The highest-grossing film ever isn't Avatar — it's from 1939

Modern blockbusters routinely cross $1 billion in raw ticket sales, which makes it tempting to crown the latest superhero or sci-fi film the biggest of all time. But raw dollars ignore decades of inflation and far cheaper tickets in the past.

Adjust for inflation, and the all-time champion is Gone with the Wind (1939). The Civil War epic was already the longest and most expensive Hollywood sound film of its day, made for about $4 million — and it kept earning through eight major theatrical re-releases over the following decades.

Guinness World Records puts its inflation-adjusted global gross at roughly $3.4 billion, ahead of every later blockbuster. It still holds the record for the highest domestic gross in U.S. history once inflation is factored in.

The lesson: measured in tickets sold rather than dollars taken, no film has ever drawn more people than this one.