50 Highest-Grossing Movies Of All Time Ranked
35. Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2017)
Box Office: $961.9 million (#40)
Not only was the Jumanji reboot-sequel one of the most surprising box office hits of 2017 - facing hefty competition from Star Wars: The Last Jedi - it was also a total shock that the movie was any good at all.
Swatting away fan ambivalence about a new Jumanji combined with a mediocre marketing campaign, Welcome to the Jungle delivers easy, well-executed laughs and thrills thanks to a smart script that actually understands the essence of video games.
The central quartet are fantastic - especially Jack Black as a teenage girl in the body of an overweight middle-aged man - the nutty action sequences are silly fun, and overall it's just a rock solid tentpole adventure flick that knows exactly what it is and delivers accordingly. What a shocker.
34. The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (2013)
Box Office: $958.4 million (#42)
The second entry into the Hobbit trilogy is scarcely the best of the three, benefiting hugely from the presence of the malevolent dragon Smaug (performed with delicious glee by Benedict Cumberbatch).
It's still bogged down by shoddy pacing, some iffy visual effects and a wretched new love triangle subplot featuring Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), and Kili (Aidan Turner), but the action sequences are a lot of fun (the barrels!), it's less padded than An Unexpected Journey, and generally feels far more sure of itself than the other Hobbit movies.
Still not great, but it'll definitely do.
33. Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone (2001)
Box Office: $974.8 million (#35)
The inaugural Harry Potter movie is decidedly tougher to sit through nowadays than when it first released. Having seen the central trio grow into their roles and become much better actors over the years, it's not always easy to observe their more amateur performances here, understandable though they are.
The script also feels less finessed as it has to lay out the series' overarching ideas in the most broad, simplistic way possible, and only after the film slayed at the box office was it clear that audiences could keep up.
It does what it needs to do in terms of establishing this world, but it's probably the worst of the eight Potter movies, and certainly the one least worth revisiting (beyond morbid curiosity, of course).
32. The Fate Of The Furious (2017)
Box Office: $1.236 billion (#14)
Though it fails to reach the heights of, say, Fast Five or Furious 7, the eighth Fast and the Furious movie is nevertheless a highly consistent sequel which offers up a few nifty twists on the typical formula, even if the ending is never in doubt.
F. Gary Gray directs the hell out of the vehicular carnage, Charlize Theron is a welcome addition as the villain (if a little underused), the cast is charming as hell and everybody gets their time to shine.
The series has definitely lost a little of its zing at this point, but eight movies in, is that much of a surprise? The fact the franchise is still serving up hilariously cartoonish action and an amusingly earnest group dynamic is enough to keep it in good stead for the time being.
Plus, where else can you see Jason Statham murdering a bunch of guys while carrying a baby?
31. Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)
Box Office: $1.405 billion (#8)
An undeniable comedown from The Avengers, Age of Ultron is nevertheless another enjoyable superhero team-up movie, bloated out though it is with needless subplots and probably a few characters too many.
Joss Whedon has talked extensively about the movie's difficult production, which is evident from the end product: he struggled to top what came before, and ultimately couldn't. The over-reliance on quips, underwhelming depiction of Ultron (though James Spader did fine work regardless) and exhausting final battle add up to a typical overdone sequel that's just too much for its own good.
On the other hand, it did introduce Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) to the MCU in spectacular fashion, so there's that.