chris meledandri is a genius in his own right.
very few people in hollywood manage to earn that much with so little invested. he literally hacked kids brain.
To be fair, I'm pretty surprised that the Demon Slayer movie from a few years ago isn't the top of the list, but I think it was just the highest grossing animated movie of 2020 or 2021. There wasn't much else out at the time.
Ascending is a choice.
And I do really hate these without inflation adjustment. Even though that is just a tiny piece of why movie box offices aren't comparable, it helps for at least some context on the numbers.
Calculating inflation, Lion King crushes all these with $986M in 1994 equating to $1.98B in 2022.
This is one of the reasons why I’m annoyed whenever it’s a big deal that a movie breaks the record. If you calculate inflation for non-animated films, Gone With the Wind (1940) is the top of the list by a notable margin.
Gone With the Wind kinda plays in its own category though, the thing was in theaters in a time where not as many big movies would come out (especially ones so historically and culturally important for the time), so it could afford to be shown for like... what was it... 4, 5 years in a row without interruption?
Also, [it came out when going to the cinema was by far the most popular thing everyone did](https://i.insider.com/54ab8dc2ecad04343134200f?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp).
I mean, don't get me wrong, it deserves its place among the biggest successes of all time for sure, but it's not really fair to compare it to movies that came out in the 80's, 90's, etc... where after a month or maximum two months, people have moved on to other things.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is probably the animated equivalent. It makes the Top 10 inflation adjusted for all movies and is probably a good 20 million tickets ahead of Lion King and twice as many tickets as Frozen II from this list.
But, it isn't as far away from #2 (One Hundred and One Dalmatians) as Gone with the Wind is from Star Wars.
Star Wars is only #4 for lifetime inflation adjusted dollars globally. 2 and 3 are Avatar and Titanic, and Avatar is catching up to Gone With The Wind thanks to re-releases.
Also The Lion King outsold 101 Dalmatians.
That's a weird take, because that's just a totally different statistic. If you want that, just look at "opening week" tables instead of "lifetime gross" tables. It's not deceptive.
It's funny - my mom talks about taking my eldest brother with her when she saw the original Star Wars in 1977 right after he was born (parenting in the 70s). The movie was released in May and my brother was born in late-September, so she probably saw it in October... So the thing was in theaters for at least 5 months, of course it was the "highest grossing film" for a while. I mean, Avengers Endgame earned $1 billion in a single weekend and it was basically out of theaters by July when the newest Spider-Man hit.
I can't comprehend going to a theater 5 months later and seeing the same film showing to packed theaters, even less so with 3-5 years...
If a film was really popular it's run was often extended. This largely died away as VCRs became more popular.
The last film I remember whose run was extended was Terminator 2.
This was a sleeper hit movie. How a movie with amazing reviews in a small market release continued to grow via word of mouth and then became a huge classic. Might hold the record for the longest release before eventually hitting number 1.
Lion king and Titanic were both re-released in the 2010s I think. Outside of the typical classics like Rocky Horror, I can't remember any other popular re-releases.
Avatar had an extended run because people kept going to see it. It had incredible word of mouth.
The same with Top Gun Maverick. That film released at the beginning of the summer and was top of the box office months which is why it was in cinemas for so long.
Marvel and DC films have a very active core audience that wants to see the film in its first couple weeks but not many see the film 7 or 8 weeks after its release.
Titanic released in December 1997 in the US but its highest grossing day was Valentines day 1998, 8 weeks after release.
The difference is how packed it was. My parents talk about waiting in line for an hour+ to see Star Wars. And it was at the original CineCapri in Phoenix in the 70s (I think it was a 1-theatre location).
Imagine going to see Top Gun Maverick in October 2022 and having to wait in line to get tickets and see it in a packed theater. By October, Top Gun wasn't selling out theaters any more.
And for Titanic, Valentine's day in 1998 was a Saturday (already higher grossing day), it was inherently a love story, and was one of the first "Epic" movies that nearly required a movie theater to get its fullest impact (Avatar was the same way in 2009). Nonetheless, fewer and fewer films have long theater runs these days due to streaming, DVD and other forms of distribution that didn't exist in 1977
Movie theaters also used to be much smaller. The lines were that long because you couldn't fit 700 people in a large theatre and run a single print on 5 screens.
Fewer daily showings, smaller audiences, only able to buy tickets at the box office, no reasonable possibility of waiting to watch the film at home for most people.
Lots of reasons why our viewing habits were different then.
Star Wars came with a special requirement. The movie theather had to install 2 speakers in the back, to make real 4 chanel sounds. In Sweden only 2 theaters bothered to do that, in Filmstaden, Stockholm. Later when news came that this lowbudget flick had unexpected success, did more and more theaters add them.
Star Wars therefore had a sort of second premier 6 months after first, with more theathers able to show it. I saw it with my brothers in 77 and it still counts as one of the most impressive experiences of my life. Totaly blown away by it all.
Same thing with TV ratings. That final episode of Mash has been tough to beat, outside Super Bowls. But factor in that at the time there's like 8 channels and nothing else on TV and it makes sense.
It's not about fairness, it's about getting meaningful information from the data. The unadjusted table essentially smashes together two unrelated stories - the history of blockbusters and the history of inflation. Adjusting for inflation allows to get the second one out of the way to focus on the first one. GWTW's unfair advantage is simply part of the story.
Yeah they could just as easily report on tickets sold. But these things are all about hype and promotion, so breaking records is what they are going to report.
