--- description: The animated heavyweight has raked in more than $1.2 billion title: Frozen Box-Office Records Broken: Fifth Highest Grossing Movie Ever image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt47b3f18df7c1af50/698690ebf983e7297f04dfbe/frozen.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [movies](/tag/movies/) ## movies Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # _Frozen_'s Latest Title — Fifth-Highest Grossing Movie Ever — Is Less Impressive Than It Sounds  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 27, 2014 7:30 PM CUT  This image released by Disney shows Elsa the Snow Queen, voiced by Idina Menzel, in a scene from the animated feature "Frozen." (AP Photo/Disney) This image released by Disney shows Elsa the Snow Queen, voiced by Idina Menzel, in a scene from the animated feature "Frozen." (AP Photo/Disney)Disney/AP Photo  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 27, 2014 7:30 PM CUT This Memorial Day weekend was [a big one](http://time.com/114481/xmen-days-of-future-past-box-office/ "undefined") for _X-Men: Days of Future Past_, the new movie that earned first place in the box-office race — and, perhaps more surprisingly, for _Frozen_, a movie that has been out for about half a year already. The mega blockbuster has now grossed $1.219 billion worldwide, which earns it a spot in the list of the top five highest-grossing movies _ever_. (The movie bumped to No. 6 was _Iron Man 3_, which has earned $1.215 billion.) According to [_Deadline_](http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/frozen-skates-past-iron-man-3-to-become-fifth-highest-grossing-movie-of-all-time-worldwide/ "undefined"), the film got a big boost from its domination in Japan, where it’s won 11 weekends in a row and is the fourth highest-grossing movie ever. That latest _Frozen_ news is just one more in its long line of victories: Oscar wins, the title of [highest-earning animated movie](http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26815584 "undefined") ever, [fastest-selling digital home-entertainment release](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/frozen-sells-32-million-blu-689770 "undefined") ever, source of a soundtrack that was the [first album to sell a million copies](http://radioalice.cbslocal.com/2014/03/19/the-frozen-soundtrack-just-broke-a-record/ "undefined") in 2014 and [much, much more](http://time.com/101114/7-ways-frozen-has-taken-over-your-life/ "undefined"). But while being the fifth highest-grossing thing _is_ a big deal — it’s in good company, following _Avatar_, _Titanic_, _The A_ _vengers_ and the _Harry Potter_ grand finale — it’s maybe not as big as you’d think. Here’s a hint why: the oldest movie on that list is _Titanic_, which came out in 1997; no other movie from before 2000 cracks the top 10\. That’s because the ranking in question is not adjusted for inflation, so newer movies have a leg up in raking in extremely impressive-sounding fortunes. As the New York _Times_ [pointed out](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/why-avatar-is-not-the-top-grossing-film/ "undefined") when _Avatar_ took the top spot back in 2010, it’s easy to think that such a list means that more successful movies are being made today; a more complete picture would look those numbers in context. But that’s easier said than done. Sites like BoxOfficeMojo offer up data about which _domestic_ inflation-adjusted box-office — _Gone with the Wind_ is first, _Frozen_ is Number 101 — but different currencies worldwide inflate at different rates, so it would be a massive undertaking to break down the value of a unit of money in each country where each movie played and how much it has inflated since then. But that doesn’t mean that bloggers haven’t done that work. [This 2011 chart](http://www.federicopistono.org/blog/list-of-200-highest-grossing-films-of-all-time-adjusted-for-inflation "undefined"), for example, finds that _Gone with the Wind,_ which made $400 million worldwide, would have raked in a whopping $3.239 billion in 2011 dollars. _Avatar_ and _Titan_ _ic_ are still champs but _Frozen_‘s $1.219 billion leaves it at Number 17\. A different blogger [calculated in 2013](http://inflationdata.com/articles/2013/05/16/highest-grossing-movies-adjusted-for-inflation/ "undefined") that, using available worldwide gross data and running it through a U.S. inflation calculator, _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_ would come in first with an astounding $6.729 billion; on that chart, _Frozen_ would be #27\. [Another](http://calculatorgames.info/mogul/ "undefined") has _Gone with the Wind_ at $3.862 billion. With _Frozen_ still going strong from its November release, it _does_ have a chance to climb the charts — adjusted for inflation or not — further, though it seems unlikely to break the $3 billion mark, a feat that has never happened in today’s dollars. On the other hand, _Gone with the Wind_ and its early high-earning brethren didn’t have things like digital downloads and DVD sales to make the studio money in addition to the billions at the box office. That’s where _Frozen_ has its edge — particularly because there’s no way to adjust for inflation on [YouTube hair tutorials.](https://www.youtube.com/results?search%5Fquery=elsa+hair+tutorial "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/119015/frozen-records-broken-worldwide-gross/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/119015/frozen-records-broken-worldwide-gross/"},"headline":"Frozen's Latest Title — Fifth-Highest Grossing Movie Ever — Is Less Impressive Than It Sounds","datePublished":"2014-05-27T19:30:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:03:31.047Z","description":"The animated heavyweight has raked in more than $1.2 billion","url":"https://time.com/119015/frozen-records-broken-worldwide-gross/","keywords":["movies","Frozen","Disney","Movie","Record"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt47b3f18df7c1af50/698690ebf983e7297f04dfbe/frozen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt47b3f18df7c1af50/698690ebf983e7297f04dfbe/frozen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Frozen","caption":"Frozen","creditText":"Disney/AP Photo","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/119015/frozen-records-broken-worldwide-gross/","name":"Frozen's Latest Title — Fifth-Highest Grossing Movie Ever — Is Less Impressive Than It Sounds"}}]}] ```