Inflation-Adjusted Box Office Totals
Zachary Pincus-Roth offers us a much-needed complaint about the habit of using nominal dollars when calling something or other the “highest-grossing movie of all time” or the “best-opening weekend.” Failure to adjust for inflation is always a bad idea, but in the case of these cinema lists it’s also horribly culturally distorting. The highest-grossing films in nominal terms includes a lot of mediocrities and is just very biased toward the recent. The correct list, by contrast, is a list of films that, while not necessary the best movies, are undeniably significant cultural icons:
- Gone With the Wind
- Star Wars
- The Sound of Music
- E.T.
- The Ten Commandments
- Titanic
- Jaws
- Doctor Zhivago
- The Exorcist
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
- 101 Dalmations
- The Empire Strikes Back
- Ben-Hur
- Return of the Jedi
- The Sting
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Jurassic Park
- The Graduate
- The Phantom Menace
- Fantasia
Now, the less said about The Phanton Menace and Titanic the better, but in general you’d have to say that cracking that list would be a pretty impressive achievement.
104 Responses to “Inflation-Adjusted Box Office Totals”
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July 7th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Titanic wasn’t my cup of tea, but it was a well done movie. I always like the last hour or whatever when the ship is busy sinking. Phantom Menace on the other hand makes me want to ice pick the memory centers of my brain. Even the name is a pile of crap.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
If you want to know what the best movie is, why not base it on asking people what the best movie is, rather than on indirect question like how much money did it make? Something like IMDB’s Top Movies: http://www.imdb.com/chart/top
Compare that list to this list, or even to the Academy Awards nominations for Best Picture, and tell me that IMDB’s isn’t more-correct (and don’t give “could”s or “should”s either, I’m asking IS; Wikipedia “shouldn’t” work either, but it does.)
July 7th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
On the other hand, compared to 1939 there are a lot more ways of seeing a movie other than buying a ticket to see a theatrical release. Thus while I think corrections like this are important, one should also keep in mind that plenty of movies with worse inflation-adjusted theatrical release gross probably do better in terms of widespread viewing than their older peers.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Shouldn’t there also be an adjustment for population size?
While I don’t think its a great film, I prefer Titanic to probably half the films on the list (such as Star Wars trilogy, ET, Jurassic Park, and a few others). The Titanic had some amazing visual atmospherics, but was flawed due to a ridiculously over-melodramatic plot.
The truly great movies on that list (in my opinion): The Sound of Music, The Exorcist, and The Graduate. Jaws was pretty good too.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Lots of kids movies there, and lots of crap, especially once you get past the top 20. There’s also a lot of movies that, while fine, are certainly not great (Shreck 2? Funny in parts but mostly an advertisement for the soundtrack.) The basic morals to draw are, 1) Marketing works, 2) people have fairly bad taste.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
“Highest grossing movie” is a marketing term rather than an economic analysis. It’s not going away any time soon.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Three people: Spielberg, Lucas, and Charlton Heston account for nearly half (nine by my count) of these movies. What this tells us I’m not sure, but I am sure that The Phantom Menace was a really really awful movie.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Does anyone ever adjust for ticket prices?
Or is that counted for in “inflation”?
July 7th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Not an economist: yes and no. that is, adjusting for ticket prices is being accomplished by adjusting for inflation. however, i’m pretty sure that ticket prices have gone up by more than inflation, so this probably understates the inflation-adjusted for something like gone with the wind.
i’ve only seen 10 of the 20 movies on this list, but that said, the one that amazes me is the graduate: i had no recollection of it being that runaway a hit….
July 7th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Agreed that the great thing about Titanic was that it was a disaster movie where lots of people actually died. Most disaster movies the disaster is narrowly averted.
I don’t think Phantom Menace was *that* bad. Certainly not that much worse than Return of the Jedi.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
@3: The other important stat that backs this point up is that, compared with 1939, roughly 1/4 as many movie tickets are sold today. Some of this is the result of changing options, some a result of the real (inflation-adjusted) price of tickets going up over that time, but regardless, we’re talking about totally different eras. Not to mention several of those totals (Star Wars IV for certain, E.T. as well I believe) include theatrical re-releases (or special editions), which skews some of those numbers.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
What impresses me about this list is just how balanced it is despite any of the adjustments that commenters have so far suggested. Every decade since the 30s has a film on the list by the time you get to #20. The 40s and 50s seem a bit under-represented — perhaps reflecting that movie theaters were slow to move to suburbs. Given that there are so many factors that have changed over since Gone With the Wind was in theaters: ticket prices are higher now (inflation adjusted), you can wait for the DVD, there are more people in the U.S., there are more options for entertainment. It’s really striking that this simple list “works” by producing a list of (largely) iconic movies.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Unfortunately, Birth of a Nation belongs somewhere on that list.
And for return on investment, who wouldn’t have wanted to be one of George Lucas’s backers for Star Wars?
Three people: Spielberg, Lucas, and Charlton Heston account for nearly half (nine by my count) of these movies.
Add Walt Disney and you’ve got your supermajority.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
A 1939 ticket cost about $3.50 in inflation-adjusted, 2008 dollars, compared to around $7 for a ticket today.
