Top Grossing Films of All Time

Ok, so a little bored this morning, I was checking out the top grossing films of all time.

Check out imdb's list: http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegr ... world-wide (http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide)

I do find it a shame that most lists concentrate on money earned rather than actual ticket sales 'bums on seats', as the list will always favour recently released films where ticket prices are higher. In the top 100 movies only 9 movies predate 1990 of which three are the Star Wars first trilogy, two are Indiana Jones flicks and then there is Rain Man, only three of the nine predate 1980 - Jaws at 51 and Grease at 84 with the final movie the only one in the top 100 to predate 1970 - Gone With The Wind at no.80.

Can't believe that so many people forked out to see Titanic and it has been the top grossing film of all time for the last 9 years.

My favourite films (won't do a top 100 don't worry) in no particular order include:

A Matter of Life & Death (1946)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
12 Angry Men (1957)
North By Northwest (1959)
To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) - also one of my fave books
LA Confidential (1997)
Some Like it Hot (1959)
Aliens (1986)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Crash (2004)
The African Queen (1951)
The Philadelphia Story (1940) & High Society (1956)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Blithe Spirit (1945)
Passport to Pimlico (1949)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Arsenic & Old Lace (1944)
Finding Nemo (2003)
The Usual Suspects (1995)

Add on most of Laurel & Hardy's film shorts.

No place on my list for the usual audience fave's of The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Casablanca or Taxi Driver. If you haven't heard of most of my list (most were filmed before even I was born), why not check them out at your local 'Blockbuster' and have a fabulous evening infront of the tv.

Any other suggestions, apart from ''get a life'?

Fatman very interesting. My list changes daily, weekly how do you manage to stick to one rigid list. Last night I saw a movie about Truman Capote about his book in Cold blood or something. I have not read the book but the movie was good. Very relaxing during the typhoon. He and his agent came across as being true arse holes. Is he really meant to be the greatest writer America ever had? I find this difficult to believe based on a book he plagiarised from an inmate on death row.

I thought of making a list for you but now you will just have to get, "The man without a past" truly beautifully crafted small budget Finnish film,Dir. kaurismakis (2004) original language, I just read some American crits of the film, most good but what utter crap they speak. I dont think Americans truly get foreign language films.
Lets see what else did I see in the last week or so, jaws three, no, no good. Oh yes Bambi. I saw Bambi for the first time ever, I was quite disappointed by the lack of story line, all very simple and brief. But the mighty king buck took my breath away.

Spirited away(2001) Japanese animation,Miyazaki-original language , I liked very very much,I like quite a lot of his films. The other one called, "My neighbour Totoro" (1988) is wondrous. Hmm my list grows, oh er there are some fantastic Iranian films as well, my most favourite film of all time is about a boy who drowns in a river at the end, his horse and everything washed away. More I can't remember.

American film, lets see....oh I liked "Ken Park" ,Lary Clark et al (2002) and I liked The Fluffer, there are just too many movies I liked to make a list, I even liked the original Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Bourne Identity especially the first one......um, oh yes Death of a salesman, then there is English film and Swedish film and and.
Well that is my list for today.

I've never seen Capote called the greatest writer America ever produced. In my opinion, he's a hack compared with the likes of Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Steinbeck, and any number of others. But what do I know?

edit destroy

More than I do on the subject thats for sure. Ernest Hemingway??? Yea gods give me a break. I was given a little hard back original as a gift some while ago, something about fishing in Florida, it must have been the very worst book I have ever read. and I like fishing. At least I had a brief enjoyment of it. But I enjoyed the film, set in Cuba I think.

That just struck a memory in me for some reason about a cuban Spanish writer, actor perhaps, with Johnny depp. Any-way I enjoyed that film no end, especially the prison scenes, well actually just all of it. I must try and remember it's name and watch it again.

... to list out the top gross films of all time?