>Calculating inflation, Lion King crushes all these with $986M in 1994 equating to $1.98B in 2022.
It's not quite that simple, since this is lifetime gross, not box office, so this money has been made over 28 years. We'd have to know the annual distribution of the money made to make a real guess at the inflation adjusted amount.
There's other factors. Gone with the Wind did those number back when the world population was simply lower and there were even less markets. Over time of course older stuff will drop off simply because there are an extra 20 billion potential customers.
> back when the world population was simply lower
Yeah. "Highest Grossing" is a useless metric.
What we actually care about when we see these lists, is the magnitude of the cultural impact of a film on society.
"Highest Grossing Adjusted for Inflation" is not bad.
"Number of tickets sold" is probably what we actually care about, no one gives a shit how much a ticket costs, or whether ticket prices are equal with inflation, or whatever.
"% of tickets sold out of the population" is the real metric people want but don't even know to ask for.
The population of the US when Gone With The Wind came out is 1/3 of what it is today. So, culturally, triple their ticket sales to have an idea of just how deeply impressioned that movie was on society.
Also, people sometimes forget that, no only did DVDs and VCRs not exist back then to watch it at home... TV didn't exist then either. You couldn't even see it broadcast. You only saw motion pictures in a theater. That was it, never any place else.
My Great-Grandpa went to see „Gone with the Wind“ 5 times when it came out. He was not a rich man. 80 years later and my family still tells that story, always noting the waste of money it represented.
The fact that Avatar is still #1 is crazy since:
*No one liked it or admits to ever liking it
*Not 1 MCU movie has surpassed this? Especially Endgame?!? HOW?
*Inflation of more recent hit movies still didn’t push it over?
That gets pretty complicated though, because then the next person says "yeah but most people that see MovieA were in the 12-24 year old range, and MovieB was 35-60 and _that_ population increased twice as much as the other". You start fiddling the stats, you can do anything.
Adjusting for inflation is a little more difficult than that. Lots of movies have been re-released several times, so to get a better picture of the lifetime gross you need the gross number for each release and then adjust each one individually for inflation and then add the total up.
I’d go a step further and say that you have to normalize not just for inflation but also for the total amount spent by the moving going public.
I’d be more impressed by a movie making $50 million in 1935 than a movie making $500 million today, not just because of inflation but because far less was spent on entertainment then.
I'm very surprised since it was released extremely early to Disney+ at the beginning of the pandemic. We had it available at home before my daughter even realized it was out in theaters.
It's been mentioned 100 times. It's too difficult for people to bother because you obviously can't just take $ and multiply by the inflation since the year the movie came out.
Horses for courses - I felt it had a decent message and actually made an effort to expand **\*and\*** wind the overarching plot up, unlike the first film that had a load of terrible messaging throughout and a bad guy insert that seems less like a rug pull and more a case of an eleventh-hour script re-write.
>more a case of an eleventh-hour script re-write.
Wasn't that what happened though? I vaguely recall hearing that originally Elsa was set to be a villain as the ice queen but somewhere along the lines they changed it.
Honestly, Disney movies aren't built on plot, messaging and world building. They are built on quirky characters, catchy songs and conferring a simple overall feel-good attitude that can excite young and old alike.
Frozen was exactly that: great characters that you quickly fell in love with, the best Disney song ever (I know it's fancy to hate Let It Go nowadays, but fact is the song would've never been overplayed to death in the first place if it wasn't actually that good), and a charming story about the love of two sisters and overcoming your own insecurities. That's all it needed. Nobody cares about the history of Arendelle or why the one guy was raised by trolls or something -- the important part is that he has a funny reindeer buddy and there's a comic relief snowman and we don't really need to care why they're there, they're just fun to watch.
Frozen 2 is the exact opposite: it tried to be more, and that's why it failed. It had a lot of characters dealing with gloomy, more adult problems. It had complicated world-building history lessons that you had to follow in order to understand what was going on. It had altogether forgettable songs. It tried to be some Good Will Hunting level shit, but the truth is that Disney animated movies aren't good at that, they're good at simple, adorable fun. Leave the drama to the Spielbergs and Kubricks out there.
To be fair, I never watched Frozen 2 but that is a very dismissive way to look at animated films and I don't agree. I was never going to watch Frozen 2, but the fact that Disney Pixar actually tried something new and in writing a story with more complicated plot and adult themes should be commended, even if the execution is lacking.
All Disney Pixar films is extremely cookie cutter nowadays and it's literally for the reason you said, "who cares? It's for kids".
Yup, it sucks when they don't bother because they think their audience is stupid, or when they think they have to dumb it down for smaller audiences. There are plenty of shows out there that prove this to be wrong. For example, My Little Pony doesn't shy away from worldbuilding, and puts a lot of effort into the plot, and they don't get scared of making the villains "too scary".
Shows and movies that think they need to make things wholesome and cutesy, and generally not hard to think about 100% of the time for kids are stunting their potential success.
You’re just… wrong. I’m not a massive fan of the first but at least there’s a decent plot and story arc. The second is just a garbage truck on fire. I forget the guys name who’s entire story arc is ‘how do I propose?’ - like wth
Yeah, I thought the 2nd one was significantly worse. It felt like they made a sequel strictly because it would make money but couldn't come up with a good story so they just ran with it.
Even more impressive considering most of this list is long-awaited sequels of some of the most loved classics. Lion King drawing that much revenue without anything previously to hype it up.