So no, adjusting for inflation alone does not get you to a metric for number of movie theater views (let alone the issue of DVD and cable views, or the issue of smaller US and World populations as time goes back).
July 7th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Like howard and others, it seems to me that we ought not to be adjusting based on general inflation, but rather on the specific increases in prices of tickets. Assuming, that is, that we have that type of data.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
not an economist, just to follow up on the point, some quick searching suggested that movie tickets in the 1930s averaged around a quarter, so if i just use straight CPI from 1939 to today, that would suggest a ticket price of $3.85, whereas tickets are roughly 2x that.
however, i’m noticing by clicking through matthew’s link that these are ticket-price-inflation-adjusted numbers, so they’ve already taken that into account….
July 7th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Does this list deal correctly with the fact that ET and the Star Wars movies were re-released?
Also I am surprised not to see either the Dark Knight or Independency Day on there.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
I’m just pleasantly surprised that Fantasia made the list; it and Loony Tunes began my love for classical music.
I know doofman commented that there are fewer tickets sold than in 1939, but is there a list that breaks down films by the number of tickets sold–i.e. the number of people who actually watched the film in a movie theater versus the adjusted for inflation price of the ticket. Or does adjusting for inflation actually get you to the number of tickets sold? Ticket prices are certainly not uniform from places to place; I sill fondly remember $1.50 movie night in my small college town and it was for new releases.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
“I don’t think Phantom Menace was *that* bad. Certainly not that much worse than Return of the Jedi.”
You should have your posting privileges taken away.
Although, “Attack of the Clones” is just as bad as “Phantom Menace.” The love scenes had me itching for a handgun.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
On the other hand, in that analysis you’re only looking at domestic numbers — assuming GWTW never got more than $400 million (inflation adjusted) overseas, Titanic was still a better selling movie on the whole than Victor Fleming’s masterpiece.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
“Failure to adjust for inflation is always a bad idea”
Failure to include the international market is also a bad idea.
Only about 40% of Hollywood’s box office is domestic these days.
The top two inflation adjusted worldwide grossing movies of all time are Titanic and Gone with the Wind.
And as others have noted, Titanic is actually a pretty good movie. Matthew may prefer Michael Bay movies, but he’s got lousy taste in the matter.
—–
And beyond taste, Matthew also has lousy understanding of economics.
In the last post, he was complaining about the U.S. trade deficit. But intellectual property is about all we successfully export these days, and Matthew is opposed to the entire concept of intellectual property.
But you can’t have “information wants to be free” and also have the U.S. to bring the trade imbalance down…
July 7th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I agree with the overall point, but I think it’s almost impossible to come up with a “fair” comparison. You’ll end up adjusting it until it’s meaningless.
For instance, is it fair to compare the returns for “Gone with the Wind” to “The Dark Knight?” GWTW has had countless re-releases since it was first premiered in 1939. Same with Star Wars and several other films on the list. It doesn’t seem right to compare The Dark Knight and GWTW when the latter has had a 70-year head start.
And that’s not even including video sales. Many more viewers watch movies on video than in the theater today than when home movies were first available, and obviously many films premiered when home video hadn’t been invented yet. If you just looked at theatrical sales, it would be extremely puzzling how “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” became a three-movie franchise, considering that it had a very lukewarm theatrical run. To understand why virtually everyone has heard the catchphrase “Yeah, baby, yeah,” you’d have to look at the video sales. On the other hand, is it fair to compare GTWT to TDK in that category, since one has had several more decades to sell videos than the other has had. Do the Box Office Mojo returns include video sales? It doesn’t mention them in their explanations. Should they include video sales? And if so, how do you adjust for them while simultaneously adjusting for ticket prices?
Or what about tie-ins? Do you adjust for the price of toys? Comic books? That might seem unfair, but it’s a lie to pretend those aren’t relevant.
Given all those factors, it’s not surprising that entertainment reports resort to using just the bare-bone figures. They may be misleading, but when you try to adjust you’re just getting further from the truth.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
“On the other hand, in that analysis you’re only looking at domestic numbers — assuming GWTW never got more than $400 million (inflation adjusted) overseas, Titanic was still a better selling movie on the whole than Victor Fleming’s masterpiece.”
I hate when people plagiarize me in advance…
July 7th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Adjusting for inflation is highly imperfect, but does represent a better group of movies. The IMDb list that Dale links to is somewhat better, of course, but is flawed too. Sorry, but any list that has “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” movies that I like, as two of the top four movies ever, can’t be taken too seriously.
Since no one else mentioned it, it’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
July 7th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
But then even that list’s distorted because it includes revenues from re-releases. Thus, it would be incredibly hard for a film to surpass any of them during its initial run. Box Office Mojo has Dark Knight 27th all time, but it would most likely be a fair bit higher if you excluded repeat runs.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Does this list deal correctly with the fact that ET and the Star Wars movies were re-released?
As Howard has noted that the link answered the question about ticket price inflation, I’ll note that the link also answers this question: yes, this list does take into account the multiple releases (including for the Disney films, which, the link notes, have made the majority of their box office in recent years, not when originally released).
