THE TOP BLOCKBUSTERS OF EACH DECADE
’30s: GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
Adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind is the most successful film of all time, beating Avatar into second place. The American Civil War epic starring VIVIEN LEIGH and CLARK GABLE made $402,5m in 1939, which is $3,7bn (R67,5bn) today. Back then, there was significantly less competition – no television and cinema was booming.
’60s: THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
Adjusted for inflation, The Sound of Music is the sixth-biggest film of all time – it would have taken $2,6bn today (R47,3bn), more than any film by Steven Spielberg. Not bad for a musical about nuns, Nazis and a young governess (JULIE ANDREWS) falling in love with a baron (Christopher Plummer) and his seven children. It was a different time, though, a decade when the sweeping romance Doctor Zhivago (1965) was the second-biggest film.
’90s: TITANIC (1997)
The ’90s were a golden decade for big-screen cinema. Jurassic Park – the 1993 original – was an exhilarating trip to the movies. Yet even Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Sam Neill and the dinosaurs couldn’t beat James Cameron’s Titanic, the heartbreaking love story of Jack (LEONARDO DiCAPRIO) and Rose (KATE WINSLET), which appealed across generations to break the $1bn (then R5bn) mark.
’40s: PINOCCHIO (1940) & BAMBI (1942)
During World War 2 people flocked to see BAMBI. Fair enough. Watching the trippy, gorgeous cartoon today shows how formulaic animation has become since, while Pinocchio (1940) has been remade as recently as this year, with significantly less success. Escapist movies for a time that needed them.
’70s: JAWS (1975) & STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE (1977)
The decade when everything changed. Jaws starring ROY SCHEIDER and Star Wars were the first blockbusters of the modern era, and the two most successful films of the ’70s. Both launched successful franchises informed by focus groups. Third place is taken by The Exorcist (1973), which represents the independent spirit that cinema was about to leave behind.
2000s: AVATAR (2009)
Avatar became the first film to break the $2bn mark, even though its star, Sam Worthington, was largely unknown (James wanted to keep the budgets down). Its success should be studied because with an adjusted total of $3,3bn (R60,06bn), it remains planets ahead of the $1,8bn (R32,7bn) that the second-most popular film of the era, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), raked in.
’50s: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)
Religious epics were a mainstay of ’50s cinema – The Ten Commandments is the story of Moses and stars the pin-up CHARLTON HESTON. It would have made $2,4bn (R43,6bn) today, and the runner-up of the decade, 1959’s Ben-Hur (also starring Heston), the equivalent of $1,8bn (R32,7m).
’80s: E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982)
Blockbusters as we know them today – American, with merchandise tie-ins – came of age in the ’80s via the uncynical money-spinning films of Spielberg. The biggest film of the decade, E.T., is sequel-free thankfully. It’s a perfectly contained fable of family and fantasy (with a young Drew Barrymore), but Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) showed what was to come.
2010s: AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019)
The 2010s was the decade of superheroes – from Christian Bale in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) to some also-ran called Ant-Man (2015). No shock, then, that the biggest film of the decade was the climax of the Marvel series: Avengers: Endgame. It has an impressive cast, including Robert Downey Jnr, Scarlett Johansson, CHRIS HEMSWORTH and Gwyneth Paltrow, and made $2,79bn (R50,7bn) worldwide.