Lew Rywin (born 10 November 1945 in a Nizhnyeye Alkeyevo , USSR ) is a Polish film producer associated with Heritage Films (est. 1991). He has also been a member of the State Council of Radio and Television and worked in an agency, Poltel, and producing for Polish state-run TV.
183-406: He participated in producing films such as Steven Spielberg 's Schindler's List , Roman Polański 's The Pianist , Jan Jakub Kolski 's Pornografia and Marek Brodzki 's The Hexer , based on The Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski . His last film was never produced. It was about the life of Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat (with producers Harris Salomon and Abi Sirokh). The film
366-568: A telepathic crystal skull . Principal photography was complete in October 2007, and the film was released on May 22, 2008. This was his first film not released by DreamWorks since 1997. The film received generally favorable reviews from critics, but some fans were disappointed by the introduction of science fiction elements which were uncharacteristic of the previous films. Writing for The Age , Tom Ryan praised Spielberg and George Lucas for their realistic 1950s setting—"The energy on display
549-610: A wildlife park of de-extinct dinosaurs. In a departure from his usual order of planning, Spielberg and the designers storyboarded certain sequences from the novel early on. The film also used computer-generated imagery provided by Industrial Light & Magic ; Jurassic Park was completed on time and became the highest-grossing film at the time, and won three Academy Awards. The film's dominance during its theatrical run, as well as Spielberg's $ 250 million salary, made him self-conscious of his own success. Also in 1993, Spielberg directed Schindler's List , about Oskar Schindler ,
732-399: A "real boy". Critics thought Spielberg directed with "sentimentality", and Ebert wrote, "Here is one of the most ambitious films of recent years [...] but it miscalculates in asking us to invest our emotions in a character, a machine." The film won five Saturn Awards and grossed $ 236 million worldwide. Jonathan Rosenbaum highly praised the film: "If A.I. Artificial Intelligence —
915-478: A 140-minute science fiction film, Firelight , the basis of Close Encounters of the Third Kind . Firelight , funded mainly by his father, was shown in a local theater for one evening and grossed $ 501 against its $ 500 budget. After taking a tour bus to Universal Studios , a chance conversation with an executive led to Spielberg getting a three-day pass to the premises. On the fourth day, he walked up to
1098-421: A 2010 average price of $ 7.61 for 2D films. Social and economic factors such as population change and the growth of international markets also have an effect on the number of people purchasing theater tickets, along with audience demographics where some films sell a much higher proportion of discounted children's tickets, or perform better in big cities where tickets cost more. The measuring system for gauging
1281-523: A Nation earned significantly less than its estimated gross. In addition to its gross rental earnings through public exhibition, The Birth of a Nation played at a large number of private, club and organizational engagements which figures are unavailable for. It was hugely popular with the Ku Klux Klan who used it to drive recruitment, and at one point Variety estimated its total earnings to stand at around $ 50 million. Despite later retracting
1464-462: A break from directing to spend more time with his family, and set up his new film studio, DreamWorks , with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen . After his hiatus, he returned to directing with a sequel to Jurassic Park , The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997). A loose adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel The Lost World , the plot follows mathematician Ian Malcolm ( Jeff Goldblum ) and his researchers who study dinosaurs at Jurassic Park which
1647-404: A brother of Theta Chi Fraternity . In 1968, Universal gave Spielberg the opportunity to write and direct a short film for theatrical release, the 26-minute 35 mm Amblin' . Studio vice president Sidney Sheinberg was impressed and offered Spielberg a seven-year directing contract. A year later, he dropped out of college to begin directing television productions for Universal, making him
1830-524: A businessman who helped save 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust . Based on Schindler's Ark , Spielberg waited ten years to make the film as he did not feel "mature" enough. He wanted to embrace his heritage, and after the birth of his son, Max, he said that "it greatly affected me [...] A spirit began to ignite in me, and I became a Jewish dad". Filming commenced on March 1, 1993, in Poland, while Spielberg
2013-402: A cast of classmates. The film won first prize in a statewide competition. Throughout his early teens, and after entering high school, Spielberg made about fifteen to twenty 8 mm adventure films. He recalls that my dad told me stories about World War II constantly... I knew, based on the stories my dad and his friends were telling about World War II, that there was no glory in war. And it
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#17327987543882196-528: A chance with Spielberg, giving him the opportunity to direct Jaws (1975), a thriller based on Peter Benchley 's bestseller . In it, a great white shark attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town , prompting police chief Martin Brody ( Roy Scheider ) to hunt it down with the help of a marine biologist ( Richard Dreyfuss ) and a veteran shark hunter ( Robert Shaw ). Jaws was the first movie shot on open ocean, so shooting proved difficult, especially when
2379-524: A family with." Thomson writes that "At first sight, the Spielberg of the eighties may seem more an impresario—or a studio, even—then a director." Between 1984 and 1990, Spielberg served as producer or executive producer on nineteen feature films for his production company, Amblin Entertainment . Among them were Gremlins ( Joe Dante , 1984), The Goonies ( Richard Donner , 1985), Back to
2562-579: A few hundred thousand dollars. The total is rounded to $ 1 million to compensate for the numerical inaccuracy. It was re-released in the United Kingdom in December 2017 with the featurette Olaf's Frozen Adventure , earning an additional $ 2.3 million. In the case of The Fate of the Furious the gross is from an archived version of Box Office Mojo, after irregularities were discovered in
2745-464: A film about UFOs , Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Spielberg used 65 mm film for the best picture quality, and a new live-action recording system so that the recordings could be duplicated later. He cast one of his favorite directors, François Truffaut , as the scientist Claude Lacombe and worked with special effects expert Douglas Trumbull . It marked the first of many collaborations between Spielberg and editor Michael Kahn . One of
2928-490: A film whose split personality is apparent even in its two-part title — is as much a Kubrick movie as a Spielberg one, this is in large part because it defamiliarizes Spielberg, makes him strange. Yet it also defamiliarizes Kubrick, with equally ambiguous results — making his unfamiliarity familiar. Both filmmakers should be credited for the results—Kubrick for proposing that Spielberg direct the project and Spielberg for doing his utmost to respect Kubrick's intentions while making it
3111-411: A film's success is based on unadjusted grosses, mainly because historically this is the way it has always been done because of the practices of the film industry: the box-office receipts are compiled by theaters and relayed to the distributor, which in turn releases them to the media. Converting to a more representative system that counts ticket sales rather than gross is also fraught with problems because
3294-468: A further $ 55 million from the NBC and HBO broadcast rights, equating to about 9% of its North American gross. When a film is highly exploitable as a commercial property, its ancillary revenues can dwarf its income from direct film sales. The Lion King (1994) earned over $ 2 billion in box-office and home video sales, but this pales in comparison to the $ 8 billion earned at box offices around
3477-490: A further $ 762,994 during limited re-releases in 2017 and 2020, and these have been incorporated into the gross from the 25th anniversary reissue and adjusted from the 2023 index. The adjusted gross for E.T. includes revenue from the original release and all re-releases. The original release along with the 1985 and 2002 reissues are adjusted from the Guinness base year, whilst the 2020 and 2022 grosses are adjusted from
3660-457: A generation of empowered African-American women during depression-era America. It was Spielberg's first film on a dramatic subject matter, and he expressed reservations about tackling the project: "It's the risk of being judged-and accused of not having the sensibility to do character studies." Starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey , the film was a box office hit and critics started to take note of Spielberg's foray into drama. Ebert named it
3843-452: A group of investigators who try to prevent crimes before they are committed. The film received critical acclaim. Ebert named Minority Report the best film of 2002, praising its craftsmanship writing, "here is Spielberg using every trick in the book and matching them without seams, so that no matter how he's achieving his effects, the focus is always on the story and the characters... Some directors place their trust in technology. Spielberg, who
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#17327987543884026-584: A household name with the summer blockbuster Jaws (1975). He directed more escapist box office successes with Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the original Indiana Jones trilogy (1981–89). He explored drama in The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987). In 1993, Spielberg directed back-to-back blockbuster hits with
4209-675: A loose adaptation of Brian Aldiss 's short story " Supertoys Last All Summer Long " (1969). Stanley Kubrick had bought the rights to the story in 1979 and worked on an adaptation for years. He told Spielberg about the project in 1984 and suggested that he direct, believing the story was closer to his sensibilities. In 1999, Kubrick died. Spielberg decided to direct A.I. and wrote the screenplay himself. Spielberg tried to be faithful to Kubrick's vision and made several allusions to his friend's work though with mixed results according to some critics. The plot revolves around an android , David ( Haley Joel Osment ) who, like Pinocchio , dreams of being
4392-405: A marketing or even newsworthy point of view. Despite the inherent difficulties in accounting for inflation, several attempts have been made. Estimates depend on the price index used to adjust the grosses, and the exchange rates used to convert between currencies can also affect the calculations, both of which can have an effect on the ultimate rankings of an inflation adjusted list. Gone with
