Every Oscars Best Picture-Winning Movie, Ranked By Box Office

The Academy Award for Best Picture isn't decided by popular vote, but many of them racked up plenty of dough at the box office anyway.

Ranking each Best Picture winner by box-office performance is no small feat--for six films ranging from the 1920s to the 1950s, box-office data was not available. For the remaining 90, we combed through worldwide box-office winnings, per Box Office Mojo, The Numbers, and Entertainment Weekly, and adjusted for inflation based on the year the film was released to determine the least- and most-profitable Best Picture winners of all time. (Calculations are accurate according to the latest U.S. Department of Labor Statistics's Consumer Price Index data as of publication.)

The last-place recipient was released digitally amid the COVID-19 pandemic, accounting for record-low box-office earnings. The top few films are recognizable blockbusters. And in the middle, there are plenty of all-time iconic movies, enjoyable flicks, some poorly aged storylines, and even a few even a few controversial wins.

These are 90 Academy Award best picture winners, ranked by worldwide box-office performance and adjusted for inflation.

Image credit: Getty Images/Santi Visalli

Year won: 2022

Box-office earnings: $1,905,058

Adjusted for inflation: $2,204,403

Synopsis: The child of deaf adults (CODA), tries to balance helping with her family’s struggling fishing business while following her dreams of becoming a singer.

Year won: 2021

Box-office earnings: $39,458,207

Adjusted for inflation: $47,803,385

Synopsis: Chloe Zhao directs Frances McDormand as a widow who travels around the country while living in a van, based on the 2017 nonfiction book of the same name.

Year won: 1942

Box-office earnings: $2,400,000

Adjusted for inflation: $51,191,510

Synopsis: The valley in question is the South Wales Valleys, where a mining family’s experience with changing times is told through the eyes of the youngest child.

Year won: 1952

Box-office earnings: $4,500,000

Adjusted for inflation: $54,267,923

Synopsis: Gene Kelly stars in the iconic musical rom-com about a struggling artist.

Year won: 1935

Box-office earnings: $2,500,000

Adjusted for inflation: $58,497,761

Synopsis: Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert play a reporter and socialite who fall in love in Frank Capra’s romantic comedy.

Year won: 1956

Box-office earnings: $5,000,000

Adjusted for inflation: $58,497,761

Synopsis: A middle-aged butcher and teacher who have each given up on romance get a second chance at love on one fateful evening.

Year won: 1932/1933 (For a few years in the late '20s and '30s, Oscars ceremonies celebrated films released in two separate years.)

Box-office earnings: $2,594,000

Adjusted for inflation: $59,368,139

Synopsis: A baron (John Barrymore) who loses his fortune becomes a gambler and thief at a fancy Berlin hotel, where he finds a love interest in an aging ballerina (Greta Garbo).

Year won: 1937

Box-office earnings: $3,000,000

Adjusted for inflation: $67,672,230

Synopsis :Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld gets the biopic treatment with this story of his development of the Ziegfeld Follies show as well as his off-stage love-triangle antics.

Year won: 2010

Box-office earnings: $49,259,766

Adjusted for inflation: $71,993,647

Synopsis: Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to direct an Oscar Best Picture winner with this war thriller flick starring Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie about a military bomb disposal team grappling with the stress of the Iraq War.

Year won: 1959

Box-office earnings: $7,300,000

Adjusted for inflation: $79,200,706

Synopsis: A wealthy Parisian womanizer befriends a young woman named Gigi, who forces him to confront his playboy ways after he develops feelings for her.

Year won: 1929/1930

Box-office earnings: $4,358,000

Adjusted for inflation: $79,908,900

Synopsis: The first film with sound to win Best Picture starred two sisters and Vaudeville performers who try to make it on Broadway while navigating matters of the heart.

Year won: 2017

Box-office earnings: $65,172,611

Adjusted for inflation: $81,378,623

Synopsis: Barry Jenkins directs the coming-of-age drama about three pivotal moments in a young Black man’s life as he grapples with identity, sexuality, and abuse.

Year won: 1944

Box-office earnings: $4,661,404

Adjusted for inflation: $84,484,041

Synopsis: Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman star in the iconic drama about an American nightclub owner in Casablanca who reunites with his old flame, whose husband is a rebel in need of help fleeing the country.

Year won: 1939

Box-office earnings: $4,000,000

Adjusted for inflation: $88,949,787

Synopsis: Frank Capra’s romantic comedy about a man whose wealthy family disapproves when he decides to marry a woman from an eccentric family.

