Sometimes audiences will be thinking about a movie long after the credits finish rolling. Other times, they'll forget about the movie they just saw pretty quickly. That's not unusual—what is a little more unusual is for a movie to be essentially forgotten despite having been a bona fide hit at the box office. These are the movies that made a lot of money but not a lot of impact.
Here are 32 movies that you probably have forgotten about despite how much they grossed, ranked by how much moolah they made (not adjusted for inflation). Please note that this list is inherently subjective. The general moviegoing public might have forgotten about a movie that, for whatever reason, holds a special place in your heart, so you remember it vividly. Generally speaking, though, it's fair to say these movies are not the films that will stand the test of time, despite how many people bought tickets when they were playing on the big screen.
You'll notice a lot of movies on this list are from the 2000s or 2010s. There are a couple of reasons for this. It was in this era that the Chinese box office was valuable for Western films. Before changes in Chinese policy prioritizing homegrown cinema, a movie that was a hit in China could easily make millions, which could inflate the box office looking back. Another reason why most of the movies on this list are from the first two decades of the 21st century is that, at a certain point, most movies get forgotten, regardless if they were hits or not. So, while you'll see a couple of movies from the '90s and earlier, the bulk of them are more recent films that you probably would remember if they were, well, better.
32. Airport
Year: 1970
Director: George Seaton
With a box office haul of $128.4 million, the star-studded disaster movie Airport was the second-highest-grossing film of 1970, and it was nominated for nine Academy Awards, with Helen Hayes winning for Best Supporting Actress. So why is Airport forgotten? Blame Airplane!, the 1980 Leslie Nielsen-led spoof that became such an enduring pop culture sensation that it all but eclipsed the movie it was lampooning. These days, whenever anybody does happen to remember Airport, it's typically not because they're remembering the film's success but noting that Airplane! is making fun of it.
31. Conspiracy Theory
Year: 1997
Director: Richard Donner
If someone were to say there's a '90s thriller starring Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts at the arguable height of their powers that was directed by Richard Donner, you'd probably be intrigued, right? Moviegoers back in 1997 were anyway, to the tune of a $137 million box office. And yet Conspiracy Theory, which stars Gibson as a taxi driver who believes he's stumbled onto a massive global governmental conspiracy, hardly gets mentioned the way other movies of its ilk from the decade do. (Is a conspiracy theory keeping Conspiracy Theory down!?)
30. Congo
Year: 1995
Director: Frank Marshall
Congo made $152 million when it came out in 1995, which makes it a decent-sized hit, but this adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel of the same name doesn't have the staying power of, say, another Crichton adaptation from two years earlier. Maybe that's because Congo, which has a team of scientists and their gorilla who speaks sign language, headed to the jungle to find missing researchers, a lost city, and diamonds, simply got lost in Jurassic Park's shadow. Or maybe it's because Congo is a very dumb movie—albeit not without its charms.
29. Dangerous Minds
Year: 1995
Director: John N. Smith
Michelle Pfeiffer stars as LouAnne Johnson in this well-intentioned but perhaps regrettable '90s drama about a retired U.S. Marine who takes a job teaching in a diverse, low-income high school. Dangerous Minds made $179.5 million, though reviews were mixed, with many viewing the film's portrayal of race and class to be hackneyed. The film has largely been forgotten, with the exception of Coolio's song "Gangsta's Paradise," which is featured on the soundtrack and whose music video is themed around Dangerous Minds. "Gangsta's Paradise," unlike Dangerous Minds, is worth remembering because that song rules.
28. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Year: 2007
Director: Dennis Dugan
Released a few years before the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal in all 50 states, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was a comedy starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James as two straight New York City firefighters who get a sham marriage for the financial benefits. It made $187 million, though these days it doesn't tend to come up often when discussing Sandler's filmography. Though ultimately not mean-spirited, it is also a relic of an odd time for gay rights in America, and it probably isn't in urgent need of a reclamation any time soon.
27. Gone in 60 Seconds
Year: 2000
Director: Dominic Sena
Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie star in this $237.2 million-grossing movie about a car thief (Cage) who must try to steal 50 vehicles in one night or else another crook will kill his brother (Giovanni Ribisi). A loose remake of a 1964 movie of the same name, Gone in 60 Seconds was a hit (albeit one that might've ultimately lost money due to Hollywood accounting), but if you're talking about a high-speed, car-based crime movie from the early '00s these days, you're almost certainly talking about The Fast and the Furious, which came out the following year.
26. Eraser
Year: 1998
Director: Chuck Russell
Arnold Schwarzenegger was more or less unstoppable at the box office in the '80s and '90s, leading hits like Predator, The Terminator, Commando, Twins, and more. In Eraser, which made $242.3 million in 1998, he plays a U.S. Marshal protecting a key witness. It's a fine movie, and can be considered a hit along with the earlier credits in Schwarzenegger's filmography, but Eraser has been, well, erased from pop culture, whereas his earlier movies endure. It's a good benchmark for where his career finally lost some momentum.