July 7th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
#14/#15/#16:
Adjustng for inflation in general is the approriate thing to do. Adjusting for changes in the price of a specific item basically wipes out changes in relative prices. The increase in the relative price of a movie ticket tels us something, as does the delcine in the number of tickets sold relative to population. But we’d lose part of that information if we adjusted for increasing movie ticket prices.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I actually have access to the week-by-week box office charts going back to 1946 (I know, I know seven years to late for GWTW, I’m working on it):
1. The Sound of Music (41 weeks at #1)
2. Ben-Hur (33 weeks at #1)
3. The Godfather (26 Weeks at #1)
4. Star Wars (26 Weeks at #1)
5. Around the World in 80 Days (24 Weeks at #1)
6. Funny Girl (20 Weeks at #1)
7. Cleopatra (16 Weeks at #1)
8. The Excorist (16 Weeks at #1)
9. My Fair Lady (15 Weeks at #1)
10. Love Story (15 Weeks at #1)
July 7th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I’m pretty sure they mistakenly skipped CHUD. (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) It’s gotta be up there somewhere.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I’d like to see this sort of list in market share terms. For example, you could take box office as a percentage of total box office during the period of the initial release (re-releases would be tricky).
July 7th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
“Also I am surprised not to see either the Dark Knight or Independency Day on there.”
The list is domestic-only numbers. If you do the real inflation-adjusted numbers yourself, you’ll find that both Dark Knight and Independence Day would be on the top-grossing list.
It’s only in the last twenty years or so that tremendous markets have opened up, and thus almost all the top inflation-adjusted grossers (other than GWTW, of course) are newer than that.
Almost all of the top inflation-adjusted grossers are very recent movies like Dark Knight.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
@28 JM: great list. Thanks.
9. My Fair Lady (1964)
Wow, it is hard to believe I live in a country that once thought Lerner and Lowe were the shit.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
The other thing to point out about “Titanic” is that, in the dozen years since it came out, only one movie (”Dark Knight”) has even gotten within $150 mil of its domestic, unadjusted total. Whatever you want to say about its quality, there’s no doubt that in the “modern era” of home video (the last 25-30 years), “Titanic” stands head-and-shoulders above the rest when it comes to box office success, and it doesn’t look to change any time soon.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
“I hate when people plagiarize me in advance…”
Yeah, you hate to see that.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
#28: Are you sure?
July 7th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
“The other thing to point out about “Titanic” is that, in the dozen years since it came out, only one movie (”Dark Knight”) has even gotten within $150 mil of its domestic, unadjusted total. Whatever you want to say about its quality, there’s no doubt that in the “modern era” of home video (the last 25-30 years), “Titanic” stands head-and-shoulders above the rest when it comes to box office success, and it doesn’t look to change any time soon.”
It’s even more dramatic than that in terms of total grosses. Inflation-adjusted, Titanic doubled Dark Knight’s gross.
Titanic is unusual in many ways, which is the reason it’s probably not going to have any competition at the top of the modern gross list for a long time. It got girls as well as boys, which is unusual. And because it was a winter opening, it didn’t have the competition that summer releases get. Those two things gave Titanic unique “legs” – in other words, it kept earning and earning.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
#35: Two key differences in methodology.
1. Full weeks instead of just weekends.
2. 1982-Present vs 1946-Present.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
“I actually have access to the week-by-week box office charts going back to 1946″
It’s not a fair comparison, since pre-1970, releases were much less front-loaded. Jaws pioneered the concept of opening on a massive number of screens on the same day, rather than platforming.
In the olden days, big movies were released as “road shows”, which meant that a print would play for a while and then be moved to another screen. So it was much easier for a big grosser to stay on top of the week’s list for a long time since it wasn’t saturating all of the markets on one weekend.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
A grad student told me that GWTW had variable pricing based on which seat in the theater you bought.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Al, your link says “Movies must have been release in 1982 or later to qualify.” They do have one that would slip into #28 list, though.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
One possibility is to just count people instead of receipts. You could say “XXXX million people saw Star Trek on opening weekend,” and then for comparisons say “making it the Xth most seen movie, per capita.”
Of course, The Dark Knight and Titanic relied heavily on repeat viewings, so that comparison might not work either.
Titanic is also remarkable because it didn’t have a franchise or remake audience, which most other movies on the recent list seem to have. I enjoyed the movie (just watching it on TNT recently, I was surprised how well it’s aged), but I’ve also given up defending it. To each his own.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
The Titanic was frustrating to me, because I think it easily could have been a great movie. As I said before, the visuals were stunning, especially of the huge white ship sinking against the black night sky at the end.
In addition, it had excellent actors, and the story started promisingly. Unfortunately, it ended up being flawed by excess. For example, I remember things like: the romantic relationship becoming sexual (seems unrealistic given the time period), overly cute dialog when DiCaprio was “tied up”, and just too much action and melodrama involving the villain. I mean, its as if an ocean liner sinking is not exciting enough, so you also have to throw in people being chased and shot at too.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Of course, The Dark Knight and Titanic relied heavily on repeat viewings, so that comparison might not work either.
Why not just say “X number of tickets were sold for movie Y.”? That, to me, would give a much better indication of a film’s popularity, and is the way you track results for every other type of media. The best seller list doesn’t tell you how much money John Grisham’s last book made; same with the Billboard charts. They tell you how many copies were sold.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I’ve still never really understood how a film as spotty as Gone With the Wind could enjoy its predominant status.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Interestingly, Titanic and GWTW are just about tied in terms of inflation-adjusted grosses, coming in just short of $3b.