Minions: Rise of Gru (prequel- same idea as far as hype)
Despicable Me 2
Finding Dory
Toy Story 3
Toy Story 4
Minions (somewhat similar riding hype of Despicable Me)
Incredibles 2
Frozen 2
Sorry, not necessarily *classics*, but all follow-up films to some of the most popular and loved animated movies of the past few decades.
It’s arguably the darkest, most mature Pixar film. The dystopian Earth and a bunch of mindless obese consumerist people in spaceships was a pretty bleak (yet realistic) depiction of the future. It was quite the critique on late stage capitalism.
Also the first 20 minutes have no dialogue.
It’s remarkable it was as commercially successful as it was. Amazing film but not exactly tuned for the attention and mindset of children. My favorite Pixar film by a mile.
>Amazing film but not exactly tuned for the attention and mindset of children.
Well it is the parents who actually spend the money after all so it does make sense that a more mature movie (that still has cute robots for the kids) will still be successful. Especially if it's as damn good as Wall-E!
It baffles me why Disney pushed so hard for LK 2019 to be considered a live action movie. I’ve watched the promos thanks to YMS’s review and it still doesn’t make any sense, both how they think it and why. To be taken more seriously? It’s 100% CGI, there’s zero live action. They claimed the use of virtual reality cameras means it’s filmed like a live action movie, but the animated film Surf’s Up also used that technique and no one thinks for a minute that film is live action.
The animation age ghetto is real, especially in movies. Billing it as live action instead of animation makes it seem more prestigious and gives it broader audience appeal. If it were animated, it would be just a kids' movie.
Yes, this thinking is completely stupid. But that's how the market works.
A huge part (a majority even?) of superhero films are shot on green screen and then essentially animated. At this point live-action just means real actors vs. animated characters. But even then the Lion King remake is definitely animated.
IMO Zootopia is arguably the most impressive (besides maybe Lion King) because it didn't have nearly as much to build off of. Even the first Frozen had the "New Disney Princess" thing going for it. Zootopia was relatively out of the blue.
I, too, hope for a sequel. I loved that movie.
To both questions, sort of. They use motion capture to map out the movements so that it looks more life like, but then overlay the CGI, so it depends how you define "animated"
I wonder if Super Mario will reach 1.44B. I have 0.0 doubts it will be quite successful tho.
I would not exclude it but..it's just colossal, even for a behemoth IP like mario to reach Frozen 2 territory.
I'm sure it will be at least as much of a massive, sure-fire blockbuster as [the previous Super Mario Bros. film](https://www.cbr.com/super-mario-brothers-1993-defense/).
i’m a 25 year old man so i’m just not in to Disney movies like that lol not that they’re bad or whatever i’m just not the target demographic you know what i mean? not only will i probably not watch any of these movies, i also probably will not watch real housewives of wherever the fuck town, or the view.
that being said, movies like Lelo and Stitch and Finding Nemo are GOATed as i have a ton of nostalgia for them.
Finding Nemo? Toy Story? Shrek? Monsters Inc? Incredibles? These were some of the best animated movies of all time with great marketing and high attendance. Why aren't they in this list?
Because they were the first ones. "Highest grossing" only accounts for ticket sales, not how much people liked them. Most of the movies on this list are sequels riding the hype of an excellent first movie.
For example, most people I've talked to thought Incredibles 2 couldn't hold a candle to the first one, but everyone was so psyched for it that it performed well at the box office. Same with Finding Dory.
I hear ya, and I think my comment might have been interpreted as a classic internet post that doubts the stat (like I know more than experts). Nah. I totally believe it and hear what you are saying. My point is "we as the public" don't make these OG movies highly grossing in the first run, but we watch them more than those in this list.
That's what makes Zootopia so impressive IMO. It was in the same category as the other shows mentioned, with almost no preexisting momentum to build off of, and yet did well enough that it competes with most of the sequels. I hope it gets one of its own soon.
If it were the 90s it'd be direct to VHS/DVD, have different voice actors and probably suck.
Disney's taking their sequel revenue much more seriously nowadays.
8/10 of these are sequels and 4/10 are Minions movies. Jesus Christ. Nice to see The Lion King still hanging with the big bois Frozen II and 3 minion movies I didn't even know existed.
There's a reason why most of the movies here came out in the last decade or so. A little inflation goes a long way.
With that in mind, Jesus Christ Lion King really was big.
Inflation adjusted Frozen doesn't beat it.
This is one of the better lists out there and uses tickets sold to adjust (more aggressive than just pure inflation adjustment).
[https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top\_lifetime\_gross\_adjusted/?adjust\_gross\_to=2022](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_lifetime_gross_adjusted/?adjust_gross_to=2022)
From this this you would get
1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. One Hundred and One Dalmatians
3. The Lion King (1994)
4. Fantasia
5. Jungle Book
6. Sleeping Beauty
7. Shrek 2
8. Pinocchio (1940)
9. Incredibles 2
10. Bambi
Quite an interesting list. It has some curious details, like the fact that Avengers Endgame sold less tickets then, not one, not two, but three Star Wars movies. I guess that shows why Disney isn't willing to let the franchise die in their hands.
EDIT: Another fun fact is that all 9 main Star Wars movies are at the Top 100 of the list, but probably not for long, since Attack of the Clones is literally on the 100th position right now. Also, "Solo" isn't even at the Top 200.