Year won: 1931/1932

Box-office earnings: $4,825,000

Adjusted for inflation: $99,530,862

Synopsis: A couple in the late 1800s moves to settle in the west, only to face multiple separations and reunions over the course of four decades as Oklahoma vies for statehood.

Year won: 1951

Box-office earnings: $8,402,348

Adjusted for inflation: $109,316,988

Synopsis: Eve (Anne Baxter), an ambitious young fan of famed Broadway star Margo Channing (Bette Davis), manipulates her way into the actress’s life and winds up a threat to her career and relationships.

Year won: 1948

Box-office earnings: $7,800,000

Adjusted for inflation: $109,671,498

Synopsis: Gregory Peck plays a Connecticut journalist who pretends to be Jewish in New York City to write an expose about antisemitism in his affluent town.

Year won: 1988

Box-office earnings: $43,994,979

Adjusted for inflation: $121,430,789

Synopsis: Bernardo Bertolucci directs a biodrama about Puyi, the final emperor of China.

Year won: 1950

Box-office earnings: $9,451,623

Adjusted for inflation: $124,518,382

Synopsis: Adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, the film is told from the point of view of a former journalist working for a southern politician.

Year won: 2016

Box-office earnings: $98,690,254

Adjusted for inflation: $130,556,592

Synopsis: Washington Post reporters uncover a major coverup of widespread sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

Year won: 1941

Box-office earnings: $6,002,370

Adjusted for inflation: $134,430,793

Synopsis: Alfred Hitchcock directs Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine in this psychodrama as a married couple haunted by the husband’s deceased first wife.

Year won: 2015

Box-office earnings: $103,215,094

Adjusted for inflation: $136,704,541

Synopsis: Michael Keaton stars as a washed-up former superhero actor attempting to make a comeback on the Broadway stage.

Year won: 2023

Box-office earnings: $143,411,356

Adjusted for inflation: $153,649,669

Synopsis: Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan star as Chinese-American immigrants struggling to make ends meet while being audited by the IRS before they're thrust into a series of absurdist parallel universes in this existential dramedy.

Year won: 1985

Box-office earnings: $52,068,956

Adjusted for inflation: $157,132,984

Synopsis: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri are faux rivals in this fictionalized biodrama based on a play based on another play.

Year won: 2006

Box-office earnings: $98,410,061

Adjusted for inflation: $157,994,254

Synopsis: It was a controversial win for the crime drama about racial tensions in Los Angeles, which was seen as overly simplistic to some. The ensemble cast included Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Thandiwe Newton, Brendan Fraser, Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe, Jennifer Esposito, Michael Peña, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, and more.

Year won: 1983

Box-office earnings: $52,767,889

Adjusted for inflation: $171,453,534

Synopsis: Richard Attenborough directs Ben Kingsley in the titular role, about the life of Mahatma Gandhi.

Year won: 1933/1934

Box-office earnings: $7,630,000

Adjusted for inflation: $184,028,557

Synopsis: The tagline was "picture of the generation": It followed the first third of the 20th century for a wealthy London couple and their loved ones as they faced major world events.

Year won: 2012

Box-office earnings: $133,471,171

Adjusted for inflation: $186,048,745

Synopsis: It may be created in the 21st century, but the black-and-white silent film takes viewers back to the 1920s and '30s in old Hollywood, where silent film stars watch their artform crumble to make way for new-age "talkies."

Year won: 1946

Box-office earnings: $11,000,000

Adjusted for inflation: $191,612,667

Synopsis: An alcoholic's self-destructive habits are chronicled over the course of a long weekend in this drama based on a novel.

Year won: 1978

Box-office earnings: $38,289,445

Adjusted for inflation: $198,111,863

Synopsis: Woody Allen directs, writes, and stars in this satirical romantic dramedy about a man trying to understand the demise of his relationship with the titular Annie Hall (Diane Keaton).

Year won: 1961

Box-office earnings: $18,778,738

Adjusted for inflation: $198,920,126

Synopsis: An insurance salesman tries to achieve upward career mobility by lending colleagues his apartment to have affairs when his own social complications arise.

Year won: 1982

Box-office earnings: $59,303,767

Adjusted for inflation: $204,560,809

Synopsis: Two British athletes--a Scottish Christian and an English Jew--compete at the 1924 Olympics in this adaptation of a true story.