No one else is even close.
I’d guess the original Star Wars is the only other movie even above $2b.
I’m surprised how well GWTW did overseas. It made about 50% of its money overseas, when I was thinking that it was just the entire populations of Georgia and South Carolina going 240 times each.
(It’s annoying that boxofficemojo doesn’t compile total inflation-adjusted numbers into a list. It’d be interesting to see.)
July 7th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
“Why not just say “X number of tickets were sold for movie Y”
People do keep that kind of list. You can look up “admissions” as opposed to “grosses”. But grosses is the far more popular list, since that’s the purpose of the business end of making movies. It’s not an election – votes don’t count, dollars do.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
When Will Smith decided to do movies he got together with agent and they looked at that same list and decided to go sci fi big time. That seemed to work out alright.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
It amuses me to find The Rocky Horror Picture Show at number 70. Only a few more years of midnight screening should push it to its rightful spot at number soixant-neuf
July 7th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Even the inflation adjusted list has huge issues.
Many of the films on the list – Gone With the Wind, Ben-Hur, Sound of Music for example – were “road show” engagements for a year or more, with ticket prices triple or more of the average ticket price of the time. So the whole idea of taking whatever the average price was at the time of release is distorted as well.
Also, since around 1985, Canadian revenues have been added to the totals. They weren’t before. This adds around 10% to the total of more recent films. (Also, as ridiculous as it sounds, the figures you see give the Canadian dollar equal weight to the US currency, irrespective of what its actual value is.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
“I’ve still never really understood how a film as spotty as Gone With the Wind could enjoy its predominant status.”
A chick flick with action is how you separate yourself from the pack. And that’s the formula for both Titanic and GWTW.
Even if you get every single teenage boy in the world to turn out for your movie, you can’t do the kind of business that Titanic and GWTW did. A movie like Dark Knight saturated it’s demographic niche, but that’s still not enough to compete with the big earners.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
“Even the inflation adjusted list has huge issues. Many of the films on the list – Gone With the Wind, Ben-Hur, Sound of Music for example – were “road show” engagements for a year or more, with ticket prices triple or more of the average ticket price of the time. So the whole idea of taking whatever the average price was at the time of release is distorted as well.”
No. The inflation-adjusted lists are adjusting from the actual grosses of the movies, so the higher ticket costs are already factored in.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Jim W,
I have to agree with your assessment of the movie, but I have one small nitpick:
“the romantic relationship becoming sexual (seems unrealistic given the time period)”
There is this odd notion that before the 60’s, everybody prescribed to puritanical ideals.
To me it seems that, while the advent of the birth control pill made a bit of a difference, human sexual behavior is pretty much the same everywhere, and hasn’t ever really changed. The “sexual revolution” was really about our collective willingness to admit it.
Admittedly, I base this on anecdotal evidence. The gossip I hear from my family, who lived in a rural village in Morocco in the 30’s, seem to suggest that there was plenty of homosexuality, adultery, pre-marital sex, and even swinging. The conversations I’ve had with people who were teenagers in the 40’s give the same impression.
Obviously, I have never spoken to anyone who was a teenager during the era in question, but I’d find it very odd if it were much different.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
the romantic relationship becoming sexual (seems unrealistic given the time period)
That was the whole point of the story! A love for the ages! You can’t have tragic love for the ages if that love is not consummated. Otherwise it’s just a “somebody I flirted with on the Titanic story.”
July 7th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
12. $7? Where can you get movie tickets that cheaply? That’s low for most places’ matinees; for night showings, $10-11 seems to be the norm.
July 7th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
“If you want to know what the best movie is, why not base it on asking people what the best movie is, rather than on indirect question like how much money did it make? Something like IMDB’s Top Movies: http://www.imdb.com/chart/top
Compare that list to this list, or even to the Academy Awards nominations for Best Picture, and tell me that IMDB’s isn’t more-correct”
Okay, I’ll be happy to tell you. The Shawshank Redemption is the best film of all time? The Dark Night is the seventh-best? Up is in the top 25? Really.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
10. Love Story (15 Weeks at #1)
That movie was hilarious.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Movies from the 70’s and earlier were often released and rereleased over and over again, increasing their take. With the rise of video tapes and later technology that all changed. (Although the Star Wars saga was an exception)
So comparing the two eras is highly misleading. The fact is that people can now watch movies in far more ways.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Wow, the miracle of inflation. Do all of you Krugmanite-Keynesians finally agree that the sole source of inflation is monetary dilution by the central bank? And that without such monetary dilution, inflation would be impossible and non-existent? Krugman has admitted as much.
You can calculate the intentional destruction in value of your dollars here.
How can one possibly consider such a regime to be either moral or helpful? How can one possibly consider such a regime to be anything other than a process of continuous theft and impoverishment?
July 7th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
“A chick flick with action is how you separate yourself from the pack.”
A weirdly depressing thought…
July 7th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
On “Best Films Ever” — anybody here take issue with the AFI or BFI lists?