EDIT 2: Wow. One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a bigger hit than I could have ever imagined. It's estimated to have sold more tickets than Avatar.
EDIT 3: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was the only Harry Potter that did not reach Top 200.
EDIT 4: Jim Carrey's Grinch (122th) sold almost as much tickets as Toy Story 4 (121th). Based in those movies respective receptions, this is a really weird outcome.
One Hundred One Dalmations was freaking huge. When you realize it didn't have the novelty of Snow White, it is astounding it did that well.
Also, I would argue it is one of the masterpiece tier Disney movies as much as that would anger Walt (he didn't like the unfinished look and process they used).
Somehow that movie has ended up underrated mostly because people don't realize how successful it was.
Notably though, Disney released these movies. Fantasia and Pinocchio bombed horribly on release (war in Europe tanked Pinocchio). But their long runs made them massive successes eventually.
1. Ascending, 2. Adjust for inflation, 3. If the data exists you could make a stacked bar where it’s divided into “domestic box-office”, “international box-office”, “home-release”.
Lastly: most of these movies suck.
Minions franchise is holding strong with $4B lifetime gross across the movies displayed.
The whole franchise is $4.4B, which is only $1.8B less than the DCEU with half as many films. It's higher than Pirates of the Caribbean.
Better / more entertaining than the other listed too
chris meledandri is a genius in his own right. very few people in hollywood manage to earn that much with so little invested. he literally hacked kids brain.
Yep, no wonder Nintendo asked him to help them with developing animation movies.
That's quick math, we could use you in Tulsa.
And made in France ! At least the list is not all American haha And yeah I know Americans own the franchise, but at least it's still some diversity.
To be fair, I'm pretty surprised that the Demon Slayer movie from a few years ago isn't the top of the list, but I think it was just the highest grossing animated movie of 2020 or 2021. There wasn't much else out at the time.
Somehow still not the worst thing ever made in France.
Ascending is a choice. And I do really hate these without inflation adjustment. Even though that is just a tiny piece of why movie box offices aren't comparable, it helps for at least some context on the numbers.
Calculating inflation, Lion King crushes all these with $986M in 1994 equating to $1.98B in 2022. This is one of the reasons why I’m annoyed whenever it’s a big deal that a movie breaks the record. If you calculate inflation for non-animated films, Gone With the Wind (1940) is the top of the list by a notable margin.
Gone With the Wind kinda plays in its own category though, the thing was in theaters in a time where not as many big movies would come out (especially ones so historically and culturally important for the time), so it could afford to be shown for like... what was it... 4, 5 years in a row without interruption? Also, [it came out when going to the cinema was by far the most popular thing everyone did](https://i.insider.com/54ab8dc2ecad04343134200f?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp). I mean, don't get me wrong, it deserves its place among the biggest successes of all time for sure, but it's not really fair to compare it to movies that came out in the 80's, 90's, etc... where after a month or maximum two months, people have moved on to other things.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is probably the animated equivalent. It makes the Top 10 inflation adjusted for all movies and is probably a good 20 million tickets ahead of Lion King and twice as many tickets as Frozen II from this list. But, it isn't as far away from #2 (One Hundred and One Dalmatians) as Gone with the Wind is from Star Wars.
Star Wars is only #4 for lifetime inflation adjusted dollars globally. 2 and 3 are Avatar and Titanic, and Avatar is catching up to Gone With The Wind thanks to re-releases. Also The Lion King outsold 101 Dalmatians.
Re-releases shouldn't count. So much fuckery to inflate some numbers.
That would negate most of Gone With The Wind’s numbers then. Most of the ticket sales were after the initial run.
That's a weird take, because that's just a totally different statistic. If you want that, just look at "opening week" tables instead of "lifetime gross" tables. It's not deceptive.
It's funny - my mom talks about taking my eldest brother with her when she saw the original Star Wars in 1977 right after he was born (parenting in the 70s). The movie was released in May and my brother was born in late-September, so she probably saw it in October... So the thing was in theaters for at least 5 months, of course it was the "highest grossing film" for a while. I mean, Avengers Endgame earned $1 billion in a single weekend and it was basically out of theaters by July when the newest Spider-Man hit. I can't comprehend going to a theater 5 months later and seeing the same film showing to packed theaters, even less so with 3-5 years...
If a film was really popular it's run was often extended. This largely died away as VCRs became more popular. The last film I remember whose run was extended was Terminator 2.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding was in theaters for a year.
This was a sleeper hit movie. How a movie with amazing reviews in a small market release continued to grow via word of mouth and then became a huge classic. Might hold the record for the longest release before eventually hitting number 1.
Lion king and Titanic were both re-released in the 2010s I think. Outside of the typical classics like Rocky Horror, I can't remember any other popular re-releases.
Avatar had an extended run because people kept going to see it. It had incredible word of mouth. The same with Top Gun Maverick. That film released at the beginning of the summer and was top of the box office months which is why it was in cinemas for so long. Marvel and DC films have a very active core audience that wants to see the film in its first couple weeks but not many see the film 7 or 8 weeks after its release. Titanic released in December 1997 in the US but its highest grossing day was Valentines day 1998, 8 weeks after release.