4575-580: A more straightforward approach. His initial contributions received mixed responses, leading Spielberg to briefly step back from studio work. Crawford, reflecting on her collaboration with Spielberg, recognized his potential, noting his unique intuitive inspiration. She expressed her appreciation for Spielberg's talent in a note to him and also communicated her approval to Serling. Crawford's endorsement highlighted Spielberg's early recognition in Hollywood despite initial hesitations regarding his experience. In
4758-468: A movie before, and thought they were taking him to the circus. He was terrified by the movie's train crash, and at age 12, he recreated it with his Lionel trains and filmed it. He recalls: "The trains went around and around, and after a while that got boring, and I had this eight-millimeter camera, and I staged a train wreck and filmed it. That was hard on the trains, but then I could cut the film lots of different ways and look at it over and over again." This
4941-511: A perfect logical loophole. The Terminal is like a sunny Kakfa story, in which it is the citizen who persecutes the bureaucracy." The titular terminal was a real set built by Alex McDowell . In 2005, Spielberg directed War of the Worlds , a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks, based on H. G. Wells 's novel of the same name ; Spielberg had been a fan of the book and of George Pal 's 1953 film . Starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning ,
5124-499: A producer for many successful films and television series, among them Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Band of Brothers (2001). He has had a long collaboration with the composer John Williams , with whom he has worked for all but five of his feature films. Several of Spielberg's works are considered among the greatest films in history, and some are among
5307-407: A profoundly personal work." A. O. Scott called it "the best fairy tale–the most disturbing, complex and intellectually challenging boy's adventure story–Mr. Spielberg has made" and chose it as the best film of the year and one of the best of the decade. Spielberg followed A.I. with the sci-fi neo-noir Minority Report (2002), based on Philip K. Dick 's short story of the same name about
5490-522: A re-release. Some sources claim that The Big Parade superseded The Birth of a Nation as highest-grossing film, eventually being replaced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , which in turn was quickly usurped by Gone with the Wind . Exact figures are not known for The Birth of a Nation , but contemporary records put its worldwide earnings at $ 5.2 million as of 1919. Its international release
5673-400: A shift in audience tastes to high concept films, with six such films made by either George Lucas or Steven Spielberg topping the chart during the 1980s. The 21st century has seen an increasing dependence on franchises and adaptations , with the box-office dominance of films based on pre-existing intellectual property at record levels. Steven Spielberg is the most represented director on
Lew Rywin - Misplaced Pages Continue
5856-550: A significant portion of a film's earnings. Once revenue from home entertainment is factored in, it is not immediately clear which film is the most successful. Titanic earned $ 1.2 billion from video and DVD sales and rentals, in addition to the $ 2.2 billion it grossed in theaters. While complete sales data are not available for Avatar , it earned $ 345 million from the sale of sixteen million DVD and Blu-ray units in North America, and ultimately sold
6039-488: A six. And that's really how I learned my numbers for the first time... the irony of all that, and the gift of that lesson, never really dawned on me until I was much older. In early 1957, the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona . Spielberg had a bar mitzvah ceremony when he was thirteen. His family was involved in the synagogue and had many Jewish friends. Of the Holocaust , he said that his parents "talked about it all
6222-442: A timeline showing the transition of the highest-grossing film record, and a chart of the highest-grossing film franchises and series. All charts are ranked by international theatrical box-office performance where possible, excluding income derived from home video, broadcasting rights, and merchandise. Traditionally, war films , musicals , and historical dramas have been the most popular genres, but franchise films have been among
6405-410: A total of thirty million DVD and Blu-ray units worldwide. After home video income is accounted for, both films have earned over $ 3 billion each. Television broadcast rights also substantially add to a film's earnings and, as of 2010, a film often earned the equivalent of as much as 20–25% of its theatrical box office for two television runs, on top of pay-per-view revenues; Titanic earned
6588-470: A true story about a married couple on the run, desperate to regain custody of their baby from foster parents. The film starred Goldie Hawn and William Atherton and marked the first of many collaborations with the composer John Williams . Although the film was awarded Best Screenplay at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival , it was not a commercial success, which Spielberg blamed on Universal's inconsistent marketing. The film opened in four hundred theaters in
6771-571: Is Gone with the Wind ' s nearest rival depends on the set of figures used: Guinness had Avatar in second place with $ 3 billion, while other estimates saw Titanic in the runner-up spot with first-run worldwide earnings of almost $ 2.9 billion at 2010 prices. Inflation adjustment is carried out using the Consumer price index for advanced economies published by the International Monetary Fund . The index
6954-494: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg ( / ˈ s p iː l b ɜːr ɡ / ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster , Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is the most commercially successful director in film history . He
7137-468: Is a magnificent film." Ebert wrote "Spielberg knows how to make audiences weep better than any director since Chaplin in City Lights . But weeping is an incomplete response, letting the audience off the hook. This film embodies ideas. After the immediate experience begins to fade, the implications remain and grow." Spielberg returned to science fiction with A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001),
7320-515: Is a master of technology, trusts only story and character, and then uses everything else as a workman uses his tools." However, critic Todd McCarthy thought there was not enough action. The film earned over $ 358 million worldwide. Also in 2002, he released Catch Me If You Can , based on the autobiography of con-artist Frank Abagnale . Leonardo DiCaprio played Abangale; Christopher Walken and Hanks also starred. Spielberg said, "I have always loved movies about sensational rogues—they break
7503-505: Is an adaptation of J. G. Ballard 's autobiographical novel about Jamie Graham ( Christian Bale ), a young boy who goes from being the son of a wealthy British family in Shanghai to a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp during World War II . David Lean was originally set to direct, with Spielberg producing. It was written by playwright Tom Stoppard and co-starred John Malkovich as an American expatriate. Critical reaction
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7686-543: Is ancient and otherworldly but friendly, humorous. And this scaly, wrinkled little man with huge, wide-apart, soulful eyes and a jack-in-the-box neck has been so fully created that he's a friend to us, too; when he speaks of his longing to go home the audience becomes as mournful as Elliot. Spielberg has earned the tears that some people in the audience—and not just children—shed. Genuinely entrancing movies are almost as rare as extraterrestrial visitors." Spielberg co-wrote and produced Poltergeist ( Tobe Hooper , 1982), released
7869-508: Is headed by Avatar , which is an original work. Animated family films have performed consistently well, with Disney films enjoying lucrative re-releases prior to the home-video era. Disney also enjoyed later success with films such as Frozen and its sequel , Zootopia , and The Lion King (along with its computer-animated remake ), as well as its Pixar division, of which Inside Out 2 (the highest-grossing animated film ), Incredibles 2 , and Toy Story 3 and 4 have been
8052-423: Is impressive". It was a box office success, grossing $ 790 million worldwide. Starting in 2009, Spielberg shot the first film in a planned trilogy of motion capture films based on Hergé 's The Adventures of Tintin . Spielberg had long been a fan of the comics, and per Michael Farr , Hergé "thought Spielberg was the only person who could ever do Tintin justice." The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of
8235-418: Is like a magician whose tricks are so daring they make you laugh. He creates an atmosphere of happy disbelief: the more breathtaking and exhilarating the stunts are the funnier they are. Nobody has ever fused thrills and laughter in quite the way that he does here. He starts off at full charge in the opening sequence and just keeps going". She conceded that it was less "sincere" than Raiders , adding "that's what
8418-431: Is likely this was the worldwide rental figure. Trade journals would collate the data by either obtaining it from the distributors themselves, who were keen to promote a successful film, or by surveying theaters and constructing an estimate. Distributors would often report the worldwide rental since the higher figure made the film appear more successful, while estimates were limited to performance in North America; therefore it
8601-464: Is on an island and are confronted by another team with a different agenda. Spielberg wanted the onscreen creatures to be more realistic than in the first film; he used 3D storyboards, computer imagery and robotic puppets. Budgeted at $ 73 million, The Lost World: Jurassic Park opened in May 1997 and was one of the highest grossing films of the year . The Village Voice critic opined that The Lost World
8784-484: Is one of the AFI 's 100 best American films ever made . Ebert wrote, " Flaubert once wrote that he disliked Uncle Tom's Cabin because the author was constantly preaching against slavery. 'Does one have to make observations about slavery?' he asked. 'Depict it; that's enough.' And then he added, 'An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.' That would describe Spielberg,
8967-423: Is so good about it." On this project Spielberg met his future wife, Kate Capshaw , who played Willie Scott. Spielberg recalled, "The second film I could have done a lot better if there had been a different story. It was a good learning exercise for me to really throw myself into a black hole. I came out of the darkness of Temple Of Doom and I entered the light of the woman I was eventually going to marry and raise
9150-555: Is stranded in John F. Kennedy International Airport . It features Catherine Zeta-Jones as a flight attendant and Stanley Tucci as a customs and immigration official. Ebert wrote of Viktor's predicament: "The immigration service, and indeed the American legal system, has no way of dealing with him because Viktor does not do, or fail to do, any of the things the system is set up to prevent him from doing, or not doing. He has slipped through
