By popular, I’m not referring to boxoffice grosses since those figures are so inflated as to be completely unreliable as to a movie’s actual popularity. Nor am I referring to critics' or audience polls or Rotten Tomatoes and other highly compromised systems of measuring such things.

I mean films that are truly beloved and have been watched by large audiences over and over through the decades, including theatrical re-releases, TV showings, home video, etc. Films that continue to influence movie makers and historians & critics and get cited regularly. Films that you’ve loved and you know plenty of others who love them. For instance, THE WIZARD OF OZ used to get shown on CBS-TV once a year for decades and always attracted the highest ratings for it. I saw it many times on TV as a kid and so did my daughter years later.

I came up with a short list of six films that meet my criteria:

GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

CASABLANCA (1943)

JAWS (1975)

STAR WARS (1977)

TITANIC (1997)

The only film on that list that I’ve only seen once is TITANIC, which I couldn’t stand, but I know for a fact that many other people loved it and went to see it multiple times in theaters and waxed rhapsodic about it ever after, so I had to include it. I don’t know of any other Cameron film, despite their high grosses, that had the true cultural impact TITANIC did. TITANIC also drew millions of viewers who wouldn’t bother to see films like TERMINATOR 2 or AVATAR. These are the kinds of people—in their 1930s and ‘40s counterparts--who made GONE WITH THE WIND and CASABLANCA such all-time favorites over the years.

One should also consider Disney animated films like SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937), CINDERELLA (1950), THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) and THE LION KING (1994), although I feel I need to leave out films that appealed primarily to children. Of these four, I think SNOW WHITE had the bigger impact on the larger audience, certainly attracting a chorus of critical raves from the hardened, elitist reviewers of the 1930s and cementing its appeal to adults as well.

If I had to pick one film out of the six as the most popular of all time, it would be STAR WARS (1977). Not sure how one would measure that, though.

What are your thoughts?

Just reading your suggestions, I would say The Wizard of Oz. It is popular and beloved by generation after generation. It is a huge element in American popular culture with instantly recognizable images, phrases, and ideas.

That or Star Wars A New Hope though they are not my all time favorites as the #1 movie of all-time for me.

I agree. If I had to pick one movie to show space aliens to explain 'this is a movie' it would be Wizard if Oz.

It is an interesting piece of trivia that when they started showing The Wizard of Oz annually in TV in the 1950s, there were no color TVs.

Citizen Kane

Want to add to this; It's probably a lot easier to find someone who hasn't seen Star Wars and isn't interested, than it is to find someone who hasn't seen The Wizard of Oz.

I'd go with Wizard of Oz as well.

Gone With the Wind and Casablanca had their popularity, but those faded a loooong time ago. Star Wars is still hugely popular, but it doesn't have the longevity of Wizard.

I’d agree with either The Wizard of Oz or Star Wars. I feel like both have maintained their popularity throughout the decades and are beloved movies that have been seen by multiple generations.

I still remember tutoring a teen when I was in college, before the prequels came out, and he had never seen A New Hope (granted, I don't think he had seen Wizard of Oz either, though he had seen the Wiz)

No chance. Not even close. Most people under 30 haven't even seen it.

I think Wizard of Oz is the right answer. Everyone has seen that movie, and people are still interested in it even today.
People love Star Wars but the PT and ST and all the D+ projects have maybe diluted its appeal a bit.

My thoughts are Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, and A Christmas Story

No way on A Xmas Story, but add It's a Wonderful Life to the contenders.

Interestingly, similar to The Wizard of Oz gaining in popularity by playing on TV, It’s a Wondeful Life also gained in popularity over the years while it was in the public domain and being played constantly around Christmas.

Maybe that’s the secret to a movie earning immortality. Maybe that’s why TNT played The Shawshank Redemption damn near on 24/7 loop for years on end in the late 90s/early 2000s.

Maybe not yet since it's a fairly recent phenomenon relative to the others on the list, but it has been "everywhere" around Christmas in this country for close to 30 years now, and doesn't show any signs of slowing down.

