20 Highest-Grossing Movie Franchises Ranked Worst To Best

Worldwide box office: $10.31 billion.

Perhaps the single most influential movie series of all time, Star Wars practically invented the summer blockbuster back in 1977, and since then has become a franchise unlike any other, comprising of films, TV shows, books, comics, games, theme park attractions, and too many other things to name.

But we're just looking at the movies here, and for the most part Star Wars is about as compelling as any franchise has ever been. Following an epic struggle between light and dark, focussed on a slew of unlikely heroes and menacing villains, there have been twelve films in the mainline Skywalker Saga, and several spin-offs set in-between the primary plot.

The original trilogy, which ran between 1977 and 1983, is an unrivalled sci-fi epic, and even though both the prequel and sequel trilogies have been divisive to say the least, the recent standalone films have mixed with the series' formula with very refreshing results.

Even with its spotty narrative repetitiveness and the poor ending of the Skywalker Saga, the cultural impact, world-building, characters, mythology, music and action is more than enough to support Star Wars' claim as one of the greatest movie franchises ever made.