50 Highest-Grossing Movies Of All Time Ranked

From Michael Bay to Christopher Nolan.

By Jack Pooley /

Warner Bros.

As we all know, money makes Hollywood go round, and nothing makes a studio executive grin more than seeing their latest blockbuster project clean up at the box office.

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Filmmaking is a business built on speculation and gambles, where even the surest thing can end up tanking at the box office: look no further than what just happened to Solo: A Star Wars Story.

When a film succeeds, though, billions of dollars can be made (especially when factoring in merchandising and licensing), and in the case of these 50 movies, every single one of them went on to literally print money for their respective studios, while also ensuring the possibility of more sequels to come.

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Quality isn't always synonymous with good business, so it won't be surprising that a good number of these movies are "sub-par", if we're being kind. The majority, however, are at least acceptably decent, and there are even a surprising number of stone-cold masterpieces among the lot.

From the most cynical, inexplicably popular, soulless blockbusters to tentpoles that reinvented what big-budget cinema could be, here are the 50 highest-grossing movies of all time (unadjusted for inflation) ranked from worst to best...

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