Year won: 1981

Box-office earnings: $54,766,923

Adjusted for inflation: $208,398,776

Synopsis: Robert Redford's feature directorial debut follows an upper-middle-class suburban family's attempt at returning to normalcy following one teenage son's death and another's suicide attempt.

Year won: 1968

Box-office earnings: $24,407,647

Adjusted for inflation: $229,130,805

Synopsis: Sidney Poitier stars in the neo-noir mystery about a Black detective from Philadelphia who gets wrapped up in a small Mississippi town's murder investigation.

Year won: 1979

Box-office earnings: $49,080,126

Adjusted for inflation: $236,027,229

Synopsis: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Meryl Streep paint a picture of how small-town Pennsylvania steelworkers were impacted by the Vietnam War.

Year won: 2018

Box-office earnings: $195,243,464

Adjusted for inflation: $249,747,869

Synopsis: Guillermo del Toro's romantic fantasy depicts a government laboratory custodian who falls in love with an amphibious, human-like creature being held captive.

Year won: 2014

Box-office earnings: $187,734,091

Adjusted for inflation: $252,680,318

Synopsis: Steve McQueen directs this harrowing biodrama based on the memoir by Solomon Northup, a free Black man abducted in 1841 and sold into slavery.

Year won: 2008

Box-office earnings: $171,632,777

Adjusted for inflation: $259,547,578

Synopsis: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin star in this Coen Brothers Western about the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong.

Year won: 1943

Box-office earnings: $13,500,000

Adjusted for inflation: $259,686,994

Synopsis: An affluent English family, helmed by Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, experience World War II from their rural home.

Year won: 1967

Box-office earnings: $28,350,000

Adjusted for inflation: $274,354,500

Synopsis: The British historical drama shares the story of Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who refused to let King Henry VIII pressure the Pope into letting him divorce his wife and remarry.

Year won: 1945

Box-office earnings: $16,300,000

Adjusted for inflation: $290,388,205

Synopsis: Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald star in this musical dramedy about a young priest inheriting a parish from an elder pastor.

Year won: 1958

Box-office earnings: $27,200,463

Adjusted for inflation: $303,510,704

Synopsis: A group of British prisoners of war are tasked with constructing a railway bridge across a river in this World War II drama.

Year won: 1975

Box-office earnings: $47,962,897

Adjusted for inflation: $305,044,025

Synopsis: Francis Ford Coppola's sequel and prequel to the original Mafia epic builds upon the Corleone family lore.

Year won: 1936

Box-office earnings: $13,680,000

Adjusted for inflation: $313,090,266

Synopsis: Based on a real-life 18th century event, a ship crewman leads a mutiny against their leader.

Year won: 2013

Box-office earnings: $232,325,503

Adjusted for inflation: $317,278,312

Synopsis: Ben Affleck directs, produces, and stars in this biographical drama about a rescue mission disguised as a Hollywood film project during the Iran hostage crisis.

Year won: 2020

Box-office earnings: $262,099,264

Adjusted for inflation: $321,449,051

Synopsis: The first non-English-language film to win Best Picture centered on a poor South Korean family that feeds--parasite-style--off the wealth of a more well-to-do family, while in reality the wealthy family is as parasitic as the poor one--if not more.

Year won: 1969

Box-office earnings: $37,402,877

Adjusted for inflation: $336,999,922

Synopsis: The British musical film is based on the stage musical, which in turn was based on Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, about an orphan boy in 1830s London.

Year won: 1984

Box-office earnings: $108,423,749

Adjusted for inflation: $341,325,800

Synopsis: James L. Brooks' dramedy follows a mother (Shirley MacLaine) and daughter's (Debra Winger) relationship over the course of 30 years.

Year won: 1993

Box-office earnings: $159,167,799

Adjusted for inflation: $355,714,505

Synopsis: Clint Eastwood directs, produces, and stars alongside Morgan Freeman in this Western about a reformed outlaw who gets pulled back into the game one more time.

Year won: 2005

Box-office earnings: $216,763,646

Adjusted for inflation: $359,797,817

Synopsis: Ready for more Clint Eastwood? He again directs, produces and stars with Morgan Freeman--but also Hilary Swank this time--in this sports drama about an amateur boxer aiming to make it in the big leagues.

Year won: 1990

Box-office earnings: $145,793,296

Adjusted for inflation: $368,654,809

Synopsis: Oh look, it's Morgan Freeman again. The actor stars as the chauffeur of the titular Miss Daisy as the two slowly build a relationship over the course of two and a half decades.

