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The 8 Best Billion-Dollar Movies, Ranked

Posted by movie guru

By the Numbers

Every movie here crossed a billion dollars worldwide. That's the easy part. These are the 8 that were also good, by movie.guru score.

Number one cost the least of all eight and runs the longest.

  1. 8Skyfall poster
    Skyfall (2012)8.9
    Bond at his prettiest, with Javier Bardem at his blondest.
    $1.11 billion worldwide on a $150 to $200 million budget. Roger Deakins lights a Shanghai fight in pure neon silhouette. The third act gets a little sleepy.
  2. 7Black Panther poster
    Black Panther (2018)9.0
    Wakanda is the real star, and the costumes steal scenes.
    $700.1 million domestic and an A+ CinemaScore. Danai Gurira's Okoye could run the whole franchise. The Busan car chase is pure joy.
  3. 6Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 poster
    The best scene belongs to Professor McGonagall, not Harry.
    A $250 million budget, $381 million domestic, and an 85 on Metacritic. Maggie Smith wakes up the castle's stone army, and the whole movie wakes up with her.
  4. 5Avengers: Endgame poster
    Highest gross here, fifth place. Money isn't everything.
    Audiences rank it at the very top, critics above 89%. It made $2.94 billion worldwide. Metacritic says 78, and the middle hour drags.
  5. 4The Dark Knight poster
    The Dark Knight (2008)9.3
    Barely a billionaire, easily the best villain here.
    Cleared the billion line by a hair, $1.01 billion worldwide. Metacritic says 85. Its opening bank job beats most movies' finales.
  6. 3Top Gun: Maverick poster
    The sequel nobody needed became the one everybody saw.
    Made on a $170 to $177 million budget, it pulled $1.5 billion worldwide. Audiences rank it above 99% of notable movies. The enemy pilots don't even get faces.
  7. 2The Odyssey poster
    The Odyssey (2026)9.4
    Still warm from the projector and already second. Give it time.
    An A CinemaScore and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Only 530,019 IMDb votes so far, the fewest here, so the fan verdict is still loading.
  8. 1The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King poster
    Cheapest movie here, longest movie here, best movie here.
    $1.14 billion worldwide on a $94 million budget. 201 minutes, and Andy Serkis's Gollum still beats every effect on this list. It's from 2003.
Change my mind. Name a billion-dollar movie that deserved a spot here more.

$54.66 says you just checked whether your favorite movie made a billion dollars, and it didn't.

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Current mood: ready to fight about it