2. The Exorcist
In a case of notoriety inspiring big box office, the fervor surrounding 1973's The Exorcist made it a huge draw and the classic horror film ranks among the top ten highest-grossing films of all time (adjusted for inflation). The Exorcist's infamy played no small part in this tremendous gross: theatres provided Exorcist barf bags for moviegoers who were unable to stomach the movie's extreme images, allegations that the film employed subliminal imagery surfaced (a fact later confirmed by director William Friedkin), and a bevy of urban legends sprung about around the film's "cursed" production. To this day The Exorcist is widely considered one of the finest examples of horror filmmaking and, as film critic Stanley Kauffmann put it, The Exorcist "will scare the hell out of you."