9333-423: Is that it simply did not have a wide enough release to sustain the sort of sums that would be required for it to ultimately gross this amount. Exact figures are not known, but testimony in a federal trial in 1976—about four years into the film's release—showed the film had grossed over $ 25 million. Roger Ebert has reasoned it possibly did earn as much as $ 600 million on paper, since mobsters owned most of
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#17327987543889516-428: Is the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat . In 1984, Linda Lovelace testified to a United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on juvenile justice that the film had earned $ 600 million; this figure has been the subject of much speculation, since if it is accurate then the film would have made more money than Star Wars , and finished the 1970s as the highest-grossing film. The main argument against this figure
9699-895: Is the recipient of many accolades , including three Academy Awards , two BAFTA Awards , and four Golden Globe Awards as well as the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995, the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2006, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2009 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Seven of his films have been inducted into
9882-417: Is uniformly applied to the grosses in the chart published by Guinness World Records in 2014, beginning with the 2014 index. The figures in the above chart take into account inflation that occurred in 2014, and in every available year since then, through 2022. The adjusted gross for Gone with the Wind includes the original release and reissue grosses up to 1998, adjusted from the Guinness base year, and
10065-501: The Distinguished Public Service Medal from Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen . Thomson writes " Ryan changed war films: combat, shock, wounds, and fear had never been so graphically presented; and yet there was also a true sense of what duties and ideas had felt like in 1944. I disliked the framing device. I would have admired a director who trusted us to get there without that. Never mind— Ryan
10248-799: The National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio , and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona . He moved to California and studied film in college. After directing several episodes for television, including Night Gallery and Columbo , he directed the television film Duel (1971), his first full-length film which later received an international theatrical release. He made his theatrical debut with The Sugarland Express (1974) and became
10431-607: The Netflix documentary series Five Came Back , about the war-related works of directors Frank Capra , John Ford , John Huston , George Stevens and William Wyler . Spielberg was also an executive producer. Spielberg directed the science fiction Ready Player One (2018), adapted from the novel of the same name by Ernest Cline . It stars Tye Sheridan , Olivia Cooke , Ben Mendelsohn , Lena Waithe , T.J. Miller , Simon Pegg , and Mark Rylance. The plot takes place in 2045 when much of humanity uses virtual reality to escape
10614-1031: The Russo brothers (2016, 2018 and 2019) all feature heavily with three films apiece. George Lucas directed two chart-toppers in 1977 and 1999, but also served in a strong creative capacity as a producer and writer in 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984 and 1989 as well. The following directors have also all directed two films on the chart: Frank Lloyd , King Vidor , Frank Capra , Michael Curtiz , Leo McCarey , Alfred Hitchcock , David Lean , Stanley Kubrick , Guy Hamilton , Mike Nichols , William Friedkin , Peter Jackson , Gore Verbinski , and Michael Bay ; Mervyn LeRoy , Ken Annakin and Robert Wise are each represented by one solo credit and one shared credit, and John Ford co-directed two films. Disney films are usually co-directed and some directors have served on several winning teams: Wilfred Jackson , Hamilton Luske , Clyde Geronimi , David Hand , Ben Sharpsteen , Wolfgang Reitherman and Bill Roberts have all co-directed at least two films on
10797-442: The adult movie theaters during this period and would launder income from drugs and prostitution through them, so probably inflated the box-office receipts for the film. The Birth of a Nation , Gone with the Wind , The Godfather , Jaws , Star Wars , E.T. , and Avatar all increased their record grosses with re-releases. The grosses from their original theatrical runs are included here along with totals from re-releases up to
10980-591: The science fiction thriller Jurassic Park , the highest-grossing film ever at the time, and the Holocaust drama Schindler's List , which has often been listed as one of the greatest films ever made . He won the Academy Award for Best Director for the latter and the World War II epic Saving Private Ryan (1998). Spielberg has since directed the science fiction films A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002), and War of
11163-467: The $ 1 billion it earned at the box office. On this chart, films are ranked by the revenues from theatrical exhibition at their nominal value, along with the highest positions they attained. Six films in total have grossed in excess of $ 2 billion worldwide, with Avatar ranked in the top position. All of the films have had a theatrical run (including re-releases) in the 21st century, and films that have not played during this period do not appear on
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#173279875438811346-421: The $ 50 million worldwide gross was reconfigured as a $ 12.5 million U.S. rental gross; this is exactly 25% of the amount reported by Cinerama, so Variety ' s formula seemingly halved the gross to obtain an estimate for the U.S. share, and halved it again to simulate a rental fee. All five Cinerama features collectively generated $ 120 million in worldwide box office receipts. Variety put
11529-444: The 1960s. Gone with the Wind itself may have been briefly overtaken by The Ten Commandments (1956), which closed at the end of 1960 with worldwide rentals of $ 58–60 million compared to Gone with the Wind ' s $ 59 million; if it did claim the top spot its tenure there was short-lived, since Gone with the Wind was re-released the following year and increased its earnings to $ 67 million. Depending on how accurate
11712-562: The 1961 reissue prior to losing the record to The Sound of Music in 1966; its 1971 entry—after it took back the record—includes income from the 1967 and 1971 reissues but omitting later releases. The Godfather was re-released in 1973 after its success at the 45th Academy Awards , and Jaws was released again in 1976, and their grosses here most likely include earnings from those releases. The Sound of Music , The Godfather , Jaws , Jurassic Park , and Titanic have all increased their earnings with further releases, but they are not included in
11895-552: The 1997 special-edition releases; however, the figure does include revenue from the re-releases prior to the special editions . The Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone reissue totals recorded by Box Office Mojo for Brazil (2020), Italy (2021), Netherlands (2021) and South Korea (2021) have been deducted from the lifetime gross due to Box Office Mojo double-counting the original release grosses in those countries. Production costs were shared with Harry Potter and
12078-635: The 2010 Special Edition, which represents all of its earnings up to the point it relinquished the record, whereas its second appearance also incorporates revenue from a 2020 re-release in the Asia-Pacific region as well as the 2021 re-release in China which helped it to reclaim the record. Gone with the Wind is likewise represented twice on the chart: the 1940 entry includes earnings from its staggered 1939–1942 release ( roadshow / general release / second-run ) along with all of its revenue up to
12261-434: The 2019 gross adjusted from the 2020 index. There have been several limited re-releases in the 2020s, but the grosses from these reissues are not represented in the adjusted gross. The adjusted gross for Avatar includes revenue from the original release and all four reissues. The original release and 2010 Special Edition grosses are adjusted from the Guinness base year, whilst the 2020 and 2021 grosses are adjusted from
12444-427: The 2021 index and the 2022 gross from 2022. Guinness ' adjusted total for Titanic only increased by $ 102,000,000 between the 2012 (published in 2011) and 2015 editions, a rise of 4.2% shared by the other adjusted totals in the chart, and omitted the gross from a 3D re-release in 2012. This chart incorporates the gross of $ 343,550,770 from the reissue and adjusts it from the 2013 index. Titanic grossed
12627-402: The 2022 index. The gross for Avengers: Endgame is adjusted from the 2020 index. The gross for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is adjusted from the 2016 index. Box-office figures are reported in either gross revenue or distributor rentals , the latter being especially true of older films. Commonly mistaken for home video revenue, distributor rentals are the distributor's share of
12810-459: The 20th century, but several trends did emerge. During the silent era , films with war themes were popular with audiences, with The Birth of a Nation ( American Civil War ), The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , The Big Parade and Wings (all World War I ) becoming the most successful films in their respective years of release, with the trend coming to an end with All Quiet on
12993-482: The Deathly Hallows ;– Part 1 . At least eleven films have held the record of 'highest-grossing film' since The Birth of a Nation assumed the top spot in 1915. Both The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind spent twenty-five consecutive years apiece as the highest-grosser, with films directed by Steven Spielberg and James Cameron holding the record on three occasions each. Spielberg became
13176-439: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). It tells the story of Elliot ( Henry Thomas ), a young boy who befriends an alien who was accidentally left behind by his companions and is attempting to return home. Spielberg eschewed storyboards so that his direction would be more spontaneous, and shot roughly in sequence so that the actors' performances would be authentic as they bonded with and said goodbye to E.T. Richard Corliss wrote, "This
13359-516: The Future ( Robert Zemeckis , 1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Zemeckis, 1988), Joe Versus the Volcano ( John Patrick Shanley , 1990) and Arachnophobia ( Frank Marshall , 1990). In the early 1980s, Spielberg befriended Warner Communications CEO Steve Ross eventually resulting in Spielberg making films for Warner Bros. It began with The Color Purple (1985), an adaptation of Alice Walker 's Pulitzer Prize -winning novel , about
13542-535: The Lost Ark is an out-of-body experience, a movie of glorious imagination and breakneck speed that grabs you in the first shot, hurtles you through a series of incredible adventures, and deposits you back in reality two hours later–breathless, dizzy, wrung-out, and with a silly grin on your face". Raiders was the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise. Spielberg returned to science fiction with E.T.
