From Movieline:

All figures’ budgets are adjusted for inflation.

15. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)
Return on investment: 1008% (Budget $111 million / Gross revenue $1.1 billion)

14. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
Return on investment: 1160% (Budget $38 million / Gross revenue $441 million)

13. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
Return on investment: 1194% (Budget $31 million / Gross revenue $370 million)

12. The Hangover (2009)
Return on investment: 1297% (Budget $36 million / Gross revenue $467 million)

11. Jaws (1975)
Return on investment: 1308% (Budget $36 million / Gross revenue $471 million)

10. Ghost (1990)
Return on investment: 1446% (Budget: $35 million / Gross Revenue: $506 million)

9. Home Alone (1990)
Return on investment: 1590% (Budget $30 million / Gross revenue $477 million)

8. The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Return on investment: 1749% (Budget: $35 million / Gross Revenue: $612 million)

7. American Beauty (1999)
Return on investment: 1780% (Budget $20 million / Gross revenue $356 million)

6. Star Wars (1977)
Return on investment: 1938% (Budget $40 million / Gross Revenue: $775 million

5. Grease (1978)
Return on investment: 1975% (Budget $20 million / Gross revenue $394 million)

4. Pretty Woman (1990)
Return on investment: 2013% (Budget $23 million / Gross revenue $463 million)

3. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Return on investment: 2520% (Budget $15 million / Gross revenue $378 million)

2. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Return on investment: 3172% (Budget: $25 million / Gross Revenue: $793 million)

1. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Return on investment: 6150% (Budget $6 million / Gross revenue $369 million)

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I think #1 is making me sick...

I think almost everything on that list is making me sick...

Man how I hate seeing My Big Fat Piece of Shit everywhere when it comes to low budget pulling huge numbers.

I was kind of expecting to see The Blair Witch Project on here, but I guess not

Interesting list, though. Spielberg and Chris Columbus are both represented twice

Is this limited to US films? I seem to recall Goldfinger had a high ROI.

Where's Paranormal Activity? I seem to recall them promoting that as the most profitable film of all time?

Also, I don't understand how Return of the King can be on there, but not the other LOTR movies.

i thought it would be too, but when you think about it, even with a minuscule budget and the hundreds of millions it made, it's still no comparison to some of these franchises that grossed over half a billion dollars.

I'd guess the number one film might be Deep Throat, if you just looking at the % of ROI. Budget was $25,000, actual gross is really hard to pin down due to the nature of it's distribution (which lead to lots of skimming, falsified box office takes, etc) but the FBI estimated a gross of maybe $100 million dollars. Who knows if that's close to reality, but the average ticket price for the film was much higher than normal and back in the "porno chic" days, this film sold a lot of tickets.

Are those budget numbers adjusted? If not, they are WAY off. Star Wars didn't have anywhere near a $40 million budget, especially not in 1977 dollars. The same with Jaws in '75. More poorly researched dreck from Movieline

That threw me off too, until I reread the OP's post:

All figures’ budgets are adjusted for inflation.

Read the second sentence.

Is this just ticket revenue? Does it count re releases? There is no way I believe MBFGW made half what Star Wars made.

Budgets were adjusted for inflation, but the grosses weren't? They are mixing numbers in a particularly stupid way.

Star Wars made $775M in mid-1970s dollars. The budget in 1977 dollars was $11M. That's a 7000% ROI.

Even if they are, it's still wrong. PA cost 15k and had revenues of almost 200 million.

These are always interesting, though they really have no relation whatsoever to the actual profitibility of these films. I mean, we're ignoring all the revenue from other markets...ignoring all the other expenses besides production costs...ignoring the revenue the people paying the production costs actually get...

I mean really, it's not really representative of how profitable any of these films actually are.

That and...the ranking is based on percentage...which well, doesn't make this ranking based on highest profitibility, but highest % ROI.

That being said...it's interesting to see what shakes out anyway. I think the list is incomplete though...based on the metrics they are using, I can already identify one...Black Swan should be on the list at #4. $281M against a $13M budget.

I was also expecting to see The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity on the list when I saw the thread title. Deftones brought up a good point about franchises making a more money.

What about Halloween. $320,000 to make. $60M gross. About 180x return on investment.

What about all those celebrity sex tapes? Those were basically free!

Also, The King's Speech has grossed $360m worldwide against a $15m budget.

Helps to read the whole thing don't it?

And yet, adjusting the budgets for inflation but not the grosses is really fucking stupid. I guess Math is Hard.

That list is horseshit.

Yeah, I also have to question the list, although it is well-known that Greek Wedding was a ridiculously profitable film, especially in terms of ticket revenues. I doubt it is genuinely #1 though.

I wonder if it partly had to do with many theaters doing a triple feature with all three films. Even though all three were shown, the box office records would probably just be applied to RotK.

I don't think they should do return on investment. They should do just straight profit. I mean ROI is an important number, but in the grand scheme of things it's not as important as the bottom line number.

Would you rather buy something for $1 and sell it for $10 or buy something for $50 and sell it for $100? The first example you make 10x what you paid, but you only net $9. The second example you only make 2x what you paid, but you net $50.

Taking everything else out of the equation, I'll take a movie that cost $500 million and returned $1 billion rather than a movie that cost $5 million and returned $300 million. Again, take everything else out of the equation or leave everything else in there and just look at total all in investment vs gross and whatever is leftover is the net. I'm more interested in real dollars than just some percentage.

And yeah if you're going to adjust the costs for inflation, you also have to adjust the grosses for inflation.

How bout Gone with the Wind? Adjusted for inflation gross of $1.6 billion with adjusted for inflation production costs of $60 million.

They need to take advertising into account under "budget", as some have a lot more than others, in some cases, the advertising easily eclipses the film's actual budget.