The actual Top Grossing U.S. Movies of All Time

Lengthy lines, sold-out theaters and high-profile premieres are commonplace for Hollywood's blockbuster productions. But when the credits have rolled and the receipts are tallied, the most commonly referenced movie calculation is missing one key player: inflation. When it comes to ranking movies by revenues, today's higher admission prices give more recent films an unfair advantage.
Recent box office prices have easily outpaced inflation, but when comparing the revenues of new movies to those of previous years and especially decades, it is important to make the necessary adjustments. In the first quarter of 2010, the nationwide average price of a movie ticket increased 8% from the same period last year. (Summer movie season can be a major money maker for big studios, especially if they can produce a smash-hit.

With "Avatar" and "Titanic," director James Cameron can lay claim to the two highest grossing movies of all time in the United States. Domestically, the films brought in roughly $750 million and $600 million, respectively.
Ranked by box office domestic revenue, here are the top five highest grossing movies of all time:
1. "Avatar" (2009) $749 million ( money values not adjusted to inflation)
2. "Titanic" (1997) $600 million ( money values not adjusted to inflation)
3. "The Dark Knight" (2008) $533 million (ditto)
4. "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" (1977) $460 million (ditto)
5. "Shrek 2" (2004) $441 million (ditto)

And The Inflation-Adjusted Winner Is:
The list of highest grossing inflation-adjusted movies is commonly found by using current day movie ticket prices and adjusting them to reflect the change in dollar purchasing power. After considering inflation, the list of top breadwinners undergoes a massive rewrite. (Success in Hollywood isn't just measured by ticket sales - development costs play a large part, too.
After accounting for inflation, "Gone With the Wind" is the highest grossing movie of all-time, having earned over $1.6 billion. Avatar falls to fourteenth on the list, after being bested by several pictures ranging from The Exorcist to 101 Dalmatians. Ranked by box office revenue in terms of today's dollars, the top five highest grossing movies are:
1. "Gone With the Wind" (1939) $1.6 billion
2. "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope" (1977) $1.4 billion
3. "The Sound of Music" (1965) $1.1 billion
4. "E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial" (1982) $1.1 billion
5. "The Ten Commandments" (1956) $1.0 billion
Of course, each movie on the list has time on its side. The most recent of the top five movies was originally released over thirty years ago, whereas "Avatar" is less than one year old. "Gone With the Wind" also has the advantage of multiple releases over the course of the seventy-plus years since its original release.