I was waiting for that plot twist. I've seen some horribly gross adult videos.

[Aunty]

My top ten movies list in no particular order is:-

Europa Europa
Dune
The Wizard of Oz
Gone With The Wind
Schindlers List
Trainspotting
Once Were Warriors
Star Wars
The Rocky Horror Picture Show



The list is never complete.

[Smiles]

My list of favourite movies is made up from those I can actually sit back and enjoy (and find more in) more than once. This is quite a difficult criteria to use and thus my list is not long.
It's also why I never buy films on CD or DVD (though I have a few of the ones below) ... they would just sit around forlorn and unwatched, perhaps played for the occasional guest.

For what it's worth (in no order):

Manhattan (a very old Woody Allen movie, but still his best IMHO)
Godfather (1 & 2)
Happy Together (My all-time favourite gay film ... beautiful & powerful. Makes all others simply sophomoric)
Kill Bill (1)
Barry Lyndon
All About Eve
Truth or Dare
I Never Sang for my Father
Raging Bull
Dangerous Liasons (Steven Frears version)
Amadeus
In the Mood for Love
Goodfellas
Lolita
All about my Mother

There is one on the list above which did not make big box office but is a terrific story about the love/hate relationship between father and son on the eve of the father's death, and that things-said and (and more importantly, not-said) bubble up to the surface with great sad power.

Not maudlin at all, 'I Never Sang for my Father' has Gene Hackman (the son) and Melvyn Douglas (the dying father) in Acting Heaven as two men who have been seperated most of their adult lives come back together at the end . . . in ways which are not expected or predicatable or particularly sentimental.
But still, this is the only movie I know of which makes me cry everytime I watch it. Very worthwhile to rent, if you can find it.

Two I forgot which deserve mention (making these lists is hard):

Breaker Morant
Full Metal Jacket (especially for the first mezmerising hour)

Cheers ...

[manfarang-old]

Is he really meant to be the greatest writer America ever had? I find this difficult to believe based on a book he plagiarised from an inmate on death row.I don't think that Capote has ever been touted as Ameridca's greatest writer (Mark Twain probably has a lock on that title), but he did produce a few good books. In Cold Blood is a terrific book, but it was also the last good book he ever wrote. I certainly don't think that Capote "plagiarized" the book. The film showed how Capote manipulated Perry Smith to get the inside story on the murders and how, once he got the details, he abandoned Smith. I also thought the film hinted that Capote's friend Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird" Lee may have had a hand in making the book as good as it was.

I don't think that Capote has ever been touted as Ameridca's greatest writerI'd plump for Sue Grafton and Stanley Bing

All About Eve
Dangerous Liasons

Interesting choice, Smiles, as they both revolve around the theme of masks. I would have thought The Three Faces of Eve would be high up on your list. But I guess that would be too personal.

I also thought the film hinted that Capote's friend Harper "To Kill a Mockingbird" Lee may have had a hand in making the book as good as it was.

Harper Lee was accredited by Capote as performing secretarial work on In Cold Blood

Interesting also were the persistent rumors that Capote himself wrote all or part of To Kill a Mockingbird

The character Dill was supposedly modelled on Capote

Lee and Capote were neighbours during their youth in Monroeville Alabama

[Jetsam]

I like "foreign" movies

my all time best film is "Cidade de Deus" , that movie i can watch every day .

other favorites:
Lilja 4-ever
Amores Perros
Abre los Ojos
Requiem for a dream
Das experiment

and every movie from M. Night Shyamalan ( the sixth sense :clown: )

[Bob]

My list of movies I enjoyed the most doesn't change weekly but has changed over time depending on my mood. In my
twenties, I went for anything that I thought had great acting. Anything Olivier did was decent to me and I even liked Taming of the Shrew with Burton and Taylor (their performances there personified misery - and I've always wondered if they truly hated each other that much). But an old movie with Bogart, Bacall, Kate Hepburn, or even Jimmy Stewart is awful hard to beat.