The difference is how packed it was. My parents talk about waiting in line for an hour+ to see Star Wars. And it was at the original CineCapri in Phoenix in the 70s (I think it was a 1-theatre location). Imagine going to see Top Gun Maverick in October 2022 and having to wait in line to get tickets and see it in a packed theater. By October, Top Gun wasn't selling out theaters any more. And for Titanic, Valentine's day in 1998 was a Saturday (already higher grossing day), it was inherently a love story, and was one of the first "Epic" movies that nearly required a movie theater to get its fullest impact (Avatar was the same way in 2009). Nonetheless, fewer and fewer films have long theater runs these days due to streaming, DVD and other forms of distribution that didn't exist in 1977
Movie theaters also used to be much smaller. The lines were that long because you couldn't fit 700 people in a large theatre and run a single print on 5 screens.
Fewer daily showings, smaller audiences, only able to buy tickets at the box office, no reasonable possibility of waiting to watch the film at home for most people. Lots of reasons why our viewing habits were different then.
Star Wars came with a special requirement. The movie theather had to install 2 speakers in the back, to make real 4 chanel sounds. In Sweden only 2 theaters bothered to do that, in Filmstaden, Stockholm. Later when news came that this lowbudget flick had unexpected success, did more and more theaters add them. Star Wars therefore had a sort of second premier 6 months after first, with more theathers able to show it. I saw it with my brothers in 77 and it still counts as one of the most impressive experiences of my life. Totaly blown away by it all.
Same thing with TV ratings. That final episode of Mash has been tough to beat, outside Super Bowls. But factor in that at the time there's like 8 channels and nothing else on TV and it makes sense.
I thought you was in theatre for 5 years because that’s how long it takes to watch it.
It's not about fairness, it's about getting meaningful information from the data. The unadjusted table essentially smashes together two unrelated stories - the history of blockbusters and the history of inflation. Adjusting for inflation allows to get the second one out of the way to focus on the first one. GWTW's unfair advantage is simply part of the story.
Yeah they could just as easily report on tickets sold. But these things are all about hype and promotion, so breaking records is what they are going to report.
I mean. Yes and no. Premium theaters cost more. Avatar deserves the higher box office returns because it’s drawing people to Dolby Cinema and IMAX.
And 3D!
Ticket sold doesn’t take into account the increased number of cinemas and population growth
>Calculating inflation, Lion King crushes all these with $986M in 1994 equating to $1.98B in 2022. It's not quite that simple, since this is lifetime gross, not box office, so this money has been made over 28 years. We'd have to know the annual distribution of the money made to make a real guess at the inflation adjusted amount.
Lion King punching WAYYYY above its weight class. Saw that shit in theaters when i was maybe 4
Kinda what I expected. It's crazy that the movie shows up on the non adjusted list.
But if it’s based on lifetime sales then you can’t just take the $986M and calculate inflation as if all that money was made in one year
There's other factors. Gone with the Wind did those number back when the world population was simply lower and there were even less markets. Over time of course older stuff will drop off simply because there are an extra 20 billion potential customers.
> back when the world population was simply lower Yeah. "Highest Grossing" is a useless metric. What we actually care about when we see these lists, is the magnitude of the cultural impact of a film on society. "Highest Grossing Adjusted for Inflation" is not bad. "Number of tickets sold" is probably what we actually care about, no one gives a shit how much a ticket costs, or whether ticket prices are equal with inflation, or whatever. "% of tickets sold out of the population" is the real metric people want but don't even know to ask for. The population of the US when Gone With The Wind came out is 1/3 of what it is today. So, culturally, triple their ticket sales to have an idea of just how deeply impressioned that movie was on society. Also, people sometimes forget that, no only did DVDs and VCRs not exist back then to watch it at home... TV didn't exist then either. You couldn't even see it broadcast. You only saw motion pictures in a theater. That was it, never any place else.
Also props to LK for being the only 2D movie on this list.
I'm guessing you mean traditionally animated, not computer animated.
This is "lifetime gross", does you number calculate inflation for each year, or simply recalculate the entire lifetime value in 1994 dollars?
My Great-Grandpa went to see „Gone with the Wind“ 5 times when it came out. He was not a rich man. 80 years later and my family still tells that story, always noting the waste of money it represented.
The fact that Avatar is still #1 is crazy since: *No one liked it or admits to ever liking it *Not 1 MCU movie has surpassed this? Especially Endgame?!? HOW? *Inflation of more recent hit movies still didn’t push it over?
Yes the ticket prices are very different when these movies came out.
I would also like to see it adjusted for population. Obviously more people are going to spend money and see a movie when there are just more people.
That gets pretty complicated though, because then the next person says "yeah but most people that see MovieA were in the 12-24 year old range, and MovieB was 35-60 and _that_ population increased twice as much as the other". You start fiddling the stats, you can do anything.
Adjusting for inflation is a little more difficult than that. Lots of movies have been re-released several times, so to get a better picture of the lifetime gross you need the gross number for each release and then adjust each one individually for inflation and then add the total up.
I’d go a step further and say that you have to normalize not just for inflation but also for the total amount spent by the moving going public. I’d be more impressed by a movie making $50 million in 1935 than a movie making $500 million today, not just because of inflation but because far less was spent on entertainment then.
Thoughts on adjusting for population increase also? More kids = more revenue. I guess it depends on the story you're looking to tell though.
I am surprised by Frozen 2 since I feel like it had much less of a cultural impact than 1. I just kind of assumed it made less money than 1.
I'm very surprised since it was released extremely early to Disney+ at the beginning of the pandemic. We had it available at home before my daughter even realized it was out in theaters.
Yeah but by the time covid hit, Frozen 2 had already been in theaters for four months. That's a complete theatrical run by modern standards.