13725-587: The Monsters! (1956), David Lean 's Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) ("the film that set me on my journey"), Alfred Hitchcock 's The Birds (1963) and Stanley Kubrick 's Dr. Strangelove (1964) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) ("I'm still living off the adrenalin that... I experienced watching that film for the first time.") He attended Arcadia High School in 1961 for three years. In 1963, he wrote and directed
13908-591: The Moon all peaked one place lower than shown in the accompanying source. Box Office Mojo revised the grosses for Pixar films in August 2016, resulting in the gross for Toy Story 3 being corrected from $ 1.063 billion to $ 1.067 billion. This means that it peaked at number 4 at the end of its run, ahead of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest , rather than at number 5 as indicated by
14091-632: The Sea , although The Numbers provides a figure of $ 8,000,000 for the North American box-office gross. However, it is possible this figure has been mistaken for the gross of the 1954 remake which also earned $ 8,000,000 in North American rentals. Some sources such as The Numbers state that Aloma of the South Seas is the highest grossing film of the year, earning $ 3 million. However, no contemporary sources provide figures for Aloma of
14274-403: The Seven Dwarfs ($ 8,500,000) would not have earned enough on its first theatrical run to take the record; although it would have been the highest-grossing 'talkie', displacing The Singing Fool ($ 5,900,000). Although received wisdom holds that it is unlikely The Birth of a Nation was ever overtaken by a silent-era film, the record would fall to 1925's Ben-Hur ($ 9,386,000) if The Birth of
14457-404: The South Seas , so it is unclear what the $ 3 million figure relates to. If it were the rental gross then that would have made it not only the highest-grossing film of the year, but one of the highest-grossing films of the silent era, and if that is the case it would be unusual for both International Motion Picture Almanac and Variety to omit it from their lists. It is not clear if
14640-579: The Soviets for the release of pilot Gary Powers after his aircraft was shot down over Soviet territory. It was written by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers , and starred Tom Hanks as Donovan, as well as Mark Rylance , Amy Ryan and Alan Alda . It was filmed in the fall of 2014 in New York City, Berlin and Wroclaw , and was released on October 16. Bridge of Spies was popular with critics, and
14823-752: The Sun was one of his most enjoyable films to make. Thomson called it "a great work through and through" and "the first clear sign that Spielberg the showman was an artist, too." In 1989, Spielberg intended to direct Rain Man , but instead directed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to meet his contractual obligations. Producer Lucas and star Ford returned for the film. A longtime James Bond fan, Spielberg cast Sean Connery as Jones's father, Henry Jones, Sr . Due to complaints about violence in Temple of Doom , Spielberg returned to more family-friendly fare for
15006-451: The US to positive reviews; Pauline Kael wrote "Spielberg uses his gifts in a very free-and-easy, American way—for humor, and for a physical response to action. He could be that rarity among directors, a born entertainer—perhaps a new generation's Howard Hawks ." The Hollywood Reporter wrote that "a major new director is on the horizon." Producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown took
15189-664: The Unicorn was co-produced by Peter Jackson and premiered in Brussels , Belgium. The film was released in North American theaters on December 21, 2011, in Digital 3D and IMAX . It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed over $ 373 million worldwide. The Adventures of Tintin won Best Animated Feature at the 69th Golden Globe Awards . Spielberg followed Tintin with War Horse , shot in England in
15372-478: The Western Front in 1930. With the advent of sound in 1927, the musical —the genre best placed to showcase the new technology—took over as the most popular type of film with audiences, with 1928 and 1929 both being topped by musical films. The genre continued to perform strongly in the 1930s, but the outbreak of World War II saw war-themed films dominate again during this period, starting with Gone with
15555-435: The Wind (American Civil War) in 1939, and finishing with The Best Years of Our Lives (World War II) in 1946. Samson and Delilah (1949) saw the beginning of a trend of increasingly expensive historical dramas set during Ancient Rome / biblical times throughout the 1950s as cinema competed with television for audiences, with Quo Vadis , The Robe , The Ten Commandments , Ben-Hur and Spartacus all becoming
15738-675: The Wind —first released in 1939—is generally considered to be the most successful film, with Guinness World Records in 2014 estimating its adjusted global gross at $ 3.4 billion. Estimates for Gone with the Wind ' s adjusted gross have varied substantially: its owner, Turner Entertainment , estimated its adjusted earnings at $ 3.3 billion in 2007, a few years earlier than the Guinness estimate; other estimates fall either side of this amount, with one putting its gross just under $ 3 billion in 2010, while another provided an alternative figure of $ 3.8 billion in 2006. Which film
15921-455: The Worlds (2005); the historical dramas Amistad (1997), Munich (2005), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015) and The Post (2017); the comedy The Terminal (2004); the animated film The Adventures of Tintin (2011); the musical West Side Story (2021); and the semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmans (2022). Spielberg co-founded Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks , and he has served as
16104-452: The age of movies." His next directorial work was 1941 (1979), an action-comedy written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale about Californians preparing for a Japanese invasion after the attack on Pearl Harbor . Spielberg was self-conscious about doing comedy as he had no prior experience in the genre. Universal and Columbia agreed to co-finance the film. 1941 grossed over $ 92.4 million worldwide upon release, but most critics, and
16287-424: The author of this film. He depicts the evil of the Holocaust, and he tells an incredible story of how it was robbed of some of its intended victims. He does so without the tricks of his trade, the directorial and dramatic contrivances that would inspire the usual melodramatic payoffs. Spielberg is not visible in this film. But his restraint and passion are present in every shot." Filmmaker Claude Lanzmann , criticized
16470-520: The best film of the year. The film also received eleven Academy Award nominations, and Spielberg won Best Director from the Directors Guild of America . The film was produced and scored by Quincy Jones . As China underwent economic reform and opened up to the American film industry, Spielberg made Empire of the Sun (1987), the first American film shot in Shanghai since the 1930s. It
16653-532: The best performers of the 21st century. There is strong interest in the superhero genre , with eleven films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe featuring among the nominal top-earners. The most successful superhero film, Avengers: Endgame , is also the second-highest-grossing film on the nominal earnings chart, and there are four films in total based on the Avengers comic books charting in
16836-563: The best performers. Beyond Disney and Pixar animation, the Despicable Me and Shrek series have met with the most success. While inflation has eroded the achievements of most films from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, there are franchises originating from that period that are still active. Besides the Star Wars and Superman franchises, James Bond and Godzilla films are still being released periodically; all four are among
17019-412: The box office, it earned over $ 300 million worldwide from a $ 70 million budget. In 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with Jurassic Park , based on Michael Crichton 's bestseller , with a screenplay by Crichton and David Koepp . Jurassic Park is set on a fictional island near Costa Rica , where a businessman ( Richard Attenborough ) has hired a team of geneticists to create
17202-527: The box office; Spielberg admitted that Amistad "became too much of a history lesson." Spielberg's 1998 release was World War II epic Saving Private Ryan , about a group of US soldiers led by Captain Miller ( Tom Hanks ) sent to bring home a paratrooper whose three older brothers were killed in the same twenty-four hours of the Normandy landing. Filming took place in England, and US Marine Dale Dye
17385-876: The camera and the puppet spaceman with the feelings of—it has to be called love—expressed in young Henry Thomas' yearning face. E.T. was the first film character to be a finalist in TIME’s Man of the Year sweepstakes. It would have been fine with me if the little creature, this lovely film, had won." A special screening was organized for Ronald and Nancy Reagan , who were emotional by the end. E.T. grossed $ 700 million worldwide. It won four Academy Awards: Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Sound ( Robert Knudson , Robert Glass , Don Digirolamo and Gene Cantamessa ), Best Sound Editing ( Charles L. Campbell and Ben Burtt) and Best Visual Effects ( Carlo Rambaldi , Dennis Muren and Kenneth F. Smith ). Kael wrote of E.T., "His voice
17568-550: The chart because of ticket-price inflation, population size and ticket purchasing trends not being considered. Box Office Mojo stopped updating its main total for Frozen in August 2014, while it was still in release. The total listed here incorporates subsequent earnings in Japan, Nigeria, Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany up to the end of 2015 but omits earnings in Turkey, Iceland, Brazil, and Australia (2016), which amount to
