What is the most successful film of all time?
There are so many ways to judge this.
Usually, because movies are essentially a business, the key criterion is money – but even here we have a choice between tickets sales in cash to tickets sales adjusted for inflation.
This week, it was announced that in cash terms “Avengers: Endgame” has just overtaken “Avatar”. You can see more on this story here.
But, if you adjust for inflation, then the top money-making film of all time is “Gone With The Wind” from 1939.
Another valid measure is number of ticket sales. On that basis, again the top movie is “Gone With The Wind”.
Still another measure is the number of Academy Awards won and, on that criterion, three movies share the record for the most Oscars. “Ben-Hur” (1959), “Titanic” (1997) and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003) each nabbed 11 Academy Awards in the years in which they were nominated.
Personally I think the best film ever made was “Lawrence Of Arabia” (1963).
July 28th, 2019 at 7:03 pm
How about judging films with a slightly different criteria? How many times did you get in your car, drive to the theatre, line up for tickets and see the same film again? I plead guilty to seeing “The Sound of Music” six times this way – pre video rentals, certainly “the hard way”. Great film though!!