How Avatar Stacks Up In Tickets Sold

A lot of hype has been made about the amount of money Avatar has made, and rightly so because in the short time it has been in theaters it has crushed previous records. However, due to inflation, box office receipts aren't always the most honest ways to compare movies from different decades.
The music industry keeps count of things by records sold and the equivalent of that in the movie business is by the amount of tickets sold for a film. If you go by those statistics then James Cameron's Avatar falls behind some pretty important films to the 26th spot. Avatar will certainly move up the list, but there is just no way it is going to break the top five any time soon.
Here is the list of the top 30 movies, the year the film was initially release, the estimated amount of tickets sold and their unadjusted domestic gross.

1. Gone With the Wind (1939) - 202,044,600 tickets sold/$198.6 million
2. Star Wars (1977) - 178,119,600 tickets sold/$460.9 million
3. The Sound of Music (1965) - 142,415,400 tickets sold/$158.6 million
4. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - 141,854,300 tickets sold/$435.1 million
5. The Ten Commandments (1956) - 131,000,000 tickets sold/$65.5 million
6. Titanic (1997) - 128,345,900 tickets sold/$600.7 million
7. Jaws (1975) - 128,078,800 tickets sold/$260 million
8. Doctor Zhivago (1965) - 124,135,500 tickets sold/$111.7 million
9. The Exorcist (1973) - 110,568,700 tickets sold/$232.6 million
10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - 109,000,000 tickets sold/$184.9 million
11. 101 Dalmatians (1961) - 99,917,300 tickets sold/$144.8 million
12. The Empire Strikes Back (1980) - 98,180,600 tickets sold/$290.4 million
13. Ben-Hur (1959) - 98,000,000 tickets sold/$74 million
14. Return of the Jedi (1983) - 94,059,400 tickets sold/$309.3 million
15. The Sting (1973) - 89,142,900 tickets sold/$156 million
16. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - 88,141,900 tickets sold/$242.3 million
17. Jurassic Park (1993) - 86,205,800 tickets sold/$357 million
18. The Graduate (1967) - 85,571,400 tickets sold/$104.9 million
19. Star Wars: Episode I (1999) - 84,825,800 tickets sold/$431 million
20. Fantasia (1941) - 83,043,500 tickets sold/$76.5 million
21. The Godfather (1972) - 78,922,600 tickets sold/$134.9 million
22. Forrest Gump (1994) - 78,545,600 tickets sold/$329.6 million
23. Mary Poppins (1964) - 78,181,800 tickets sold/$102.2 million
24. The Lion King (1994) - 77,231,800 tickets sold/$328.5 million
25. Grease (1978) - 76,921,800 tickets sold/$188.3 million
26. Avatar (2009) - 76,421,000 tickets sold/$601 million
27. Thunderball (1965) - 74,800,000 tickets sold/$63.5 million
28. The Dark Knight (2008) - 74,282,100 tickets sold/$533.3 million
29. The Jungle Book (1967) - 73,679,900 tickets sold/$141.8 million
30. Sleeping Beauty (1959) - 72,676,100 tickets sold/$51.6 million