17751-567: The chart chronicles the films from each year that went on to earn the most. In the cases where estimates conflict both films are recorded, and in cases where a film has moved into first place because of being re-released the previous record-holder is also retained. (...) Since grosses are not limited to original theatrical runs, a film's first-run gross is included in brackets after the total if known. Canada and U.S. gross only. Distributor rental. To be ascertained. No contemporary sources provide figures for 20,000 Leagues Under
17934-415: The chart, with six films to his credit, occupying the top spot in 1975, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1989 and 1993. Cecil B. DeMille (1932, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1956) is in second place with five films and William Wyler (1942, 1946, 1959 and 1968) and James Cameron (1991, 1997, 2009 and 2022) are tied for third place with four films. D. W. Griffith (1915, 1916 and 1920), George Roy Hill (1966, 1969 and 1973) and
18117-418: The claim, the sum has been widely reported even though it has never been substantiated. While it is generally accepted that Gone with the Wind took over the record of highest-grossing film on its initial release—which is true in terms of public exhibition—it is likely it did not overtake The Birth of a Nation in total revenue until a much later date, with it still being reported as the highest earner up until
18300-513: The creation of the PG-13 rating because some content was deemed unsuitable for children under 13. Spielberg later said that he was unhappy with Temple of Doom because it lacked his "personal touches and love". Nonetheless, the film was a blockbuster hit, won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects and received mostly good reviews. Kael preferred it to the original, writing, "Spielberg
18483-634: The current figure. Ongoing weekly drops in the totals for several countries—Argentina being the worst affected—led to a drop in the overall worldwide total. In view of what appears to be an aberration in the source, a previous figure is provided. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King saw its original gross corrected in early 2020. The result of this correction is that Spider-Man: Far From Home , Captain Marvel and Transformers: Dark of
18666-461: The devaluation of the currency, some charts make adjustments for inflation, but not even this practice fully addresses the issue, since ticket prices and inflation do not necessarily parallel one another. For example, in 1970, tickets cost $ 1.55 or about $ 6.68 in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars; by 1980, prices had risen to about $ 2.69, a drop to $ 5.50 in inflation-adjusted 2004 dollars. Ticket prices have also risen at different rates of inflation around
18849-403: The direction: "Against the odds, Spielberg makes something genuinely exciting of the backstage wheedling." It was announced on May 2, 2013, that Spielberg would direct American Sniper , but he left the project before production began. Instead, he directed Bridge of Spies (2015), a Cold War thriller based on the 1960 U-2 incident , and focusing on James B. Donovan 's negotiations with
19032-491: The early 1970s, Spielberg unsuccessfully tried to raise financing for his own low-budget films. He co-wrote and directed teleplays for Marcus Welby, M.D. , The Name of the Game , Columbo , Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law and The Psychiatrist . Although unsatisfied with his work, Spielberg used the opportunity to experiment with his techniques and learn about filmmaking. He earned good reviews and impressed producers; he
19215-513: The elements into a roller coaster entertainment without sacrificing inner meanings. The suspense of the picture came from meticulous technique and good humor about its own surgical cutting. You have only to submit to the travesty of Jaws 2 to realize how much more engagingly Spielberg saw the ocean, the perils, the sinister beauty of the shark, and the vitality of its human opponents. — Critic David Thompson After declining an offer to make Jaws 2 Spielberg and Dreyfuss reunited to work on
19398-431: The end of 1947 it had earned $ 2 million, and by 1949, $ 8 million; by 1956 it had earned $ 22 million in rentals, representing a gross of $ 80 million, and would have easily placed in the top ten films in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Estimates of its total earnings are as high as $ 100 million. Chopra-Gant stipulates that the figure given for Unconquered is for North American box-office, but as
19581-408: The end. For one thing, under the credits the giant spaceship was returning to the stars. For another, they just didn’t want to leave this picture. For still another, they seemed to understand the importance of those many names to what they had just seen." Kauffmann placed it first on his list of the best American films from 1968 to 1977. Reviewing Close Encounters , Kael called Spielberg "a magician in
19764-522: The eponymous Captain Hook ( Dustin Hoffman ). During filming, the stars clashed on set; Spielberg told 60 Minutes that he would never work with Roberts again. Nominated for five Academy Awards, the studio enjoyed the film but most critics did not; Thomson called it "maudlin." Writing for The Washington Post , Desson Howe described the film as "too industrially organized", and thought it mundane. At
19947-416: The estimates are, the 1959 remake of Ben-Hur may also have captured the record from Gone with the Wind : as of the end of 1961 it had earned $ 47 million worldwide, and by 1963 it was trailing Gone with the Wind by just $ 2 million with international takings of $ 65 million, ultimately earning $ 66 million from its initial release. Another film purported to have been the highest-grosser
20130-432: The figure for Sunny Side Up is for North America or worldwide. Other sources put its earnings at $ 2 million, which may suggest the higher figure is the worldwide rental, given the confusion over international figures during this period. The figure for It Happened One Night is not truly representative of its success: it was distributed as a package deal along with more than two dozen other Columbia films, and
20313-555: The film depicts the final four months of Lincoln's life. The film was shot in Richmond, Virginia in late 2011. and was released in the US in November 2012. Lincoln was acclaimed and earned more than $ 250 million worldwide. It was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, winning Best Production Design and Best Actor for Day-Lewis's performance. Donald Clarke from The Irish Times praised
20496-425: The film earned $ 21 million in North America and $ 11 million overseas from the initial release, and added a further $ 9 million in North America and $ 8 million overseas from subsequent re-releases up to 1956. Mom and Dad does not generally feature in 'high-gross' lists such as those published by Variety due to its independent distribution. Essentially belonging to the exploitation genre , it
20679-468: The film for its weak representation of the Holocaust. Imre Kertész , a Hungarian author and concentration camp survivor, also disliked the film, saying, "I regard as kitsch any representation of the Holocaust that is incapable of understanding or unwilling to understand the organic connection between our own deformed mode of life and the very possibility of the Holocaust." Thomson calls it "the most moving film I have ever seen." In 1994, Spielberg took
20862-411: The film is about an American dock worker who is forced to look after his children, from whom he lives separately, as he tries to protect and reunite them with their mother when extraterrestrials invade Earth. Spielberg used storyboards to help the actors react to computer imagery that they could not see and used natural lighting and camerawork to avoid an "over stylized" science fiction picture. The film
21045-468: The film's theatrical revenue (i.e. the box office gross less the exhibitor's cut). Historically, the rental price averaged at 30–40% when the distributors owned the theater chains, equating to just over a third of the gross being paid to the distributor of the film. In the modern marketplace, rental fees can vary greatly—depending on a number of factors—although the films from the major studios average out at 43%. Audience tastes were fairly eclectic during
21228-474: The films, meaning the studio received 100% of the box-office gross, unlike the case with most other films where the distributor typically receives less than half the gross. Since Variety at the time ranked films by their U.S. and Canadian rental, they constructed a hypothetical rental figure for the Cinerama films to provide a basis for comparison to other films in their chart: in the case of This Is Cinerama ,
21411-432: The first director to break his own record when Jurassic Park overtook E.T. , and Cameron emulated the feat when Avatar broke the record set by Titanic . When it took over the top spot in 2019, Avengers: Endgame became the first sequel to hold the record of highest-grossing film, and in doing so interrupted thirty-six years of Spielberg/Cameron dominance before Avatar reclaimed the top spot two years later in 2021 upon
21594-481: The grosses documented here are not confined to just the year of release. Grosses are not limited to original theatrical runs either, with many older films often being re-released periodically so the figures represent all the business a film has done since its original release; a film's first-run gross is included in brackets after the total if known. Because of incomplete data it cannot be known for sure how much money some films have made and when they made it, but generally