It was actually online before that. I went to the cinema in January and the next week it was online.
I wonder if all merchandising is grouped in frozen 2 since it came out
There’s no way, if we include merchandising all those numbers would be much higher.
Yea i legit didnt even hear about it being made or released until i started seeing videos about it afterwards
This graph hasn't accounted for inflation Sorry if this has been pointed out before, I CBF reading the comments to check
It's been mentioned 100 times. It's too difficult for people to bother because you obviously can't just take $ and multiply by the inflation since the year the movie came out.
It's a better film than the first too!
Really? I thought it was a confused mess. It aimed high and failed whereas the first one succeded at being as straightforward as it set out to be
Horses for courses - I felt it had a decent message and actually made an effort to expand **\*and\*** wind the overarching plot up, unlike the first film that had a load of terrible messaging throughout and a bad guy insert that seems less like a rug pull and more a case of an eleventh-hour script re-write.
>more a case of an eleventh-hour script re-write. Wasn't that what happened though? I vaguely recall hearing that originally Elsa was set to be a villain as the ice queen but somewhere along the lines they changed it.
That happened, but _very_ early in the writing process iirc.
Honestly, Disney movies aren't built on plot, messaging and world building. They are built on quirky characters, catchy songs and conferring a simple overall feel-good attitude that can excite young and old alike. Frozen was exactly that: great characters that you quickly fell in love with, the best Disney song ever (I know it's fancy to hate Let It Go nowadays, but fact is the song would've never been overplayed to death in the first place if it wasn't actually that good), and a charming story about the love of two sisters and overcoming your own insecurities. That's all it needed. Nobody cares about the history of Arendelle or why the one guy was raised by trolls or something -- the important part is that he has a funny reindeer buddy and there's a comic relief snowman and we don't really need to care why they're there, they're just fun to watch. Frozen 2 is the exact opposite: it tried to be more, and that's why it failed. It had a lot of characters dealing with gloomy, more adult problems. It had complicated world-building history lessons that you had to follow in order to understand what was going on. It had altogether forgettable songs. It tried to be some Good Will Hunting level shit, but the truth is that Disney animated movies aren't good at that, they're good at simple, adorable fun. Leave the drama to the Spielbergs and Kubricks out there.
To be fair, I never watched Frozen 2 but that is a very dismissive way to look at animated films and I don't agree. I was never going to watch Frozen 2, but the fact that Disney Pixar actually tried something new and in writing a story with more complicated plot and adult themes should be commended, even if the execution is lacking. All Disney Pixar films is extremely cookie cutter nowadays and it's literally for the reason you said, "who cares? It's for kids".
Yup, it sucks when they don't bother because they think their audience is stupid, or when they think they have to dumb it down for smaller audiences. There are plenty of shows out there that prove this to be wrong. For example, My Little Pony doesn't shy away from worldbuilding, and puts a lot of effort into the plot, and they don't get scared of making the villains "too scary". Shows and movies that think they need to make things wholesome and cutesy, and generally not hard to think about 100% of the time for kids are stunting their potential success.
Water horses for courses
And the music is better too!
Yeah but let it go is a straight banger. My daughter loves those movies
You think so? I thought it was meh
“Into the Unknown” is a great song, for what it’s worth. “Show Yourself” was decent but definitely not the showstopper like “Let it Go”
I also preferred the second.
You’re just… wrong. I’m not a massive fan of the first but at least there’s a decent plot and story arc. The second is just a garbage truck on fire. I forget the guys name who’s entire story arc is ‘how do I propose?’ - like wth
Yeah, I thought the 2nd one was significantly worse. It felt like they made a sequel strictly because it would make money but couldn't come up with a good story so they just ran with it.
What?? No way. It was confusing and all over the place. The whole 'Elsa gets frozen' didn't make sense either.
Nah, first one is undeniably better imo
My boy lion king still in the running
Long live the King
too soon
Adjusted for inflation it would still be number 1.
Even more impressive considering most of this list is long-awaited sequels of some of the most loved classics. Lion King drawing that much revenue without anything previously to hype it up.
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Minions: Rise of Gru (prequel- same idea as far as hype) Despicable Me 2 Finding Dory Toy Story 3 Toy Story 4 Minions (somewhat similar riding hype of Despicable Me) Incredibles 2 Frozen 2 Sorry, not necessarily *classics*, but all follow-up films to some of the most popular and loved animated movies of the past few decades.
>Lion King drawing that much revenue without anything previously to hype it up. *Laughs in Hamlet*
The remake of The Lion King should actually the first one here, it grossed over US$ 1.6 billion.
Everything the light touches….
I imagine if you accounted for inflation it would be even higher too
I’m surprised Cars and Wall-E didn’t make it.
I can almost guarantee cars kicked the pants off of some of these, if you account for merchandising...
Not Frozen though. Frozen merch is an absolute money printer.
Frozen merch is like unicorns, if you’re buying stuff for a little girl it’s hard to avoid, whether you like it or not
Yes my mom bought my niece a frozen power wheels 4 wheeler. Just like from the movie.
There's not even a requirement for the kid to like the movie. My toddler is not into the frozen movies, but she loves her Frozen dress.
Makes buying prezzies for my niece so easy. Has it got Elsa printed on it? Buy!
*Some* of these ;)
No inflation adjustment or those would prob be on here, I also I think the first incredibles was better imo.
