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In light of the both critically and financially (boo-hoo, Pirates, Shrek and Spidey 3 are all only the 29th, 21st and 15th highest-grossing films of all time - and counting) disappointing blockbusters of the summer, I’m curious about those magic moments where commerce and art find common ground. To wit, I took a look at the top grossing films of all time and compared them to the IMDB top 250. The results weren’t all that surprising and probably say a lot more about IMDB fans than movies in general, but a worthwhile exercise, nonetheless.

Admittedly, this is only the top U.S. grossers as opposed to international and also not adjusted for inflation; I’ll save that research for another post. But here are the top ten highest grossing films that also appear in the IMDB top 250, in order of highest-to-lowest gross.

(and if somebody knows how to do tables in WordPress, please tell me, because I can give you a lot more useful info that way)

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope

The Fellowship of the Ring: The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Finding Nemo

Forrest Gump

The Lion King

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

The Sixth Sense

The only thing that really shocked me here was Forrest Gump because (a) I didn’t think it made that much money and (b) I didn’t think the IMDB crowd liked it so much.

Ironically, blockbusters like Live Free or Die Hard and Transformers, which were expected to get far worse reviews than The Big Three, are actually doing better with critics. I’d say it’s too early to tell with Transformers, but Variety and Hollywood Reporter have weighed in, and they’re not usually as easily swayed as the early-to-post fanboys are.