July 7th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Comparisons between movies in different generations doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as gauge of popularity. It’s inherently soft. Until Batman came out in 1989, movies weren’t very front-loaded and enjoyed long stays in theatre, home theatre was also in its infancy, and that’s ignoring all of the creative (I use that term loosely) changes to the industry. And until the 1990s, people either saw the movie in theatres or not at all. DVDs also make a ridiculous amount of money.
When you adjust for inflation, people invariably state that you must also adjust for population growth, and the popularity of the cinema, and the number of theatres that exist (movies before a couple years ago never opened on over 4000 screens in North America, and many movies in the 1970s played on what would charitably be called limited releases today), and so on. It’s worthless.
One objective measure of a film’s success — relative to its contemporaries — is the rank of its box office gross in its year of release. This measure prevents us from having to worry about things like inflation, population growth, vertical/horizontal integration in the movie production and distribution industries, etc., and anything else that might obscure the picture. But even this measure has the flaw of not properly identifying runaway hits, like ET, Star Wars, and Titanic.
Rating sites — like iMDB’s top 250 — have the same bias to the recent that Matt cites, by virtue of being online and attracting people who have seen recent releases.
In short, this whole deal is crapshoot. Like the movies you like, let the studios talk about their (very temporal) success, and don’t pretend that something like “inflation-adjusting” is going to solve this debate (and I’m no stranger to economcis).
July 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Right, but from the business end it doesn’t matter whether the figures are adjusted for inflation or not. Money is what matters. But our issue is how to gauge the relative importance of movies, based on their popularity. Most people use money as a gauge, but when you don’t include inflation you get weird results like Spider-Man 3, a forgettable sequel, outgrossing Terminator 2, Forrest Gump, all the Indiana Jones movies, and a bunch of other movies we remember as being incredible blockbusters at the time.
For that matter, vote counts aren’t really helpful when you look at political candidates. John McCain in 2008 received more votes than Ronald Reagan did in 1984. No one in their right mind would give a crap about that, either.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
“Right, but from the business end it doesn’t matter whether the figures are adjusted for inflation or not.”
Well, no. A 1939 dollar bought more than a 2009 dollar does.
That’s the whole point of inflation adjusting.
Titanic and GWTW made the same amount of money, even though the nominal grosses are very different.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
THE MOVIE INDUSTRY NOT THE MOVIE
Now, when I was a small boy my dad would take me down to the museum of Science and Industry and was the Nickel-O-Dean Movie in the basement section, with the Keystone Cops and the piano playing. And a walk down history lane can bring back some good times, but it has nothing to do with the price of tea in China today.
The question is not what was the ten best movies of all times, the question that needs to be addressed and use to be on Sunday Morning Shoot Out was what was going on in the entertainment industry and the fact is that there has been a steady loss of local theaters, that (75%) Seventy-five percent of the shows on the Great White Way have closed, The Television Morgues don’t give series time to mature, (3) three and if the rating don’t clime, its take a walk time.
The Oscar is more of a door stop today compare to the Palm, Soap Stars are taking pay cuts, so which is more important which is the best movie of all times or just were is the Industry headed? Out of the Empire with most other industries? The British and Canadians are coming on strong, and the Chinese aren’t far behind, a walk down memory lane is nice and looking in the rear view mirror but not keeping an eye on the road? Bad Plan!
July 7th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
“Right, but from the business end it doesn’t matter whether the figures are adjusted for inflation or not.”
This doesn’t make sense. Financial people apply discount rates to future dollars, and such discount rate includes an expected inflation rate plus some real interest rate plus some rate to adjust for risk. Petey #63 explains it well. Even if an investor in a film venture perceived zero risk and was totally indifferent between cash today vs. cash tomorrow, he would still want to discount for inflation.
As for the IMDB Top 250 rankings, the voting population is skewed toward internet geeks who like to hang out on movie websites. The overall film-going population is much broader. I watched Shawshank Redemption and I never understood why anyone would think it’s an all-time great.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
@ Bob Roddis -
Even assuming it’s true, a small amount of inflation (e.g., in the 2-4% range) can help to erase debt and redistribute small amounts of wealth down by making the rich poorer. More important, because deflation can have devastating effects on an economy and it is practically impossible to keep the inflation rate at precisely 0%, erring on the side of inflation (with a target of about 2%) is, if nothing else, a necessary evil.
As for movie ticket inflation, at least it hasn’t been as bad as theater ticket inflation…
July 7th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
[...] grossing movies, adjusted for inflation. (from Matt [...]
July 7th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
10. Love Story (15 Weeks at #1)That movie was hilarious.
Particularly the Al Gore part. . .
July 7th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
And Petey, you can claim that MY is a trust fund scumbag, or you can claim that he’s opposed to the idea of intellectual property, but considering how his family made their money, I don’t see how you can claim both.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Titanic was easily as good a work of art as most of the others on the list. Lost most of them, it was a melodrama. Unlike most of them, it took girls’ concerns seriously. And unlike any of the other teen-oriented special effects blockbusters (except maybe Jaws), it took death seriously.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
“And Petey, you can claim that MY is a trust fund scumbag, or you can claim that he’s opposed to the idea of intellectual property, but considering how his family made their money, I don’t see how you can claim both.”
That’s precisely the thing.
His trust-fund is funded by IP work. And thus he’s a tireless advocate against the entire concept of IP, even though IP is by far the most important US export industry, and is important as a policy matter for the United States of America.
It’s Oedipal concerns getting in the way of good policy.
It’s the same methodology that got us into Iraq.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
“A weirdly depressing thought…”
Disagree. I far prefer gender-inclusive popcorn movies to stuff purely for 12yo boys like Transformers…
July 7th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
“His trust-fund is funded by IP work. And thus he’s a tireless advocate against the entire concept of IP, even though IP is by far the most important US export industry, and is important as a policy matter for the United States of America.”
I mean, seriously, if we want to pay for all the toys and flat-screen TV’s the Chinese are making with something other than debt, we need to sell them movies and software and pharmaceuticals.
That’s what makes the world go ’round.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Petey Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
“Even the inflation adjusted list has huge issues. Many of the films on the list – Gone With the Wind, Ben-Hur, Sound of Music for example – were “road show” engagements for a year or more, with ticket prices triple or more of the average ticket price of the time. So the whole idea of taking whatever the average price was at the time of release is distorted as well.”
No. The inflation-adjusted lists are adjusting from the actual grosses of the movies, so the higher ticket costs are already factored in.>>
Not true. The reporting of actual grosses of movies (as a total figure) did not begin regularly until the mid-1970s. Before 1960, the studios had at best haphazard records of this. What was kept – and the Variety annually tried to ascertain – was the rentals the studios got from theatres (that is, their share of the movie ticket revenue generated).
This in turn ranged from a cheap flat cost to 70% of the revenue depending on circumstances.
Estimated grosses before 1960 in particular are often wildly inaccurate, and as I said, not definitively researched.
Also before 1950, most movie tickets were sold to double bills, which means the calculations become even more complicated.
For the record, the two films often cited as having had the most tickets bought for in the US are The Birth of a Nation (1915) and King of Kings (1927).
July 7th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Also just noticed – the list doesn’t include The Godfather, which was a massive hit in 1972. Somehow they missed it (by the time of Jaws, actual grosses were beginning to be reported – it opened in around 900 theatres, the second widest release in history).
July 7th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
For critics’ rankings of the best movies ever, I’m partial to They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They’s list of the 1000 best movies ever, consolidated from many different film critics, scholars, etc. Their top ten:
1. Citizen Kane
2. Vertigo
3. The Rules of the Game
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
5. 8 1/2
6. The Godfather
7. The Searchers
8. Battleship Potemkin
9. The Seven Samurai
10. Tokyo Story
http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000.htm
Although truth be told, I think Citizen Kane is overrated.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Vertigo is overrated too.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
“For critics’ rankings of the best movies ever, I’m partial to They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They’s list of the 1000 best movies ever, consolidated from many different film critics, scholars, etc. Their top ten”
It’s not a bad list, but there are no films on it from the past 25 years, which is almost a third of the sound era. I hereby officially nominate There Will Be Blood to a place in the canon.
Also, I’m a firm believer in switching the places of Vertigo and Citizen Kane in the canon. If we need a best movie evar, Vertigo works better than Kane.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Since the anti-Kane backlash is starting to rear its head in these comments, let me say that I found the movie to be just as great as it was supposed to be. I wasn’t even a little disappointed. Same with Seven Samurai.
The Searchers—now there’s an overrated movie. Not that it’s not good, it is, but it’s gotten this directors’ cult around it that makes it hard to assess honestly. It seems to be one of those films that’s more important to film history than it is a really good, well-told film story. I don’t really think 2001 belongs on there either, certainly not higher than The Godfather.
I’d like Chinatown to be on that Top 10.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
To NYC_Charles:
Fear of deflation is baseless. Consider the 1920-1922 depression. Between the second quarter of 1920 to the third quarter of 1921, wholesale prices fell 44%. Factory employment and industrial production fell 30%. The Fed raised the discount rate from 4% to 7% and then back to 4%. The Harding government did basically nothing in the way of so called Keynesian stimulus. Harding specifically and intentionally did nothing to interfere with falling wages and prices. Further, Federal spending declined from $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921 and $3.3 billion in 1922. Tax rates, meanwhile, were slashed—for every income group. And over the course of the 1920s, the national debt was reduced by one third. The crisis was over quickly. Thomas Woods has an interesting article on this.
There is no evidentiary, historical or logical basis to either fear deflation or to expect Keynesian “stimulus” and/or monetary dilution to produce anything other than misery, poverty and economic dislocation.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
but there are no films on it from the past 25 years
Well, not in the Top 10. OK, not the top 98, either. This list is kind of a conceptual extension of the decennial Sight & Sound lists for the internet age, and just as that list seemed to ossify for films post-dating The Godfather (approximately), this list has followed suit and done the same… at least for the very top of the list. The nice thing about this list is that it goes deep, deep, deep. Maybe not enough people have the critical distance to place, say, Do the Right Thing, higher than #205, but it’s interesting to see it placed in the context of its neighbors A Night at the Opera (#202), La Notte (#204), and Freaks (#207).
It’s also interesting to note which recent films made the list (none of them ranked very high) to get a glimpse into what critics of the future might think of the 2000s. On a list like this, one can expect for more recent films to slowly climb their way up in the rankings, which is the opposite of what happens on the IMDB’s list. Fernando Mereilles’ City of God, for example, makes both lists — but whereas TSPDT has it at a promising-but-not-spectacular #778, the IMDB has it way overrated at #17.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
“Since the anti-Kane backlash is starting to rear its head in these comments, let me say that I found the movie to be just as great as it was supposed to be.”
It’s a terrific movie. I just want to move it to the number two slot in the canon.
A fair bit of Kane’s high place in the canon has to do with its backstory. The romance of the story that RKO 281 is telling is the reason it’s the consensus #1. And that’s the reason I’d pt it reasonably high in the canon also – valuing it celebrates artistic freedom in the medium. But Jesus Foster Christ, Kane’s not even Orson Welles’ best movie, let alone the best movie cinema ever produced.
Vertigo, on the other hand, is full throttle Hitchcock, and that’s something worth placing at the summit.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I hereby officially nominate There Will Be Blood to a place in the canon.
Oh God can’t you get ANYTHING right?
July 7th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
I agree that excessive skepticism of the overall quality of newer movies is preferable to the more common practice of faddish praise. That list does seem to have a huge bias towards depth over watchability, not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that, but I do tend to think people who judge film entirely on it’s artistic merit and depth are kind of missing the point of ‘the movie.’
July 7th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Though I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to force myself to sit through the whole thing in a sitting. It’s crap. It’s a TV soap opera with good production values.
I’m probably the only person in the world who thinks “Return of the Jedi” is the best of the Star Wars franchise. It’s the only one in which the characters have marginally more depth than Sarah Palin. It’s cool to watch space ships blowing up, and that’s about all else I have to say about these films.
July 7th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Vertigo was not believable. Why would the young hot blonde (either in the persona of “Madeleine” or as “Judy”) want to kiss middle-aged Jimmy Stewart? Yes, I know that was the convention in movies back then, but still.
And There Will Be Blood sucked. It was listless and mannered and boring. Watching Daniel Day-Lewis kill Paul Dano was comical, while I think it was meant to be epic. I like some of Anderson’s movies (Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love) but find others soporific (Magnolia, TWBB).
July 7th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
“Though I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to force myself to sit through the whole thing (of GWTW) in a sitting. It’s crap. It’s a TV soap opera with good production values.”
It’s actually a pretty nice movie. The problem with GWTW is the same as with Triumph of the Will. It makes you root for the bad guys.
Good movie. Deeply lousy politics.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
“And There Will Be Blood sucked. It was listless and mannered and boring.”
Modern day version of The Searchers.
And since it’s telling the story of oil and America, it resonates and deserves a place in the canon. It’s an analog to what The Searchers was doing for race and America, which is why it’s in the canon.
If you were bored with There Will Be Blood, you were watching it on your teevee instead of the big screen. It’s great, great stuff. You’re allowed to want to leave the auditorium at points in great movies. Making the audience uncomfortable at points is one of the colors on the director’s palette.
Like Vertigo, TWBB is all about the soundtrack. It puts you in a trance.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
“Making the audience uncomfortable at points is one of the colors on the director’s palette.”
The truly great thing of seeing an excellent movie like TWBB in the theater as opposed to at home is not the size of the screen or the decibels in the sound system – it’s forcing everyone to sit back and take in the very long opening wordless sequence while giving up all hope on distracting themselves.
There is no choice but to relax and let the movie take over.
July 7th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
even though IP is by far the most important US export industry, and is important as a policy matter for the United States of America?
I spent a few minutes googling to confirm or deny this, but I came up empty. Any links?
July 7th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Petey’s determined desire to portray himself as “the hero of the working class” has led him here to obsessively and inappropriately defend “Titanic.” The movie wasn’t that good. The enthusiasm that people had for it burned itself out, which is why DVD sales were comparatively lackluster.
It was a movie that attracted a stunning amount of attention at a certain moment in time but, 10 years on, lacks the historical staying power of “Gone With The Wind” or “Star Wars.”
July 7th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
“There Will Be Blood” is set up to look like a masterpiece — oil, blood, money, religion, America — and then completely fails to deliver. What a shit movie. All you need to know is that Petey thinks it’s awesome.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
“The Sting” and “The Graduate” cost a hell of a lot less money to make than anything else on that list.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
I feel compelled to note that it surprised me, and made me happy, that Dr. Zhivago made the list. I love Lean, long & longer though he may be…also Lawrence & Kwai.
The Kane backlash reminds me of when I declined to see Joplin at the Fillmore because she was “too popular.” I’ve regretted that brainstorm ever since. Kane rocks; esp. Jos. Cotton & the opera debut scene & the scene where Kane loses his temper & tears up a room.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
joe from lowell
Did animated pictures cost a lot to make back in the day? I know they needed hundreds of artists. Still, it seems Snow White and 101 Dalmations could have been made fairly cheaply.
I’m surprised Bambi wasn’t ahead of those two. I always thought Bambi was considered the “Big One” in that genre.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
As long as I’m weighing in on movies, I’ll list There Will Be Blood as another which a number of people told me was overrated, and which I loved. Maybe I just like epic movies. Or I’m way too susceptible to film critics (The Searchers excepted).
