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Welcome to all movie lovers out there. Here, we will take a look at some of the top performing movies in the last three decades (1975 to 2014 to be precise).

What genre of movies do most people enjoy watching?

The answer may not please those of you’ll who like to see some realism in your films. Fantasy seems to be the overwhelming leader in terms of box office earnings at a whopping $35,376,380,052 followed closely by sci-fi and comedy at a combined $46,175,223,290 as can be seen from the tree map shown here. Westerns seem to be one of the poorest earning genres at just $640,095,639 (Cowboys and pistols are probably out of date huh?).

Critics vs Audience

Friend: Lets go watch the Justice League! Sounds like it could be epic. What do you think?

Me: Nah! It has poor ratings. I’m not watching it. Let’s just wait for the Snyder Cut.

Is it really fair to judge a movie solely on that basis?

Well, to be honest it’s just a matter of numbers and opinions and there’s no definite answer to that question. Below, we can see how audience ratings and critic ratings for all these top movies compare. I’ve inserted a filter to make it easier to find movies based on either MPAA Ratings or Freshness.

For those of you like me, wondering what these terms mean... please take a look right here.

MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America) ratings

G - General Audiences: These movies are basically ok for everyone to see and there is nothing offensive. Impolite conversations at most.

PG - Parental Guidance Suggested: These movies might have some scenes that are offensive for children in terms of explicit language and may have at most moderate levels of violence.

PG-13 - Parents Strongly Cautioned: Contains scenes inappropriate for children under 13 years of age. Contains no sexually oriented nudity or continuous harsh violence.

R – Restricted: Not for children under 17 (may be accompanied with parent depending on laws of location and theatres). These movies contain explicit language, dark themes, inappropriate portrayal of sex, violence and drugs.

IMDb rating: These ratings are given by the general audiences like us. Though, these ratings maybe skewed due to audience bias/apathy.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: These are given by professional movie critics, if that is something you trust more.

Speaking of which, how does the box office performance of a movie relate with its IMDb rating? Let’s take a look on the plot below.

James Cameroon’s massive projects Avatar and Titanic have done ever so well in the box office due to the fantastic visual spectacles that they were. But, unlike Titanic, Avatar has underwhelmed in terms of “revolutionizing cinema” movie goers and critics alike due to its well-worn plot. On the other hand, The Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan, though not as successful (it definitely stands tall in its own right) has earned an everlasting place in pop culture and the hearts of fans.

Also, an interesting tidbit; all Twilight sequels individually have beaten the likes of classics like Saving Private Ryan, Interstellar, The Matrix, The Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars Episode V) and Schindler’s List in terms of Box office earnings… I know right!?

Inflation adjustment

These movies make millions and billions of dollars at the box office and have been doing so for decades. Though, it isn’t fair to compare the greatness of movies from the 70s to those made recently in terms of box office success as movie ticket prices have vastly gone up ($2.03 on average in 1975 to $8.43 on average in 2015). For example, one of the top earning movies in 1975 was Dog Day Afternoon starring Al Pacino, which made a measly $50,000,000 while Die Hard with a Vengeance starring Bruce Willis made over 7.3 times as much in 1995, or 20 years later ($366,101,766 to be exact). When adjusted for inflation as per the 2015 economy for both movies, it’s possible to realize that the latter only made around twice as much money as the former.

Finally, I leave you all with the best box office performers over the years and with the hope of having added to your knowledge of how various aspects of movie making are related. Thanks!

References -

https://data.world/crowdflower/blockbuster-database

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-movie-ratings-sites/#:~:text=IMDb%20is%20great%20for%20seeing%20what%20general%20audiences%20think%20of%20a%20movie.&text=Rotten%20Tomatoes%20offers%20the%20best,you%20should%20use%20Rotten%20Tomatoes.

https://www.regmovies.com/static/en/us/mpaa-ratings

https://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-price/

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