21777-412: The highest-grossing film of all time. All grosses on the list are expressed in U.S. dollars at their nominal value, except where stated otherwise. With a worldwide box-office gross of over $ 2.9 billion, Avatar is proclaimed to be the "highest-grossing" film, but such claims usually refer to theatrical revenues only and do not take into account home video and television income, which can form
21960-413: The highest-grossing film of the year during initial release, before the genre started to wane after several high-profile failures. The success of White Christmas and South Pacific in the 1950s foreshadowed the comeback of the musical in the 1960s with West Side Story , Mary Poppins , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music and Funny Girl all among the top films of the decade. The 1970s saw
22143-409: The highest-grossing films ever. In 2013, Time listed him as one of the 100 most influential people, and in 2023, Spielberg was the recipient of the first ever Time 100 Impact Award in the US. Spielberg was born on December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio . His mother, Leah ( née Posner, later Adler), was a concert pianist and ran a kosher dairy restaurant , and his father, Arnold ,
22326-427: The highest-grossing franchises. Some of the older films that held the record of highest-grossing film still have respectable grosses by today's standards, but no longer compete numerically against today's top-earners in an era of much higher individual ticket prices. When those prices are adjusted for inflation, however, then Gone with the Wind —which was the highest-grossing film outright for twenty-five years—is still
22509-550: The incident, sought advice from former president Bill Clinton , among others, before making the film because he did not want to cause further problems in the Middle East. Although the film garnered mostly positive reviews, some critics perceived it as anti-Semitic; it is one of Spielberg's most controversial films to date. Munich received five Academy Awards nominations: Best Picture, Best Film Editing, Best Score , Best Adapted Screenplay , and Best Director for Spielberg. It
22692-484: The kid who never wanted to grow up, and she sort of saw herself that way. I think my mom lived a lot of childhoods in her ninety-seven years." He was not interested in academics, aspiring only to be a filmmaker. He applied to the University of Southern California 's film school but was turned down because of his mediocre grades. He then applied and enrolled at California State University, Long Beach , where he became
22875-401: The law, but you just have to love them for the moxie." The film was a critical and commercial success. Spielberg followed Catch Me If You Can with The Terminal (2004), a comedy loosely inspired by the true story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri and by Jacques Tati 's Playtime (1967). The film follows Viktor Navorski (Hanks), an Eastern European man who, after a coup in his home country,
23058-511: The list. Only seven directors have topped the chart in consecutive years: McCarey (1944 and 1945), Nichols (1966 and 1967), Spielberg (1981 and 1982), Jackson (2002 and 2003), Verbinski (2006 and 2007) and the Russo brothers (2018 and 2019). Because of release schedules—especially in the case of films released towards the end of the year—and different release patterns across the world, many films can do business in two or more calendar years; therefore
23241-455: The malfunctioning of the mechanical shark resulted in a better movie, as he had to find other ways to suggest the shark's presence. After seeing the unconventional camera techniques of Jaws , Alfred Hitchcock praised "young Spielberg" for thinking outside the visual dynamics of the theater: "He's the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch". Like Coppola on The Godfather , Spielberg asserted his own role and deftly organized
23424-465: The mechanical shark malfunctioned. The shooting schedule overran by a hundred days, and Universal threatened to cancel production. Against expectations, Jaws was a success, setting the domestic box office record and making Spielberg a household name. It won Academy Awards for Best Film Editing ( Verna Fields ), Best Original Dramatic Score (John Williams) and Best Sound ( Robert Hoyt , Roger Heman , Earl Madery and John Carter ). Spielberg said
23607-466: The medium's most compelling spirals of suspense. The ordinariness of the Dennis Weaver character and the monstrous malignance of the truck confront one another with a narrative assurance that never needs to remind us of the element of fable." More TV films followed: Something Evil (1972) and Savage (1973). Spielberg made his theatrical debut with The Sugarland Express (1974), based on
23790-425: The office?" Spielberg said he did. Ford pointed to a painting and asked, "Where's the horizon?" Spielberg said it was at the top. Ford asked him where it was in another painting. Spielberg said it was at the bottom. Ford said, "When you're able to distinguish the art of the horizon at the bottom of a frame or at the top of the frame, but not going right through the center of the frame, when you can appreciate why it's at
23973-416: The only data available for older films are the sale totals. As the motion picture industry is highly oriented towards marketing currently released films, unadjusted figures are always used in marketing campaigns so that new blockbuster films can much more easily achieve a high sales ranking, and thus be promoted as a "top film of all time", so there is little incentive to switch to a more robust analysis from
24156-419: The point that they lost the record; therefore the total for The Birth of a Nation includes income from its reissues up to 1940; the total for Star Wars includes revenue from the late 1970s and early 1980s reissues but not from the 1997 Special Edition; the total for E.T. incorporates its gross from the 1985 reissue but not from 2002. The total for Avatar 's first appearance on the chart includes revenue from
24339-419: The previous figure), and as of 1953—following the 1947 re-release— Variety was reporting earnings of $ 26 million. Through 1956, MGM reported cumulative North American earnings of $ 30,015,000 and foreign earnings of $ 18,964,000, from three releases. Worldwide rentals of $ 32 million from the initial release is consistent with the revised figures and later reported worldwide figures: they indicate that
24522-403: The primary metric for trade publications in assessing the success of a film, mostly because of the availability of the data compared to sales figures for home video and broadcast rights, but also because of historical practice. Included on the list are charts of the top box-office earners (ranked by both the nominal and real value of their revenue), a chart of high-grossing films by calendar year,
24705-579: The project, which was eventually directed by Christopher Nolan . During this period, Spielberg remained active as a producer. Spielberg returned to the Indiana Jones series in 2008 with the fourth installment, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull . Released nineteen years after Last Crusade , the film is set in 1957, pitting Indiana Jones ( Harrison Ford ) against Soviet agents led by Irina Spalko ( Cate Blanchett ), searching for
24888-635: The project: "When I read the first draft of the script, this wasn't something that could wait three years or two years—this was a story I felt we needed to tell today." The film received a wide release on January 12, 2018. The Post gained positive reception; the critic from the Associated Press thought "Spielberg infuses every scene with tension and life and the grandeur of the ordinary that he's always been so good at conveying." In 2017, Spielberg and Paul Greengrass , Francis Ford Coppola , Guillermo del Toro and Lawrence Kasdan were featured in
25071-461: The rare films both written and directed by Spielberg, Close Encounters was very popular with filmgoers and won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography ( Vilmos Zsigmond ) and Best Sound Effects Editing ( Frank Warner ). Stanley Kauffmann wrote: "I saw Close Encounters at its first public showing in New York, and most of the audience stayed on and on to watch the credits crawl lengthily at
25254-728: The real world. Ready Player One began production in July 2016, and was intended to be released on December 15, 2017, but was moved to March 2018 to avoid competition with Star Wars: The Last Jedi . It premiered at the 2018 South by Southwest film festival. Spielberg's direction was praised along with the action scenes and visual effects, but many critics thought the film was too long and overused 1980s nostalgia. List of highest-grossing films Films generate income from several revenue streams, including theatrical exhibition , home video , television broadcast rights , and merchandising . However, theatrical box-office earnings are
25437-475: The romantic drama Always , about an aerial firefighter . It is a modern remake of one of Spielberg's favorite childhood films, A Guy Named Joe (1943). The story was personal; he said "As a child I was very frustrated, and maybe I saw my own parents [in A Guy Named Joe ]. I was also short of girlfriends. And it stuck with me." Spielberg had discussed the film with Dreyfuss back in 1975, with up to twelve drafts being written before filming commenced. Always
25620-645: The same summer as E.T. With John Landis , he co-produced the anthology film Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), contributing the "Kick the Can" segment. His next feature film was the Raiders of the Lost Ark prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Working again with Lucas and Ford, the film was shot in the United States, Sri Lanka and China. The film was darker than its predecessor, and led to
