25 Best Blockbuster Movies of All Time, Ranked
You know a blockbuster movie when you see one, and sometimes, you know one without even seeing it. If a big-budget movie gets solid critical reviews and captures the public consciousness, especially if it’s around summer, then there’s a good chance it can count itself as a successful blockbuster. It’s not a genre necessarily, because critical and commercial success is needed, to some extent, for a movie to be a true blockbuster.
The following movies are all definable as blockbusters to some extent, but are assessed here more by their quality – and just how much escapist value they offer – than how profitable they were (though all were, at the very least, financially successful in one way or another). These are easily approachable films that all revel in being big, bombastic, and crowd-pleasing, and are ranked below, starting with the great and ending with the untouchable.
25 ‘Avatar’ (2009)
Director: James Cameron
Image via 20th Century Studios
As the highest-grossing movie of the 2000s, you do have to give credit to Avatar, even begrudgingly, if you happen to fall into the camp of people who weren’t thrilled by it. It’s one of numerous James Cameron films that satisfy the conditions of a blockbuster in every sense of the term, but, as some soon-to-be-mentioned titles will show, it’s not quite the director’s very best big movie.
Avatar takes some familiar sci-fi tropes in its story of nature vs. technology on an alien moon, following one man whose life is changed when he comes to appreciate a new way of life, fighting for an alien race humanity had previously mistreated. It’s perhaps by-the-numbers narratively, but the emotional beats still hit and the action thrills, all the while Avatar is undeniably gorgeous to look at (especially in its famed 3D format).
24 ‘Face/Off’ (1997)
Director: John Woo
Image via Paramount Pictures
Standing out against the numerous blockbusters that have family-friendly (or at least teen-friendly) ratings, Face/Off is much gnarlier, with bloody violence and fairly gleeful profanity throughout. Matching the gonzo content is one of the wildest premises ever tackled within a big-budget Hollywood film, as the conflict here is between John Travolta and Nicolas Cage’s characters; two rival men on opposite sides of the law who swap faces and, thereby, lifestyles.
The movie saw John Woo bringing his Heroic Bloodshed sensibilities to Hollywood with grace and style, the budget being there to match the sorts of wild ideas found within Face/Off’s bizarre (yet gripping) screenplay. It’s a high-concept blockbuster that couldn’t go much higher conceptually, but the whole thing makes it work surprisingly well, and it’s an inevitable must-watch for fans of over-the-top 1990s action.
23 ‘Titanic’ (1997)
Director: James Cameron
Image via 20th Century Fox
While it didn’t travel off Earth in the same way Avatar did, Titanic was a similarly impressive achievement by James Cameron, and just as technically dazzling as his 2009 film. Titanic was a bit more of a traditional epic, taking place around a real-life historical tragedy but focusing on the doomed romance between two fictional people wrapped up in the central disaster.
Titanic is not at all shy about trying to appeal to as many people as possible, with it indulging in sweeping romance alongside delivering thrills and spectacle, and it balances being a romance film with a disaster movie surprisingly well. It’s also an understatement to call the film a monumental hit at the box office, so its significance as a historically important blockbuster is undeniable.
22 ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ (2022)
Director: Joseph Kosinski
The original Top Gun has its moments, and is understandably nostalgic for some, but it’s definitely flawed as a movie in ways that its sequel, 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, didn’t fall victim to. Overall, this is probably one of the most noteworthy improvements from an original movie to its sequel in recent years, or maybe even of all time.
The story in Top Gun: Maverick is simple, following the planning and training involved in pulling off a daring mission, with said mission being the focus of the film’s dynamite and action-packed final act. As a blockbuster, it would’ve been a monumental success in any decade, but its box office run was extra significant in 2022, as Top Gun: Maverick was one of the first truly huge post-COVID-19 blockbusters (perhaps only beaten to the punch by the also successful Spider-Man: No Way Home, which came out in late 2021).
21 ‘Pacific Rim’ (2013)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Compared to most of the other already mentioned and soon-to-be-mentioned blockbusters, Pacific Rim wasn’t a monumental box office hit, at least in the U.S., instead proving successful more thanks to the international box office. While it might not have busted as many blocks in the traditional sense, it is nonetheless Capital-E entertainment: big, broad, kind of silly, unabashedly sincere, and extremely entertaining.
