The 50 Highest-Grossing Movies of All Time: Your Top Box Office Earners Ever Worldwide

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(Photo by ©Marvel Entertainment/©Columbia Pictures)

[Box office figures updated on 8/16/2026]

After Avengers: Endgame and Avatar duked it out for bragging rights as the all-time highest-grossing movie in 2019, the world was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, which effectively shuttered theaters (some of them never to reopen), and this list seemed safe for the time being. But in late 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home blew everyone away and nostalgia-bombed its way into the top 10.

Just a few months later, the decades-in-the-making sequel Top Gun: Maverick also shocked the world by swooping past the $1 billion mark, and another half year later, Avatar: The Way of Water proved James Cameron is the box office GOAT by shooting all the way up to the No. 3 spot. And with the addition of global hits Inside Out 2 in 2024 and Zootopia 2 in 2024, Disney now lays claim to a whopping eight of the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time (nine, if you count its joint ownership of Titanic with Paramount).

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In 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie surprised everyone by jolting into the top half of this list in just its first six weeks of release, ultimately landing at No. 16, and most were ready to call it a year. Then Barbenheimer fever hit, and before we knew it, we had a new champion that was not only the highest-grossing film ever solo-directed by a woman, but also the highest-grossing film in Warner Bros. studio history. 2025 was another big year, with three films — including James Cameron’s third Avatar movie, Fire and Ash — entering the top 20, and in 2026, after Toy Story 5 cracked the top 50, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day joined in quick succession, with the latter becoming the second-fastest film ever to reach the $1 billion milestone — it’s already sitting at No. 12 all time — and both still in theaters and climbing as of the latest update.

For the list below, we’ve included global box office performance, as well as domestic numbers and release dates. We included dollars earned in re-releases, and in each of our descriptions, we look at where the film stood record-wise at the time of its run and dive into things like critical and audience reception. We’ll be here to track the progress of new blockbusters and regularly update this list of top box office performers. So keep your eyes here, and check in with our weekly weekend box office wrap-ups.

1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 | 31-40 | 41-50