25803-424: The shock of this material seeming new. Raiders of the Lost Ark , now more than ever, seems a turning point in the cinema of escapist entertainment, and there was really no way Spielberg could make it new all over again. What he has done is to take many of the same elements, and apply all of his craft and sense of fun to make them work yet once again. And they do. Also in 1989, he reunited with Richard Dreyfuss for
25986-549: The shoot was difficult but Spielberg said that it helped him hone his business acumen. The film was a box office success and won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction ( Norman Reynolds , Leslie Dilley and Michael D. Ford ); Best Film Editing ( Michael Kahn ); Best Sound ( Bill Varney , Steve Maslow , Gregg Landaker and Roy Charman ); Best Sound Editing ( Ben Burtt and Richard L. Anderson ); and Best Visual Effects ( Richard Edlund , Kit West , Bruce Nicholson and Joe Johnston ). Roger Ebert wrote that, " Raiders of
26169-514: The source. Because of the long-term effects of inflation , notably the significant increase of movie theater ticket prices, the list unadjusted for inflation gives far more weight to later films. The unadjusted list, while commonly found in the press, is therefore largely meaningless for comparing films widely separated in time, as many films from earlier eras will never appear on a modern unadjusted list, despite achieving higher commercial success when adjusted for price increases. To compensate for
26352-535: The studio gates without a pass, and the security guard waved him in: "I basically spent the next two months at Universal Studios... that was how I became an unofficial apprentice that summer." His family later moved to Saratoga, California , where he attended Saratoga High School . A year later, his parents divorced. Spielberg moved to Los Angeles to stay with his father, while his three sisters and mother remained in Saratoga. He recalls: My parents split up when I
26535-610: The studio heads, disliked it. Charles Champlin described 1941 as "the most conspicuous waste since the last major oil spill, which it somewhat resembles." Spielberg directed Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman . They considered it an homage to the serials of the 1930s and 1940s. It starred Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood . Filmed in La Rochelle , Hawaii , Tunisia and Elstree Studios , England,
26718-484: The summer of 2010. It was released four days after Tintin , on December 25, 2011. The film is based on Michael Morpurgo 's 1982 novel of the same name and follows the long friendship between a British boy and his horse Joey before and during World War I . Distributed by Walt Disney Studios with whom DreamWorks made a distribution deal in 2009, War Horse was the first of four consecutive Spielberg films released by Disney. It had an acclaimed response from critics and
26901-523: The third installment. Last Crusade received mostly positive reviews and was a box office success, earning $ 474 million; it was his biggest hit since E.T. Biographer Joseph McBride wrote that it was a comeback for Spielberg, and Spielberg acknowledged the amount he has learned from making the Indiana Jones series. Ebert wrote that, "If there is just a shade of disappointment after seeing this movie, it has to be because we will never again have
27084-412: The time, and so it was always on my mind." His father had lost between sixteen and twenty relatives in the Holocaust. Spielberg found it difficult accepting his heritage; he said: "It isn't something I enjoy admitting... but when I was seven, eight, nine years old, God forgive me, I was embarrassed because we were Orthodox Jews. I was embarrassed by the outward perception of my parents' Jewish practices. I
27267-433: The top and why it's at the bottom, you might make a pretty good picture maker." Spielberg made his professional debut with "Eyes", a segment of Night Gallery (1969) scripted by Rod Serling and starring Joan Crawford . Initially, there was skepticism from Crawford and studio executives regarding Spielberg's inexperience. Despite Spielberg's efforts to implement advanced camerawork techniques, studio executives demanded
27450-588: The top twenty. Other Marvel Comics adaptations have also had success with the Spider-Man and X-Men properties, while films based on Batman and Superman from DC Comics have generally performed well. Star Wars is also represented in the nominal earnings chart with five films, while the Jurassic Park franchise features prominently. Although the nominal earnings chart is dominated by films adapted from pre-existing properties and sequels, it
27633-459: The total earnings were averaged out; the true gross would have been much higher. Snow White ' s $ 418 million global cume omits earnings outside of North America from 1987 onwards. It is not absolutely clear how much Gone with the Wind earned from its initial release. Contemporary accounts often list it as earning $ 32 million in North American rentals and retrospective charts have often duplicated this claim; however, it
27816-526: The totals here because they had already conceded the record prior to being re-released. Distributor rental. Includes revenue from re-releases. If a film increased its gross through re-releases while holding the record, the year in which it recorded its highest gross is also noted in italics. Prior to 2000, only seven film series had grossed over $ 1 billion at the box office: James Bond , Star Wars , Indiana Jones , Rocky , Batman , Jurassic Park , and Star Trek . Since
27999-515: The turn of the century, that number has increased to over a hundred. This is partly due to inflation and market growth, but it is also due to Hollywood's adoption of the franchise model: films that have built-in brand recognition such as being based on a well-known literary source or an established character. The methodology is based on the concept that films associated with things audiences are already familiar with can be more effectively marketed to them, and as such are known as "pre-sold" films within
28182-490: The works of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick , while Toronto Sun ' s Liz Braun thought that there were "moments of wonder and delight" but it was too long. A year later, Spielberg directed The Post , an account of The Washington Post 's printing of the Pentagon Papers . Starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep , production began in New York on May 30, 2017. Spielberg stated his attraction to
28365-518: The world by the stage adaptation . Merchandising can be extremely lucrative too: The Lion King also sold $ 3 billion of merchandise, while Pixar's Cars —which earned $ 462 million in theatrical revenues and was only a modest hit by comparison to other Pixar films —generated global merchandise sales of over $ 8 billion in the five years after its 2006 release. Pixar had another huge hit with Toy Story 3 , which generated almost $ 10 billion in merchandise retail sales in addition to
28548-457: The world, further complicating the process of adjusting worldwide grosses. Another complication is release in multiple formats for which different ticket prices are charged. One notable example of this phenomenon is Avatar , which was also released in 3D and IMAX : almost two-thirds of tickets for that film were for 3D showings with an average price of $ 10, and about one-sixth were for IMAX showings with an average price over $ 14.50, compared to
28731-446: The worldwide rental for The Greatest Show on Earth at around $ 18.35 million (with $ 12.8 million coming from the United States ) a year after its release; however, Birchard puts its earnings at just over $ 15 million up to 1962. It is likely that Birchard's figure is just the North American gross rental, and includes revenue from the 1954 and 1960 reissues. The "first run" Star Wars grosses do not include revenue from
28914-459: The youngest director to be signed to a long-term plan with a major Hollywood studio. Spielberg returned to Long Beach in 2002, where he presented Schindler's List to complete his Bachelor of Arts in Film and Electronic Media. He recalls a formative encounter with one of his favorite directors, John Ford , who said: "So they tell me you want to be a picture maker. You see those paintings around
29097-446: Was "better crafted but less fun" than the first film, while The Guardian wrote "It looks like a director on autopilot [...] The special effects brook no argument." Amistad (1997), his first film released under DreamWorks, was based on the true story of the events in 1839 aboard the slave ship La Amistad . Producer Debbie Allen , who had read the book Amistad I in 1978, thought Spielberg would be perfect to direct. Spielberg
29280-473: Was 15 or 16 years old, and I needed a special friend, and had to use my imagination to take me to places that felt good – that helped me move beyond the problems my parents were having, and that ended our family as a whole. And thinking about that time, I thought, an extraterrestrial character would be the perfect springboard to purge the pain of your parents' splitting up. He recalls his mother had "a huge adventurous personality. We always saw her as Peter Pan ,
29463-510: Was a box office hit grossing over $ 600 million worldwide. Spielberg's Munich (2005) is about the Israeli government's secret retaliation after eleven Israeli Olympic athletes were kidnapped and murdered in the 1972 Munich massacre . The film is based on Vengeance , a book by Canadian journalist George Jonas . It was previously adapted for the screen in the 1986 television film Sword of Gideon . Spielberg, who personally remembers
29646-471: Was an electrical engineer involved in the development of computers. His immediate family were Reform Jewish / Orthodox Jewish . Spielberg's paternal grandparents were Jews from Ukraine ; his grandmother Rebecca, maiden name Chechik, was from Sudylkiv , and his grandfather Shmuel Spielberg was from Kamianets-Podilskyi . Spielberg has three younger sisters: Anne , Sue, and Nancy. In 1952, his family moved to Haddon Township, New Jersey after his father