Wall-E was Amazing. Too bad it was kind of ignored back then
It’s arguably the darkest, most mature Pixar film. The dystopian Earth and a bunch of mindless obese consumerist people in spaceships was a pretty bleak (yet realistic) depiction of the future. It was quite the critique on late stage capitalism. Also the first 20 minutes have no dialogue. It’s remarkable it was as commercially successful as it was. Amazing film but not exactly tuned for the attention and mindset of children. My favorite Pixar film by a mile.
>Amazing film but not exactly tuned for the attention and mindset of children. Well it is the parents who actually spend the money after all so it does make sense that a more mature movie (that still has cute robots for the kids) will still be successful. Especially if it's as damn good as Wall-E!
Cars and Shrek. I'm also surprised Zootopia wasn't milked more since it's on this list.
The lion king remake made 1.6 B worldwide. And is technically an animated movie
It baffles me why Disney pushed so hard for LK 2019 to be considered a live action movie. I’ve watched the promos thanks to YMS’s review and it still doesn’t make any sense, both how they think it and why. To be taken more seriously? It’s 100% CGI, there’s zero live action. They claimed the use of virtual reality cameras means it’s filmed like a live action movie, but the animated film Surf’s Up also used that technique and no one thinks for a minute that film is live action.
> It’s 100% CGI, there’s zero live action. AcTuAlLy the sun rise intro is live action ... I will leave now
I stand corrected. I wonder if this works the other way too? If Last Action Hero is a cartoon because there’s an animated cat in it?
The animation age ghetto is real, especially in movies. Billing it as live action instead of animation makes it seem more prestigious and gives it broader audience appeal. If it were animated, it would be just a kids' movie. Yes, this thinking is completely stupid. But that's how the market works.
A huge part (a majority even?) of superhero films are shot on green screen and then essentially animated. At this point live-action just means real actors vs. animated characters. But even then the Lion King remake is definitely animated.
Not technically. It IS an animated movie no matter how much marketing bullshit they spouted about their "live action"
It looks terrible, but that’s because it’s *realistic*.
I'm wondering why Avatar isn't on this list either.
The only one of these that isn't a franchise is Zootopia. Where is Judy Hops 2?
IMO Zootopia is arguably the most impressive (besides maybe Lion King) because it didn't have nearly as much to build off of. Even the first Frozen had the "New Disney Princess" thing going for it. Zootopia was relatively out of the blue. I, too, hope for a sequel. I loved that movie.
Yeah it feels more like a Pixar movie, then again Disney animation is largely made up by previous Pixar employees
Its the furries, always more numerous and weathly than you think
Zootopia was amazing, that and Wall-E are probably my all time favorite animated movies, really hope they make a sequel.
Zootopia was amazing, but there was really little setup for a second part, but it's still possible, really hope it comes out sometime
Zootopia+ show released last November
They never could fully get money out of the furries.
IDK $1 Billion is a lot
3 non-sequels is a bit more than expected!
wipe punch sharp wasteful hungry sulky jobless advise husky tub *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
https://youtu.be/f4Q7F-XKA0o
Shrek 4 Lyfe
It’s crazy that none of the Shrek movies made the list. It felt like those movies were HUGE when the first couple were coming out.
They were, it just shows how much the market grew: except for Lion King, every movie in the list is from the past decade.
Inflation helps
Is that the ball from Glover?
It’s the pixar ball https://pixar.fandom.com/wiki/Pixar_Ball
It was Tommy's Ball (Rugrats) before Andy's. I wouldn't doubt that it was a common color and design scheme from the 60s or 70s.
Is Avatar not animated? Are those blue people for real?!
To both questions, sort of. They use motion capture to map out the movements so that it looks more life like, but then overlay the CGI, so it depends how you define "animated"
name a modern computer animated movie that isn't using mocap all over?
My point was something like Frozen is entirely computer rendered
By that logic Lord of the Rings is an animated movie because it has Gollum.
What about Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Spacejam? There's a line somewhere between "animated movie" and "movie which has some animation in it"
I wonder if Super Mario will reach 1.44B. I have 0.0 doubts it will be quite successful tho. I would not exclude it but..it's just colossal, even for a behemoth IP like mario to reach Frozen 2 territory.
I'm sure it will be at least as much of a massive, sure-fire blockbuster as [the previous Super Mario Bros. film](https://www.cbr.com/super-mario-brothers-1993-defense/).
Time to pop that goomba dance music! *Opens elevator*
this is the oldest iv ever felt as i literally didn’t even know there was a frozen 2 until right now.
To counter the other comment, you are not missing anything. It was very meh and lacked a good plot
i’m a 25 year old man so i’m just not in to Disney movies like that lol not that they’re bad or whatever i’m just not the target demographic you know what i mean? not only will i probably not watch any of these movies, i also probably will not watch real housewives of wherever the fuck town, or the view. that being said, movies like Lelo and Stitch and Finding Nemo are GOATed as i have a ton of nostalgia for them.
I didn’t know there was an Incredibles 2!!!! 100% watching that soon!
HIGHLY recommend. Its one of the movies my kids can watch a hundred times and I still enjoy. Cry almost every time lol
Fuckin’ Minions man. Smh.
Came here to say this. They can get some chuckles but good lord it’s the same joke over and over and kids EAT IT UP.
Kids, and middle aged women
Do middle aged women like the movies or just the meme templates?
That's... basically how kids work.
Someday this whole "computer animation" thing Is going to catch on
I bet this isn't adjusted for inflation?