Year won: 1947

Box-office earnings: $23,600,000

Adjusted for inflation: $379,473,477

Synopsis: Three men who served in World War II return home after the war and struggle with readjusting to their new normal.

Year won: 1970

Box-office earnings: $44,802,577

Adjusted for inflation: $382,772,709

Synopsis: The only X-rated movie to win Best Picture, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight star as a con man and prostitute, respectively, who make for an unlikely friendship.

Year won: 1964

Box-office earnings: $37,600,000

Adjusted for inflation: $385,274,667

Synopsis: Based on an 18th-century novel, a boy born under unknown circumstances is raised by a squire and grows up to be a womanizer searching for his fortune.

Year won: 1987

Box-office earnings: $138,545,632

Adjusted for inflation: $396,356,805

Synopsis: Director and writer Oliver Stone drew on his own experiences in the Vietnam War for this story about an Army volunteer watching both the actual war and a war between his leaders unfold.

Year won: 1972

Box-office earnings: $51,702,099

Adjusted for inflation: $400,273,821

Synopsis: NYPD detectives work to capture the leaders of a French heroin ring in this action thriller.

Year won: 2019

Box-office earnings: $321,752,656

Adjusted for inflation: $401,760,611

Synopsis: This dramedy is based on the true story of pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his driver/bodyguard (Viggo Mortensen) as the two traveled across the Deep South in 1962.

Year won: 1953

Box-office earnings: $36,000,000

Adjusted for inflation: $425,952,000

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille directs this epic drama about circus life set in the real-life Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Year won: 1996

Box-office earnings: $213,216,216

Adjusted for inflation: $438,671,379

Synopsis: Mel Gibson plays Sir William Wallace, a warrior who led the First War of Scottish Independence in the late 13th century.

Year won: 2007

Box-office earnings: $291,481,358

Adjusted for inflation: $453,340,262

Synopsis: Martin Scorsese directs this crime thriller about Irish Mob boss Frank Costello, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg.

Year won: 1980

Box-office earnings: $106,260,000

Adjusted for inflation: $458,920,255

Synopsis: Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep star in this legal drama about a young couple's divorce, custody battle, and parenting struggles.

Year won: 1962

Box-office earnings: $44,134,757

Adjusted for inflation: $462,821,565

Synopsis: C'mon, you know this one--Romeo and Juliet, but with rival New York City gangs.

Year won: 1997

Box-office earnings: $231,976,425

Adjusted for inflation: $463,580,268

Synopsis: Told through a series of flashbacks, a World War II burn victim looks back on his life and love before tragedy struck.

Year won: 1963

Box-office earnings: $45,752,083

Adjusted for inflation: $475,015,699

Synopsis: Based on the real-life British diplomat T.E. Lawrence, the adventure drama details his experiences in the Middle East around World War I.

Year won: 1957

Box-office earnings: $42,009,549

Adjusted for inflation: $484,265,076

Synopsis: Based on the 1872 French novel, a wealthy Englishman takes on a bet that he can journey across the globe in a very specific amount of time.

Year won: 1971

Box-office earnings: $61,749,765

Adjusted for inflation: $499,008,127

Synopsis: Army General George S. Patton gets the biopic treatment in this World War II drama.

Year won: 2003

Box-office earnings: $306,776,732

Adjusted for inflation: $534,681,661

Synopsis: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere star in this musical adaptation about two murderers in jail awaiting trial.

Year won: 2009

Box-office earnings: $378,411,362

Adjusted for inflation: $551,084,405

Synopsis: Dev Patel makes his big-screen debut as a teenager in India who scores big on a game show but must then convince police he didn't cheat.

Year won: 1999

Box-office earnings: $289,317,794

Adjusted for inflation: $556,533,838

Synopsis: Gwyneth Paltrow plays a fictional love interest to Joseph Fiennes' William Shakespeare in a rom-com rife with Shakespearian references.

Year won: 2002

Box-office earnings: $316,791,257

Adjusted for inflation: $561,182,288

Synopsis: Russell Crowe portrays real-life mathematician John Nash, who reaches career heights while dealing with schizophrenia.

Year won: 1992

Box-office earnings: $272,742,922

Adjusted for inflation: $627,885,446

Synopsis: A young FBI agent seeks the help of a cannibal in order to catch a serial killer.

