Avatar Should Not Be Consider The #1 Movie Of All-Time...Not Yet.
Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 12:48AM 
As Avatar passes Titanic as the highest grossing movie of all-time, we should all refrain ourselves from interpreting that as the best or most demand movie of all-time. As you know, movie tickets are more expensive now than they have ever been--so the 2 months it took for Avatar to grab the honors of the number 1 movie in history; it is however, not the MOST WATCHED movie. Let's give less attention to the gross sales and more importance to a stat like "number of tickets sold" because it gives a better (not a perfect) indication of the quality of the movie. A great example of my point would be last year's Transformers 2 and how terrible that movie was. It was a high grossing piece of shit of a film that made twice the money than say, Back To The Future--which we all know was a superior film compared to Transformers. If you sell more movie tickets, it means the demand for the movie is greater, regardless of the price of a ticket at the time. So here is a list of the top 20 movies of all-time based on number of tickets sold. (Note: Avatar ain't on this list). [thrfeed.com]
1 "Gone With the Wind" (1939) 202,044,600
2 "Star Wars" (1977) 178,119,600
3 "The Sound of Music" (1965) 142,415,400
4 "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) 141,854,300
5 "The Ten Commandments" (1956) 131,000,000
6 "Titanic" (1997) 128,345,900
7 "Jaws" (1975) 128,078,800
8 "Doctor Zhivago" (1965) 124,135,500
9 "The Exorcist" (1973) 110,568,700
10 "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) 109,000,000
11 "101 Dalmatians" (1961) 99,917,300
12 "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) 98,180,600
13 "Ben-Hur" (1959) 98,000,000
14 "Return of the Jedi" (1983) 94,059,400
15 "The Sting" (1973) 89,142,900
16 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) 88,141,900
17 "Jurassic Park" (1993) 86,205,800
18 "The Graduate" (1967) 85,571,400
19 "Star Wars: Episode I" (1999) 84,825,800
20 "Fantasia" (1941) 83,043,500
"Avatar," despite topping the worldwide gross list, by and by, is only No. 26 on the ticket sales list with 76,421,000 sold ... at least, so far... For the top 100 movies based on tickets sold, click here.
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Reader Comments (31)
I agree.
wala akong napanuod sa mga yan ^+^.. knife pls.. :D
forret gump only made it to 22: too bad. big mr. hanks fan here:))
For once Mo, you and I are in total agreement.
movies after titanic is very much prone to piracy since the dawn of pirated VCDs most specially, pirated DVDs, then the dagger of all big movies... TORRENTS. old flicks before did not have such a problem which would normally equate to gate attendance. avatar's success still accounts high for such parameters today...
Hey Mo
One thing you're not taking into account though is that back then choices for entertainment venues are limited compared to today. People back then have less options as far as what they can watch. With the advent of internet hugging much of viewer's attention, Avatar's figures are still impressive.
just my 2 cents.
Flip
you cannot really compare this apple to apple. Notice that most watched movies are really really old where pirated dvd's and movie downloads are not yet available. Which is why people really have to go to the movie theater and watch it
you could also factor in the year it was released. because this gives an idea on (1) the number of cinemas = accessibility; (2) population. In Manila for example, in 1950s, Population maybe half of 90 million and cinemas is just a handful.
gone with the wind could be x10 if we compare apples to apples.
Doesn't anyone else notice that the title of this post is grammatically wrong? Avatar should not be consider(ed)?
Hi Mo!
I think the old movies would emerge to be on the top list considering that time there are still no or say only a few technologies would affect the moview industry such as no dvd or vcd or vcr that time. so the people would really go to the movie houses just to watch these movies. What's your take on this?
Goodtimes!
old great movies made it to the top10 because life leisure back then is so simple. people just watch movies in theater. Today, they watch it in laptops or dvd using pirated discs. my wife and i watched this movie in cinema on opening week and we spread the good news afterwards. most of our friends just responded, ok, i'll buy a copy in "bangketa" or i'll download it tonight.
i'll just watch it pirated dvd's.. no dvd yet? ok, pirated vcd's then. no vcd yet? i'll just download it from the internet. oh wait, no technology for uploading movies yet? oh well, i'll just to the movie house to watch it then...
but still, i don't think Avatar is the number 1 movie of all time. You just can't use the gross sales and number of tickets sold as THE basis...
BTW the article is DOMESTIC GROSSES
Wow look at Star wars, there's 4 out of 6 of their franchise not bad..
well i think the other posters make a good point when they say that peoples behaviors are different then and now, but people must take into account that nowadays we have imaxx theaters(where the cost of a movie ticket is 3-4x of that of regular films) and thats practically the reason why avatar grossed as much with lesser ticket sales..this is the same reason why tickets sales are less because there are lesser theaters that played the film, unlike before u can see 4 theater in one mall showing a single movie(avatar didnt even reach laguna ie;calamba losbanos, well u know what i mean)
Agree with the No. 1 movie. 80 plus years and still a lot people knows this movie even if they did not watch it yet. it will not last long if it's not a very good movie. too bad the back to the future is not at the top 10 this is also a very entertaining movie.
Good Point, its should be based on ticket sold. Value of money may vary but quantity of ticket sold is not!
Excellent points by the other posters who indicated the differences in era and what affected the ticket sales/gate reciepts then and now.
If you reverse the situation where "Gone with the Wind" was shown this year, I doubt it will reach the same level of most watched if compared to Avatar. Its not because the movie sucks, its just the total number of movies readily available for everyone to watch astounding. As compared to say 1939, maybe there were only 2 or 3 movies showing at the time.
For the year 2000 to 09, where in this list can you see the winners of the Oscar's best picture award? NONE! These are excellent movies but how come they are not in this list??? Go figure ;)
Wrong grammar pa yung headline. Take time to double check your typos Mo.
Avatar is just Disney's Pocahontas with Matrix elements in it. The only thing it has is the stunning visual it gives the audience. It would've been better if it had a more original plotline. Just my opinion.