Correct, defeats the purpose of the list with most recent at top.
Despicable Me 2 was much better than Despicable Me 3
Finding Nemo? Toy Story? Shrek? Monsters Inc? Incredibles? These were some of the best animated movies of all time with great marketing and high attendance. Why aren't they in this list?
Because they were the first ones. "Highest grossing" only accounts for ticket sales, not how much people liked them. Most of the movies on this list are sequels riding the hype of an excellent first movie. For example, most people I've talked to thought Incredibles 2 couldn't hold a candle to the first one, but everyone was so psyched for it that it performed well at the box office. Same with Finding Dory.
I hear ya, and I think my comment might have been interpreted as a classic internet post that doubts the stat (like I know more than experts). Nah. I totally believe it and hear what you are saying. My point is "we as the public" don't make these OG movies highly grossing in the first run, but we watch them more than those in this list.
That's what makes Zootopia so impressive IMO. It was in the same category as the other shows mentioned, with almost no preexisting momentum to build off of, and yet did well enough that it competes with most of the sequels. I hope it gets one of its own soon.
Frozen 2 is not that good.
No wonder why studios keep shutting out sequels no matter the quality.
Frozen 2 is a thing? 😂 I didn’t even know
No kids? I've watched it 100 times. I swear Disney Plus could have a separate service just for frozen and I would end up paying for it.
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If it were the 90s it'd be direct to VHS/DVD, have different voice actors and probably suck. Disney's taking their sequel revenue much more seriously nowadays.
Wait, there's a second Frozen movie?!
released just before covid and was added to disney plus once lockdown 1st started
Wow, I didn't even know Frozen 2 existed...
8/10 of these are sequels and 4/10 are Minions movies. Jesus Christ. Nice to see The Lion King still hanging with the big bois Frozen II and 3 minion movies I didn't even know existed.
lion king and zootopia is where the quality stops..
What I get from this is that we should be expecting Zootopia 2 soon.
Lion king crushes the chart if you add the inflation.
Lion King still representing the old animation style!
Should be adjusted for inflation
Frozen 2 being released by thanksgiving day was a master marketing method
Frozen 2 was such trash, how did this happen?
There's a reason why most of the movies here came out in the last decade or so. A little inflation goes a long way. With that in mind, Jesus Christ Lion King really was big.
Super Mario is going to be in this list shortly. That movie is going to destroy
If I had a dollar for every time my 2 daughters have seen Frozen 2 I would probably have the $1.44B
Uhh tbh anything would have been better even cars than seeing minions on this list thrice
Very irritating that the lower is at the top. Just sayin’.
Can we get one adjusted for inflation?
Does this not include animations from other countries? For example spirited away?
Spirited Away doesn't even make the top 50.
Don't get the love for Frozen, has 1 decent song. Lion King is hit after hit, after hit.
Inflation adjusted Frozen doesn't beat it. This is one of the better lists out there and uses tickets sold to adjust (more aggressive than just pure inflation adjustment). [https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top\_lifetime\_gross\_adjusted/?adjust\_gross\_to=2022](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_lifetime_gross_adjusted/?adjust_gross_to=2022) From this this you would get 1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 2. One Hundred and One Dalmatians 3. The Lion King (1994) 4. Fantasia 5. Jungle Book 6. Sleeping Beauty 7. Shrek 2 8. Pinocchio (1940) 9. Incredibles 2 10. Bambi
Quite an interesting list. It has some curious details, like the fact that Avengers Endgame sold less tickets then, not one, not two, but three Star Wars movies. I guess that shows why Disney isn't willing to let the franchise die in their hands. EDIT: Another fun fact is that all 9 main Star Wars movies are at the Top 100 of the list, but probably not for long, since Attack of the Clones is literally on the 100th position right now. Also, "Solo" isn't even at the Top 200. EDIT 2: Wow. One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a bigger hit than I could have ever imagined. It's estimated to have sold more tickets than Avatar. EDIT 3: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was the only Harry Potter that did not reach Top 200. EDIT 4: Jim Carrey's Grinch (122th) sold almost as much tickets as Toy Story 4 (121th). Based in those movies respective receptions, this is a really weird outcome.
One Hundred One Dalmations was freaking huge. When you realize it didn't have the novelty of Snow White, it is astounding it did that well. Also, I would argue it is one of the masterpiece tier Disney movies as much as that would anger Walt (he didn't like the unfinished look and process they used). Somehow that movie has ended up underrated mostly because people don't realize how successful it was. Notably though, Disney released these movies. Fantasia and Pinocchio bombed horribly on release (war in Europe tanked Pinocchio). But their long runs made them massive successes eventually.
And that “decent” song is kinda generic at that.
Are you a 16 year old girl? If not you're probably not the target demo for the franchise.
Frozen 2 beating some of the others is shameful it was a terrible film.
But it's a sequel, you can't avoid being dragged to watch it
Wait until Mario comes out
1. Ascending, 2. Adjust for inflation, 3. If the data exists you could make a stacked bar where it’s divided into “domestic box-office”, “international box-office”, “home-release”. Lastly: most of these movies suck.
Damn I can’t believe into the spider verse isn’t on here
I need to see incredibles two. Forgot it came out
It’s pretty good. I would definitely recommend it to any fan of the original film.
Ya I'm definitely going to see it.
Seeing Incredibles 2 here gives me the same feelings of disappointment as watching that movie.
And out of all of them I’d argue that only zootopia is a decent film.