Regardless, I've tired of the message movies and simply go now to be entertained. Neither the acting or the plots of the movies of the last 20+ years seem to match the movies of the 40's or 50's. But, on the other hand, we get some stunning special effects (Spielberg, Lucas, etc.), exceptional cinematography, and occasionally some very good music. That, and some popcorn, is enough to make me happy now.

Das boot (1981), I can watch that over, every couple of years, for me so extremely evocative of the war. And King rat (1965) James Fox, I have to say Foxie reminds others of myself in that role. Not sure why, or if this is a compliment, but I shall take it as being because he was so sexy any-way.

Bob I disagree, but like Jetsam I find there are more decent films in the "foreign language" category. I miss the video shops in Amsterdam some of them were very good. Out here I am scrapping the barrel trying to find anything. Though Korean film throws up a surprise once in awhile as does Japan.
Thai film, oh yes the one about the gay volley-ball team, very good. So many...

Amores Perros was brilliant for example, so much better than anything American, something to ease your way Bob. Chopper an Australian film with Eric Bana very good, City of god-Fernando Meirelles, so many and all fantastic quite recent films.

Reading these lists on this thread is like meeting someone for the first time.

I have to agree with Bob. I do find myself turning away from the more 'issue' based movies nowadays and just want to be downright entertained or moved emotionally - can't knock a good ole weepy.

As for the movies on my list, so many of them are from the 40's & 50's and there are so many more from that era that could easily get on a list of great entertaining movies that you can watch year after year and just love more each time. The stars of that era, as mentioned, Hepburn, Tracey, Bogart, Bacall, Grant, Niven, Fonda, Peck, Stewart just ooze star quality. However, if you have never seen a Margaret Rutherford movie (Blithe Spirit, Murder at the Gallop or any roles playing Miss Marple or seen her The VIP's - long winded film but she stole away the best supporting actor Oscar fabulously & Paasport to Pimlico), you have just got to catch her, or indeed Alistair Sim, another great comedic British Actor (see School for Scoundrels, any of the St Trinian's movies where he plays the headmistress or An Inspector Calls) and Alec Guiness (The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit, Kind Hearts & Coronets - where he plays EIGHT male & female roles, Oliver Twist etc). Cedric, as you can now guess, my list does actually change, but many of the films stay with me and will always be amongst my favourites even if they never make my top ten and most are oldies.

I realise I have slanted towards the American & English movie scene, but favourite foreign films include:

Etre et avoir - French documentary about a lovely Schoolmaster & his kids
Les Choristes - another French film about another schoolteacher and the way he affects the lives of the children he teaches, I love this film. Talking of all things French, I fell in love as a boy with French Film star Alain Delon and my heart still warms at the mention of his name.
Y tu mam├б tambi├йn - Gael garcia Bernal can do no wrong.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - enough said
Jean De Florette/Manon Des Sources - those Frenchy's know how to make a decent film
Metroplois, literally years ahead of it's time
Amelie - so sweet and sad

Actuallly I know someone asked for the worst movies of all time, but a slant on that could be the following site, which lists the 100 worst porn movie titles:

http://members.shaw.ca/stayasyouare/tohwpmt.html

My faves (so to speak) include:
Crack Whores of America
Dude, Where's my dildo?
Moulin Splooge
Willy Wanker & The Fudge Packing Factory
Yank My Doodle, It's a Dandy

Murder at the gallop! Every-one should love Margaret Rutherford. Oh and Robert Morley, wasn't he in the same film? I love all the old British character actors. For a long time I had a crush on Malcolm McDowel.Even though he was old enough to be my great grand father.

I don't actively seek "issue" based movies, but I need so much for a good well written story, characters, and well honestly, it can be made with a hand held mobile phone for all I care.
So many American films seem to be all special effects music and nothing else. Ok that is a gross generalisation of course, but in the main all true. All films have issues, whether they be about love life or death. I also dislike intensely those with a moral. And here I am afraid Hollywood excels.

