* ranks behind *Gone with the Wind*, *Star Wars*, *The Sound of Music*, and *E.T.*[10](https://time.com/49440/box-office-reports/)
The adjustment is imprecise. IMDb's help page for Box Office Mojo states that adjusting for ticket-price inflation is not an exact science and should be used only for a general idea of what a movie might have made in a different year, since factors such as population change, competition with television, home entertainment, and streaming all affect comparisons.[11](https://help.imdb.com/article/imdbpro/industry-research/box-office-mojo-by-imdbpro-faq/GCWTV4MQKGWRAUAP)
## Gross is not profit
A high place on the list does not mean a film was profitable. Subtracting a reported budget from worldwide gross does not produce a reliable profit figure, because theaters keep a large share of ticket revenue and marketing, distribution, and participation costs are not public.[5](https://outbragger.com/lists/100-highest-grossing-films-worldwide/) Studio-level figures support this: S&P Global Market Intelligence projected that Disney's 2025 slate, featuring *Zootopia 2* and *Lilo & Stitch* with a combined $2.91 billion in worldwide gross, would net $1.34 billion in profit on $1.98 billion of revenue against $639.8 million in costs for that film, while it projected [Amazon MGM Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/amazon-mgm-studios) would miss breaking even on its eight 2025 releases, losing $5.3 million.[12](https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/2026/05/major-studios-shave-film-slate-costs-by-2-8-to-help-boost-profit-by-36-8) Research on the top 100 highest-grossing films of 2001 to 2022 found that budgets correlate with revenue but not always with profitability, and that theatrical release size did not consistently relate to profit.[13](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17510694.2024.2357787)
## References
1. [Highest-grossing films, Nutanica](https://nutanica.com/Highest-grossing_films)
2. [Top Lifetime Grosses, Box Office Mojo](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/ww_top_lifetime_gross/?offset=0)
3. [The highest-grossing films of all time, Axios](https://www.axios.com/2022/12/16/highest-grossing-films-all-time)
4. [Highest-grossing film at the global box office (inflation-adjusted), Guinness World Records](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-box-office-film-gross-inflation-adjusted)
5. [The 100 highest-grossing films worldwide, OutBragger](https://outbragger.com/lists/100-highest-grossing-films-worldwide/)
6. [List of highest-grossing films of 2026, Nutanica](https://nutanica.com/List_of_highest-grossing_films_of_2026)
7. [Here's how the summer box office blew up and Hollywood got its mojo back, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/a61fcf4ebe57b31dd83bf14d10a0321b)
8. [Highest-grossing film at the global box office, Guinness World Records](https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/highest-box-office-film-gross)
9. ["Avengers" surpasses "Avatar" as highest-grossing film of all time, Axios](https://www.axios.com/2019/07/22/avengers-surpasses-avatar-highest-grossing-film)
10. [5 Things We've Learned in 5 Years of Box Office Reports, Time](https://time.com/49440/box-office-reports/)
11. [Box Office Mojo by IMDbPro FAQ, IMDb Help](https://help.imdb.com/article/imdbpro/industry-research/box-office-mojo-by-imdbpro-faq/GCWTV4MQKGWRAUAP)
12. [Major studios shave film slate costs by 2.8% to help boost profit by 36.8%, S&P Global Market Intelligence](https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/2026/05/major-studios-shave-film-slate-costs-by-2-8-to-help-boost-profit-by-36-8)
13. [Metrics of film success: defining the 21st-century blockbuster in the USA, Creative Industries Journal](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17510694.2024.2357787)
14. [boxofficemojo.com](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt22084616/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › National and regional cinemas by year › Box-office and grossing lists › Highest-grossing films worldwide*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license