Only Six Films in History Were Able to Gross $2 Billion; Can You Name Them All?
With the growing success of the film industry, it's no surprise that a select few movies have managed to reach the impressive milestone of grossing $2 billion at the box office.
But can you name all six films in history that have achieved this feat?"
The list is not hard to memorize, actually, particularly as three of those films are made by the same director, and five out of six belong to exceptionally well-known franchises.
In chronological order of their release, those films are:
- Titanic ( 1997); $2,187,535,296; directed by James Cameron.
- Avatar ( 2009); $2,922,917,914; directed by James Cameron.
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015); $2,068,223,624; directed by J.J. Abrams.
- Avengers: Infinity War ( 2018); $2,048,359,754; directed by the Russo brothers.
- Avengers: Endgame (2019); $2,797,501,328; directed by the Russo brothers.
- Avatar: The Way of Water ( 2022); $2,026,675,670; directed by James Cameron.
Just imagine being James Cameron, the man single-handedly responsible for three of the biggest hits of all time, including the top spot, and the film which first broke the two-billion threshold – whether you count by the date of the film's original release, or by the date at which it crossed that threshold thanks to re-releases, as happened with Titanic.
Of course, barring some worldwide disaster, over time the number of films grossing $2 billion or more is going to increase, and the list of highest-grossing movies of all time will inevitably change, with new releases replacing the old-timers, thanks to inflation.
However, if we look for the list of highest-grossing movies of all time, adjusted for inflation, James Cameron's achievements still look almost as incredible.
The original Avatar and Titanic are still on the list (in second and third places, respectively), with Avatar being the only movie that came even remotely close to unseating the reigning champion, Gone with the Wind (1939). They also form half out of the four movies that, after the inflation adjustment, grossed $3 billion or more in present-day dollars, with the fourth one being the original Star Wars (1977), now better known as Episode IV.
All in all, it terms of box office and profit James Cameron might well be the most successful director of all time, particularly as a good number of his hits also had extraordinarily good budget-to-revenue ratio, with Avatar, Titanic and the first Terminator eventually earning over ten times their budget – the achievement that neither both of the Avengers installments nor The Force Awakens managed to replicate.