I think the actors and films from the 40's and 50's are excellent but in small doses. I don't know, sometimes they seem to have dated quite badly, but there are the timeless ones which fatman mentions. Some of the actors I find have dated quite badly, Alec Guiness I think has dated very badly, he comes across as very ham orientated, Laurence Olivier too. The Americans have fared better.

Alain Delon aside,French film leaves me neutral. The Italians do French film so much better.

For the very best film of the week, try HOSTEL, Eli Roth (2005) you will love, be entertained all night long. Get it now! Easily available at a store near you!
Quite astounding! Do not look it up before you have watched. Truly gross, but pleasantly subtle, satisfying, but leaves you panting for more. Fire up the pop corn and invite your BF, even better send him out to buy it now. He will love. Perfect for a friday.

I only go to a movie that I think will make me laugh. That pretty much rules out all American movies although someone did drag me off to Airforce One and I laughed almost all the way through that. Oh, and Animal House. I thought I would enjoy Kind Hearts and Coronets when it finally came out on DVD but like so many things (various boys from various bars, for example) the anticipation was greater than the reality

What NON-American films have you found funny?

Good question. Carry on up the Kyber? You may meet Edith coming all the way down again.

Come on, you old goat. Tell us what makes a man like you laugh, other than taunting people on web boards.

Ma Vie en Rose (My Life In Pink - 1997)
The Lady Killers (The old one.)
The Lavender Hill Mob
The Mouse That Roared
Juliet of the Spirits
The Red Shoes
Maurice
The Magic Christian

Worst movie I've seen lately, Meet the Fokers

The lady killers, I want to get that one. Though I won't find it here. I have only seen the middling American version with Tom Hanks here. Yawn yawn.

Today's list has to include, Boys dont cry (2002+-) Hillary Swank, I thought it was a very entertaining film, I love movies that just keep you watching.

Worst film I am about to see, Anaconda on tv tonght.

[Aunty]

Worst movie I have ever seen. It's a tie between E.T. and Dances with Wolves, or was it Dances with Savages? Whatever it was called it was just mind-numbingly gut-wrenchingly awful. And they gave the plonker who made it an Oscar. ItтАЩs when the Academy Awards does such ridiculous things that it begins to lose the very little credibility it has. Still the heavens were put back in balance with Water World, a fitting epitaph that finally revealed the full horrible truth. Mr Costner a movie maker not.

Most horrible recent movie I have seen. Mr and Mrs Smith. Both actors should have been shot at birth, and the person who made this movie slapped.

Oops no I forgot to mention Alexander. That was the most recent gashtly movie I saw, which is probably why I forgot it, which is the best thing that can happen to a movie like that quite frankly.

I agree about Alexander. Brad has finally been fully exposed. Only film I even vaguely thought his acting was plausible was The fight club, and here he was just a meat loaf. I am sure he is a very nice person and all that but an actor he is not. As for Angelina Guppy, I am just not entirely convinced.

Her daddy was about the best thing in Anaconda last night, especially when he was being squeezed like a cock head and wet swallowed whole. I saw a flash of the genius that is his daughter in that scene. Her meatus however would have been considerably more effective and all pre-primed for the shoot.

While we are behaving like the National enquirer here, has any-one else noticed that Leonardo Dicaprio has got child bearing hips? There is enough space there to pass the Titanic, the rip cord from his old world tampax would merely tickle das great boot as it sloshed into this world.

Ah as fatman would say, they dont make em like they used to.

