Gone with the Wind (1939)
Gone with the Wind was a massive phenomenon. The sweeping epic won Best Picture at the Oscars, but it was also a huge hit. It remains, to date, the highest-grossing film ever adjusting for inflation. Adjusted to 2022 numbers, it made the equivalent of $4.2 billion dollars. This is a fun bit of trivia, but we did not get into inflation adjustments for this list, because it was not pertinent (and also because we would have spent so much time laying those details out and your eyes would have glazed over).
Yeah, the story of Scarlett and Rhett and a bunch of rich Southerners was a sensation. Of course, back in 1939, there was no TV, and also you could only see a movie in theaters. We did not have to adjust for inflation to include Gone with the Wind, either. It cost $3.85 million, which in 1939 was not cheap.
While the exact box office numbers are not provided with the same accuracy as these days, it is reported to have brought in over $390 million. That is staggering. We aren’t signing off on everything depicted in the movie, but this old-school blockbuster proves that serious dramas and not just genre films can make a list of movies that made 100 times their budget at the box office.
Share:
