The 250 Highest-Grossing Films From 1911 to 1983, Adjusting for Inflation
As the title says, this is an inflation-adjusted list of the 250 highest-grossing films released in the U.S. between 1911 and 1983. I selected those years because 1911 is when Hollywood became the epicenter of the U.S. film industry with the opening of the region's first movie studios, while 1983 marked the end of the auteur-driven "New Hollywood" movement and a full shift into the modern blockbuster/digital era. Box office info for releases after 1980 is readily available, but not so much for those from the silent era (c. 1910-1927) through the mid-1970s, so I wanted to focus on the films from those earlier years.
I'm going by adjusted grosses rather than what each movie earned at the time of its release to better indicate its popularity in comparison to movies released years or even decades apart. Obviously this is not an exact science but it does give us a general idea of how much a movie might have made if released in a different year, assuming it sold the same number of tickets. Keep in mind these are domestic (U.S./Canada) grosses only, not worldwide grosses, and these numbers *do* include revenue from re-releases. I've included the estimated adjusted gross for each film in the note section of their respective entries.
Primary source: Ultimate Movie Rankings
I'm going by adjusted grosses rather than what each movie earned at the time of its release to better indicate its popularity in comparison to movies released years or even decades apart. Obviously this is not an exact science but it does give us a general idea of how much a movie might have made if released in a different year, assuming it sold the same number of tickets. Keep in mind these are domestic (U.S./Canada) grosses only, not worldwide grosses, and these numbers *do* include revenue from re-releases. I've included the estimated adjusted gross for each film in the note section of their respective entries.
Primary source: Ultimate Movie Rankings
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