It’s a fantastically made – and gleefully outlandish – giant monster movie, with its premise centering on big monsters threatening to take over Earth, with humanity banding together and responding by making similarly big robots to punch the big monsters in their big faces. It’s wonderfully bombastic, standing as easily the largest-scale movie Guillermo del Toro has directed to date, while also being one of the filmmaker’s best films overall, too.
20 ‘RRR’ (2022)
Director: S. S. Rajamouli
Image via DVV Entertainment
RRR thrills and excites in a somewhat comparable way to the aforementioned Face/Off, but it leans arguably even further into over-the-top territory as far as things like runtime and action sequences are concerned. It runs for an appropriately epic three hours, and takes two historical figures before imagining what would’ve happened if they’d met and battled the British Raj in a revolutionary conflict back in the early 1920s.
It’s a film that starts at what feels like an unmaintainable high, but then RRR miraculously finds ways to continually top itself, proving riotously entertaining all the while. On top of the spectacular action, there’s also true heart to be found in RRR, with a simple story that’s easy to get swept up in. Also, the fact that it has some highly memorable musical numbers doesn’t hurt, either.
19 ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’ (1991)
Director: James Cameron
Image via Tri-Star Pictures
Though The Terminator could be seen as something close to a blockbuster, it wasn’t made on nearly the same scale as its sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which is a debatably better film overall, too. Both were made by James Cameron and satisfy in different ways, the 1984 original being grittier and almost like a horror movie, while the 1991 sequel is more explosive, action-packed, and relentless.
If you want spectacle, Terminator 2: Judgment Day still delivers as much now as it would’ve back in the early 1990s, owing to just how good the special effects are and how satisfying the big set pieces remain. Whether it’s James Cameron’s best movie might be debatable, but it’s pretty easy to call it the best of his unequivocal blockbusters to date, seeing as it just does everything right as an action/sci-fi movie.
18 ‘The Avengers’ (2012)
Director: Joss Whedon
Image via Marvel Studios
Before 2012, there were superhero movies that were better than The Avengers, and also since 2012, there have been superhero movies that were better than The Avengers. But as far as scale and ambition went, this film was unparalleled for its time, bringing together numerous iconic Marvel heroes and getting them to effectively share the screen within a single movie.
It completed the MCU’s first phase in style, and some of those movies that led up to it now look better in hindsight, thanks to how it all ended up. The Avengers changed things going forward, too, with the MCU – and some rivals – trying to chase the high, so to speak, that this film represented. Some Avengers movies topped it critically and commercially, but The Avengers really did feel like it started it all, and is one of the most important blockbusters of the 21st century so far, as a result.
17 ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ (2018)
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Image via Marvel Studios
Yes, another Avengers movie, but Infinity War was another step up in terms of impact and success for what was – at the time – a seemingly unstoppable cinematic universe. The Avengers served as a finale for the MCU’s first phase, while Infinity War was the beginning of the end, part one of a duology that ended up concluding the first three phases of the MCU; a pair of films that haven’t quite been matched since the beginning of the 2020s.
Avengers: Infinity War brings together significantly more iconic characters than the first Avengers movie, being a massively ambitious and shockingly well-balanced crossover movie in the best of ways. Also, for as crowd-pleasing as much of it was, Infinity War also got surprisingly dark at times, and has one of the boldest/bleakest endings of any blockbuster film ever made.
16 ‘Avengers: Endgame’ (2019)
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
After the devastation of Avengers: Infinity War, 2019 saw the release of the more conventionally appealing Avengers: Endgame, which was the second part of the remarkable duology that wrapped up the MCU’s third phase. It ended up being even more critically acclaimed than previous Avengers movies, and ultimately emerged as the highest-grossing film of the 2010s.
So, yes, Avengers: Endgame was another step forward for superhero movies, and judging by scale alone, it’s not something that’s been topped by any single film since 2019. Going by runtime and the sheer number of characters, it’s an unprecedented modern-day epic, and also ended up being one of those rare blockbusters that – while not flawless – excelled across the board while satisfying both die-hard fans and more casual moviegoers alike, thanks to it being something that balanced tearjerking scenes, spectacle, action, and humor.