Year won: 1976

Box-office earnings: $109,114,987Adjusted for inflation: $635,925,389

Synopsis:Jack Nicholson plays a new patient at a mental health hospital in this psychological drama based on the novel of the same name.

Year won: 1977

Box-office earnings: $117,251,948

Adjusted for inflation: $646,117,993

Synopsis: It's David vs. Goliath in this sports drama about a small-scale fighter who goes up against the heavyweight boxing world champion.

Year won: 1986

Box-office earnings: $227,514,205

Adjusted for inflation: $662,979,776

Synopsis: Meryl Streep and Robert Redford play unlikely love interests in this romantic drama set in Nairobi.

Year won: 2000

Box-office earnings: $356,296,601

Adjusted for inflation: $670,564,746

Synopsis: A middle-aged father dissatisfied with his suburban life becomes obsessed with his teenage daughter's best friend.

Year won: 1994

Box-office earnings: $322,161,245

Adjusted for inflation: $699,052,000

Synopsis: Steven Spielberg's historical drama follows a German man (Liam Neeson) who saves Jewish people from the Holocaust.

Year won: 2011

Box-office earnings: $484,068,861

Adjusted for inflation: $696,054,331

Synopsis: Colin Firth plays King George VI, struggling to overcome a stutter as he's thrust into leading the monarchy and addressing the nation after Britain declared war on Germany in 1939.

Year won: 1965

Box-office earnings: $72,636,096

Adjusted for inflation: $734,674,278

Synopsis: Based on the stage musical, Audrey Hepburn plays the lower-class Eliza Doolittle, whom a snobby professor bets he can mold into a presentable high-society woman.

Year won: 1960

Box-office earnings: $74,437,981

Adjusted for inflation: $802,057,734

Synopsis: A Jewish prince and a Roman tribune's friendship takes a turn for the worse in this epic religious story of revenge and redemption.

Year won: 2001

Box-office earnings: $465,387,186

Adjusted for inflation: $847,393,852

Synopsis: Russell Crowe stars as a Roman general betrayed by the emperor (Joaquin Phoenix) who becomes a gladiator to seek his revenge.

Year won: 1989

Box-office earnings: $354,825,435

Adjusted for inflation: $940,446,369

Synopsis: Tom Cruise plays big-shot Charlie, who returns home to Cincinnati upon learning that his estranged father died and left the family fortune to his autistic brother (Dustin Hoffman), whom Charlie didn't know existed.

Year won: 2024

Box-office earnings: $972,444,774

Adjusted for inflation: $1,000,676,444

Synopsis: Christopher Nolan epically depicts the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led development of the atomic bomb.

Year won: 1991

Box-office earnings: $424,208,848

Adjusted for inflation: $1,017,672,807

Synopsis: Kevin Costner stars, produces, and makes his directorial debut in this adaptation of a novel about a Union Army officer who travels to the frontier and meets a nearby Lakota tribe.

Year won: 1974

Box-office earnings: $156,000,000

Adjusted for inflation: $1,101,655,135

Synopsis: Robert Redford and Paul Newman play scammers trying to con a mob boss.

Year won: 1995

Box-office earnings: $678,226,465

Adjusted for inflation: $1,434,929,498

Synopsis: Tom Hanks plays a man whose life impacts a slew of major moments in 20th-century American history.

Year won: 1966

Box-office earnings: $159,470,527

Adjusted for inflation: $1,587,354,438

Synopsis: Julie Andrews plays a musical-nun-turned-governess to a family of seven children in 1930s Austria.

Year won: 1973

Box-office earnings: $250,342,030

Adjusted for inflation: $1,877,852,699

Synopsis: An aging mob family's patriarch hands down the family business to his reluctant youngest son.

Year won: 2004

Box-office earnings: $1,156,600,472

Adjusted for inflation: $1,970,922,635

Synopsis: The third installment of the LotR trilogy finds Frodo, Sam, and Gollum journeying to destroy the One Ring.

Year won: 1998

Box-office earnings: $2,264,750,694

Adjusted for inflation: $4,424,349,225

Synopsis: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play star-crossed lovers who meet on an ill-fated ship voyage.

Year won: 1940

Box-office earnings: $402,382,193

Adjusted for inflation: $9,076,700,133

Synopsis: The daughter of a Southern plantation owner's love affairs play out amid the Civil War, the end of slavery, and the Reconstruction era.