[Dboy]

I guess you could call these "Art-House Bad":

120 Days of Sodom
Snakes on a Plane ("this plane's goin' down faster than a Thai hooker!")
I Spit on Your Grave
American Pimp (documentary)
The Cook, The Thief, his Wife, and Her Lover
Natural Born Killers
Poison


I also have a thing for Dystopian films...my favorites:

Blade Runner
The Matrix
THX-1138
Metropolis
Delicatessen
The City of Lost Children
Brazil
Soylent Green
The Fifth Element


p.s. I think "A Boy and His Dog", starring Don Johnson is MUCH MUCH worse than Anaconda!

and there's no way "Crash" was the best picture of 2005. The Academy is full o' boneheads

Dboy


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If "Dude, Where's my dildo?" isn't a movie...it certainly SHOULD be
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... and there's no way "Crash" was the best picture of 2005. The Academy is full o' boneheads

Dboy

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If "Dude, Where's my dildo?" isn't a movie...it certainly SHOULD be
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IMHO, Crash was probably the best of the five pic's named in the category, although I have only seen three out of the five so far (much better than Brokeback for story and although Philip Seymour Hoffman gave a tour de force performance as Capote, the film was not perfect).

Then again, how many times have the academy chosen the wrong film in the last twenty five years:
1980 - Ordinary People as opposed to Raging Bull or The Elephant Man
1983 - Terms of Endearment as opposed to The Dresser
1984 - Amadeus as opposed to The Killing Fields or Passage to India
1985 - Out of Africa as opposed to The Colour Purple
1989 - Driving Miss Daisy as opposed to My Left Foot
1990 - Dances With Wolves as opposed to Goodfellas
1992 - Unforgiven as opposed to The Crying Game
1994 - Forrest Gump - probably the worst crime of all when it won over The Shawshank Redemption or even Pulp Fiction
1995 - Braveheart as opposed to Sense & Sensibility
1997 - Titanic as opposed to LA Confidential
1998 - Shakespeare in Love as opposed to Elizabeth or Life Is Beautiful
2000 - Gladiator, a year when this film or Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon or Traffic or even Erin Brockovich could have won
2001 - A Beautiful Mind as opposed to Gosford Park, In The Bedroom, Lord of The Rings or Moulin Rouge
2002 - Chicago (for God's sake!) as opposed to Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2004 - Million Dollar Baby as opposed to Ray or Finding Neverland

[Impulse]

Casino,Born on the fourth of July,Glen Gary glen Ross,Billy Jack,March of the wooden soldiers,Jagged Edge,The Firm,Boogie Nights,Ed Wood,Mask(cher),Ryans daughter,Revenge of the Nerds.

watched Mrs. Henderson Presents. Not what I expected but I liked it. (Especially Will Young as Bertie: the singer.)

I loved Federico Felini's movies but Satiricon was a bit disappointing.
All About Eve
Amadeus
An American in Paris
The Devil is a Woman (Cesar Romaro!)
Tod Browning's Freaks (You may recognise Pearl, known as Koo Koo the Bird Girl, back then.)
Dragon Seed (Campy Kate plays a Chinese girl and poisions an army.)
Gigi
Gone With the Wind
Goodbye, My Concubine
Grand Hotel
The Lion in Winter
The Madwoman of Chailot (Hepburn & Masina: The campier Arsenic and Old Lace.)
The Magnificent Ambersons
Out of Africa
Soilent Green
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
You Can't Take it With You


Worst movies (I haven't forgotten the titles of):
Ace Bigelow...Whateveerthehellit was.
Autumn Leaves
Chelsea Girls
Blackula
Faster, Pussycat, Kill, kill!
The Grapes of Wrath (Not for the depressed--Or the manic.)
The Last House on the Left
Lonesome Cowboys (Blue Movie)
Mad Dog Cole...But had a catchy title song: Mad Dog Cole.
Pink Framingos
Pork Chop Hill: two hours of (Fully dressed) men crawling through mud--At night.
The Saddest Music in the World The stupidest movie in the world! Out movie critic liked it. (He must be a sadist.)
Stragic Air Command
Teddy Boys
Trong
What's Up Tiger Lily?