Exactly. I'd go even farther and say anyone under 50 most likely hasn't seen it unless they're a film buff. Not even in the stratosphere as far as popularity goes compared to films like Star Wars or The Wizard of Oz.

I'd have to go with Deep Throat, maybe Debbie Does Dallas, although people may not have watched the entire film multiple times, does that count?

I'm 56 and I remember when I was a teenager, my dad (who is a huge film buff) rented it and said "You gotta watch this, it's the best film ever made". I was bored silly and couldn't wait for it to be over. So I've seen it, but only once and have no desire to ever watch it again.

Yet it was still broadcast in color. I remember Danny Kaye would introduce the movie. I have this memory of him introducing the movie and saying "for the first time you'll see Oz in color" around 1965-66. Thinking it's a false memory now. Color sets were becoming popular around 1959-60. That's when NBC began airing select shows like Disney and Bonanza in color in order to draw all viewers with color sets. If you just spent money on a color TV, you're watching the channel that's in color. In fall of 1965 was a big shift with many new and returning shows in color across all three networks. It was fall 1966 that all prime time network programming went to color.
On a side note. Lost in Space was my favorite show as a little kid. I tuned into the last summer rerun of season one to see if there would be a new "to be continued" teaser for first episode of season two. Instead of teaser there was June Lockhart standing in front of Jupiter 2 at crash/camp site in full color telling us that starting next week Lost in Space would be in color. Wonder if that is included on the BD set.

Answer is Wizard of Oz. For the time being. Majority of those alive tuned in every year to watch it on CBS. It was a tradition.
In about 20 years a big chunk of those people will be gone and Star Wars will take over. Worth noting that Star Wars does not mean the same thing to those who were already adults in 1977. I was 19 and Star Wars is no different than Terminator, Indiana Jones, etc.
After that probably nothing. Mass population shared experience doesn't exist anymore, except a disaster like 911 or something. Even that experience is fractured among whether you were a kid, an adult, or not born yet.

Wizard of Oz - Everybody watched it together at the same time every year
It's A Wonderful Life- required your local station to have a print or having a fourth independent station in your area that showed it. Really became big with cable
Christmas Story- required cable
Star Wars (1977) - because of when it was released relative to 2024, half the people currently alive were full grown adults in 1977 and it holds less importance to most of them.

The 1st thing I thought of when I saw this thread was E.T. It's one of the most popular and timeless family science fiction adventures of all-time and has a permanent place in 80s pop culture.

Most movies come and go. Avengers: Endgame made close to $3B back in 2019 and filled theaters and is the 2nd highest grossing movie ever. But, I think it's almost faded from being a part of pop culture. It had it's time, but the vast majority have moved on to watching something else.

Another vote for:





Wizard of Oz

Most tickets sold should equal "most popular" so in that vein the winner is Gone with the Wind. Star Wars (aka A New Hope) is 2nd, Titanic is 5th, and Jaws is 7th. Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz didn't make the top 100.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/..._gross_to=2022

1. Gone with the Wind
2. Star Wars (Episode IV)
3. The Sound of Music
4. E.T.
5. Titanic
6. The Ten Commandments
7. Jaws
8. Doctor Zhivago
9. The Exorcist
10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

In 1964, 3% of homes with TVs had color TVs. By 1969, the percentage had increased to 33%. It was not until a few years later that the majority of TV sets being sold in the US were color sets.

The first national TV broadcast of The Wizard of Oz was in 1956.

I disagree with that logic because we all know that the state of a movie's popularity goes beyond counting how many people paid to see it in a theater.

How much of the popularity of Star Wars is attributable to home video rewatching? Plus, just the factor that Star Wars' popularity is LOVE for it.

Yep. Ticket sales don't count physical media sales, rentals, times watched on TV, entry into the popular lexicon, or enduring, broad-based appeal. Ruby slippers, baby. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.