July 8th, 2009 at 2:09 am
Although, “Attack of the Clones” is just as bad as “Phantom Menace.” The love scenes had me itching for a handgun.
No, Attack of the Clones was a good movie (in terms of Star Wars movies). It had a lot of good action scenes (very important for a Star Wars movie), with the action being reasonably easy to follow, and the results of each battle reasonably followed from the actions of the battle (unlike say, The Phantom Menace, where the enemy base was destroyed by a Clouseau-like accident on the part of Anakin).
True, the love scenes were rather wooden, and some of the dialogue was stupid*, but this is Star Wars, not high drama. As long as the plot is reasonably interesting and makes sense (at least enough sense after a cursory examination) and there are a lot of good action scenes, the movie has done its job.
The Phantom Menace was bad because the enemy wasn’t threatening, the plot meandered too much, and the resolution to the Naboo battle was stupid. Revenge of the Sith failed because the main plot – how Anakin became Vader -focused too much on a plot device, namely the premonition of Padme’s death, and the promise of a magical way to save her. Rather, it should have focused on Anakin deciding that he could rule things better if he simply ignored the rules, with him becoming increasingly estranged from the Jedi council until they banished him (perhaps after he lets other people die in order to save Padme, in the process revealing his secret marriage), at which point he decides to turn to the dark side for revenge.
*for example, Padme Amidala sees Anakin moping after bringing his dead mother’s body into the house, and asking “Ani, what’s wrong?” (Apparently something was wrong that he was not telling us, namely that he was worried about how vengeful he had been to the Sand People, but really, he just buried his mother, is Padme really that surprised at his moping?
July 8th, 2009 at 3:18 am
I mean, its as if an ocean liner sinking is not exciting enough, so you also have to throw in people being chased and shot at too.
The reason for this subplot was to provide plausible dramatic justification for the movie exploring different parts of the ship.
A realistic story would have had them wandering about aimlessly on the deck, whining and flailing at each other, for a couple of hours.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:17 am
80: I’m not sure how useful it is to argue with a true believer, but have you considered the possibility that inflation is not wealth destruction?
Consider the possibility that our wealth is not represented by the sum value of our currency or by (and this is really odd to me) the economic value of a dollar. Our wealth is represented by the economic production the society is capable of at any given moment in time. It’s not like if we had avoided inflation the economy would be producing the same kind of value in nominal dollars only with 1960s value for the dollar. The currency is just a tool for allowing the economy to work it’s magic. And it turns out that tool is more effective when it is allowed to inflate at a gradual rate.
People who think otherwise have an odd fascination with the value of the money they keep stored under the mattress. Here’s a hint: you can’t eat a dollar bill. It doesn’t allow you to drive to visit your friends. And it certainly doesn’t enable you to make phone calls around the world. It has no intrinsic value. The only thing with real value is the economic productive power of the populace.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Re: The problem with GWTW is the same as with Triumph of the Will. It makes you root for the bad guys.
Good movie. Deeply lousy politics.
The movie did not indulge in the sort of racism that the book did (and even the book’s attitude there is complicated), though unfortunately the movie also did not have the space to explore the anti-secession and anti-war sentiments which Scarlett and Rhett shared (each for their own reasons– Scarlett was selfish, Rhett was simply sensible). Nor did the movie emphasize, as the book did, the feminist (1930s version) aspect of Scarlett’s life whereby she saved her family and her home and founded a successful business in a society that was not friendly toward women having any public accomplishments at all.
July 8th, 2009 at 7:44 am
“The enthusiasm that people had for (Titanic) burned itself out, which is why DVD sales were comparatively lackluster.”
It’s actually an example of another reason Titanic stands at the top of the gross list with GWTW: it’s a movie theater movie. The long payoff sequence of the movie comes after the boat’s electrical system is killed, and the screen becomes gets very, very dark for quite a while. That stuff is the killer app in the theater, but it doesn’t work so well in the living room.
It’s no coincidence that Gladiator sold more DVD’s than Titanic. It’s the same basic reason that The Wizard of Oz made more money playing on network TV over the years than GWTW did, despite GWTW grossing 100 times more than The Wizard of Oz did in theaters. The top grossing movies are the ones that specialize in the stuff that works with a big screen and dark auditorium.
For another example of this, the whole reason that the overall domestic box office has (unexpectedly) risen in the past couple of years is the reintroduction of 3-D. Movies are selling something different than TV.
July 8th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Get real . . .”Titanic” beating out “The Wizard of Oz”????
July 8th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I recall that The Graduate played a full-year at the Co-Ed Theatre in Champaing, Illinois, during its original release. I know of no other motion picture that brought so many theater-goers to a theatre for matinees and two and three evening performances before or since.
Dick Sublette
July 8th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I’d like Chinatown to be on that Top 10.
Chinatown is the perfect movie.
Vertigo and The Searchers are overrated. Both are films that didn’t get critical acclaim when they came out, but later became totems of 70’s and 80’s film school directors. I’d say they’re both very aesthetically productive, full of film stills that you can write endlessly about. But as movies you watch, they don’t quite deserve their spots.
It will be interesting when decade top 10 lists start coming out…