29829-509: Was commercially unsuccessful and received mixed reviews. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, " Always is filled with big, sentimental moments, it lacks the intimacy to make any of this very moving." After a brief setback in which Spielberg felt "artistically stalled", he returned in 1991 with Hook , about a middle-aged Peter Pan ( Robin Williams ), who returns to Neverland and encounters Tinker Bell ( Julia Roberts ) and
30012-427: Was common at the time, the chart confuses worldwide and North American grosses. Other sources state that the takings for Forever Amber ($ 8 million) and Life with Father ($ 6.5 million) were in fact worldwide rental grosses, so it is possible this is also true of Unconquered . The Cinerama figures represent gross amounts. Since the Cinerama corporation owned the theaters there were no rental fees for
30195-424: Was delayed by World War I, and it was not released in many foreign territories until the 1920s; coupled with further re-releases in the United States, its $ 10 million earnings as reported by Variety in 1932 are consistent with the earlier figure. At this time, Variety still had The Birth of a Nation ahead of The Big Parade ($ 6,400,000) on distributor rentals and—if its estimate is correct— Snow White and
30378-615: Was earning a steady income and relocated to Laurel Canyon , Los Angeles. Impressed, Universal signed Spielberg to do four television films. The first was Duel (1971), adapted from Richard Matheson 's short story of the same name, about a salesman ( Dennis Weaver ) being chased down a highway by a psychotic tanker truck driver. Impressed, executives decided to promote the film on television. Reviews were positive, and Universal asked Spielberg to shoot more scenes so that Duel could be released to international markets. "Deservedly so" writes David Thomson , "for it stands up as one of
30561-402: Was eating and not learning, he would point to the numbers. And he would say, that is a two, and that is a four. And then he'd say, and this is a eight, and that's a one. And I'll never forget this. And he said, and that's a nine. And then he crooked his arm and inverted his arm and said, and see, it becomes a six. It's magic. And now it's a nine, and now it's a six, and now it's a nine and now it's
30744-432: Was hesitant taking on the project, afraid that it would be compared to Schindler's List , but he said, "I've never planned my career [...] In the end I do what I think I gotta do." Starring Morgan Freeman , Anthony Hopkins , Djimon Hounsou and Matthew McConaughey , Spielberg used Allen's ten years worth of research to reenact the difficult historical scenes. The film struggled to find an audience, and underperformed at
30927-458: Was hired by RCA . Spielberg attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis . At their home in Cincinnati, his grandmother taught English to Holocaust survivors. They, in turn, taught him numbers: One man in particular, I kept looking at his numbers–his number tattooed on his forearm... he started – you know, when–during the dinner break, when everybody
31110-484: Was hired to train the actors and keep them in character during the combat scenes. Halfway through filming, Spielberg reminded the cast that they were making a tribute to thank "your grandparents and my dad, who fought in [the war]". Upon release, critics praised the direction and its realistic portrayal of war. The film grossed a successful $ 481 million worldwide and Spielberg won a second Academy Award for Best Director. In August 1999, Spielberg and Hanks were awarded
31293-440: Was his first home movie. In 1958, he became a Boy Scout , eventually attaining the rank of Eagle Scout . He fulfilled a requirement for the photography merit badge by making a nine-minute 8 mm Western , The Last Gunfight . Spielberg used his father's movie camera to make amateur features, and began taking the camera along on every Scout trip. At age 13, Spielberg made a 40-minute war film , Escape to Nowhere , with
31476-490: Was his sixth Best Director nomination, and fifth Best Picture nomination. In the mid-2000s, Spielberg scaled down his directing career and became more selective about film projects to undertake. In December 2005, he and his partners sold DreamWorks to media conglomerate Viacom (now known as Paramount Global ). The sale was finalized in February 2006. In June 2006, Spielberg planned to make Interstellar , but abandoned
31659-499: Was marketed as an educational sex hygiene film in an effort to circumvent censorship laws . Falling foul of the Motion Picture Production Code , Mom and Dad was prevented from obtaining mainstream distribution and restricted to independent and drive-in theaters . It was the biggest hit of its kind, and remained in continual distribution until the 1970s when hardcore pornography eventually took over. At
31842-456: Was mixed at the time of release; criticism ranged from the "overwrought" plot to Spielberg's downplaying of "disease and starvation". However, Andrew Sarris named it the best film of the year and later included it among the best of the decade. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, but was a disappointment at the box office; Ian Alterman of The New York Times thought it was overlooked by audiences. Spielberg recalled that Empire of
32025-475: Was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times." Spielberg was the target of anti-Semitism : "In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible." He gradually followed Judaism less during adolescence, after his family had moved to various neighborhoods and found themselves to be the only Jews. He recalls his parents taking him to see Cecil B. DeMille 's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). He had never seen
32208-591: Was nominated for six Academy Awards , including Best Picture. In a review for Salon magazine, Andrew O'Hehir wrote, "at this point in his career Spielberg is pursuing personal goals, and everything that's terrific and overly flat and tooth-rottingly sweet about War Horse reflects that." Spielberg directed the historical drama Lincoln (2012), starring Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln and Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln . Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin 's book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and written by Tony Kushner ,
32391-442: Was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture; Rylance won Best Supporting Actor , becoming the second actor to win for a performance directed by Spielberg. In 2016, Spielberg made The BFG , an adaptation of Roald Dahl 's children's book , starring newcomer Ruby Barnhill , and Mark Rylance as the titular Big Friendly Giant. DreamWorks bought the rights in 2010, and John Madden had intended to direct. The film
32574-414: Was not unusual for worldwide and North American rentals to be mixed up. Following the outbreak of World War II, many of the foreign markets were unavailable to Hollywood so it became standard practice to just report on North American box-office performance. In keeping with this new approach, the North American rental for Gone with the Wind was revised to $ 21 million in 1947 ($ 11 million lower than
32757-599: Was still editing Jurassic Park in the evenings. To make filming "bearable", Spielberg brought his wife and children with him. Against expectations, the film was a commercial success, and Spielberg used his percentage of profits to start the Shoah Foundation , a non-profit organization that archives testimonies of Holocaust survivors. Schindler's List won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Spielberg's first as Best Director . It also won seven BAFTAs , and three Golden Globes . Schindler's List
32940-471: Was the closing-night attraction at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival , a venue not known for blubbering sentiment. At the end, as the little critter bade his farewells and the Jules Verne -like space ship left the ground, the audience similarly levitated. One heard the audience's childlike applause; one felt their spirits lift. This was rapture made audible, palpable ... Spielberg orchestrated the movements of
33123-464: Was the last to be written by E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison before her death. It was co-produced and released by Walt Disney Pictures , marking the first Disney-branded film to be directed by Spielberg. The BFG premiered as an out-of-competition entry at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival , and received a wide release in the US on July 1, 2016. The BFG received fair reviews; Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune compared certain scenes to
33306-506: Was titled Love is a Survivor and was later changed to The Flower of the Fence . Altogether, he has served in a producer role in the making of 27 movies. In 2002, he was a key figure in the Rywin affair , a major corruption scandal in Poland. This biographical article related to film in Poland is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a film producer
33489-611: Was ugly, and it was cruel... it was, you know, visually devastating. And so I thought, someday, if I ever do make a war movie for real, it's got to be something that tells the truth about what those experiences had been for those young 17-, 18-, 19-year-old boys storming Omaha Beach, let's say. In Phoenix, Spielberg went to the local theater every Saturday. Formative films included Victor Fleming 's Captains Courageous (1937), Walt Disney 's Pinocchio and Fantasia (both 1940), Akira Kurosawa 's Rashomon (1950) and The Seven Samurai (1954), Ishirō Honda 's Godzilla, King of
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