25. Journey to the Center of the Earth
Year: 2008
Director: Eric Brevig
Jules Verne's 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth is an iconic and enduring sci-fi adventure text. The 2008 Brendan Fraser movie? Less so, even though it made $244.2 million at the box office. There's nothing wrong with Journey to the Center of the Earth, necessarily; it's just clearly going for a genre adventure of the sort seen in 1999's The Mummy, which also starred Fraser. The difference is that Journey to the Center of the Earth is forgettable fun, and The Mummy is a masterpiece.
24. Super 8
Year: 2011
Director: J.J. Abrams
J.J. Abrams' 2011 movie stars Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney as two kids in late '70s Ohio who are making home movies with a Super 8 camera (hence the title) when they film a train derailment that gets them involved in an alien conspiracy. The movie, which made $260.1 million, is very much going for the Amblin vibe of Steven Spielberg's most beloved works (Spielberg himself was a producer on Super 8). While that's all well and good, Super 8 doesn't have an especially strong legacy years later because… you could watch it, or you could just watch E.T. again. The popularity of Netflix's series Stranger Things, which has similar vibes, might also account for Super 8's relative obscurity.
23. The Tourist
Year: 2010
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp were so hot in 2010 that it's possible their star power alone propelled The Tourist to $278.8 million at the box office, because the movie is bad. Depp stars as a seemingly normal American tourist who gets involved in a crime caper when a woman (Jolie) pretends that he's her criminal lover. It's not sure if it's supposed to be funny or not; the ending is really dumb—there's a whole bunch of problems with it that can account for why folks aren't rewatching The Tourist these days.
22. Casper
Year: 1995
Director: Brad Silberling
Despite being a family comedy about, well, a dead child, Casper the Friendly Ghost made $288 million when it came out in the middle of the '90s. A film adaptation of the old cartoon series from the '40s and '50s, Casper's biggest talking points (other than how weirdly grim the premise is) are the then-cutting-edge computer-generated imagery used to bring the title character and the other ghosts to life—or, rather, undeath. Maybe it's for the best that this film hasn't enjoyed much of an afterlife.
21. Divergent
Year: 2014
Director: Neil Burger
For a minute there in the 2010s, a film adaptation of dystopian young adult fiction was the ticket to blockbuster success. However, Divergent was no Hunger Games. Although the Shailene Woodley-led first film in the series made $288.9 million and the sequel did about the same, the third movie underperformed, and the YA bubble had decidedly burst. It's no wonder if you've forgotten about Divergent, because they forgot to finish it. A fourth movie that would've finished adapting the books' story, following a girl whose personality can't be sorted into any one faction, was never made.
20. G-Force
Year: 2009
Director: Hoyt H. Yeatman Jr.
Nobody thought that G-Force, a 2009 kids movie about a group of computer-generated guinea pigs who are actually super spies on a mission to save the world, would be a "good" movie. It was widely mocked at the time it came out, and yet still made $292.8 million. What's weird is that G-Force doesn't really even have a legacy as a punchline or an example of Hollywood's creative nadir. You'd think you could mention G-Force in the same breath as movies like Norbit, Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill, or even Cats. Instead, G-Force might as well have never existed.
19. Salt
Year: 2010
Director: Phillip Noyce
Angelina Jolie sure was in a lot of movies in the '00s and '10s that did well at the box office and yet don't have any staying power. To be fair, she was very famous and popular at the time, though it's still somewhat odd to think that a film like Salt, which stars Jolie as CIA agent Evelyn Salt as she's on the run from her own government after being falsely accused, made an easy $293.5 million. There were some efforts to make a sequel, but even in the years right after the first (and only) movie came out, it was pretty clear everyone was salty enough.
18. Look Who's Talking
Year: 1989
Director: Amy Heckerling
Look Who's Talking has some cultural legacy in that it's the movie where Bruce Willis voiced a fetus-turned-baby's inner monologue. That is, admittedly, quite the hook, though the gimmick is really just part of an otherwise more-standard rom-com where baby Mikey's single mother (Kirstie Alley) starts a relationship with his babysitter (John Travolta). It made $297 million and was the 20th highest-grossing movie of the decade, yet if you were to list off '80s blockbusters, chances are you might not place Look Who's Talking.
17. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Year: 2009
Director: Stephen Sommers
Hasbro's G.I. Joe toys are an iconic part of millions of childhoods. Given that the 2009 live-action G.I. Joe movie made $302.5 million at the box office, it stands to reason that the action movie was also a part of a lot of childhoods, too. By sheer numbers, that has to be the case, though the Channing Tatum-led film doesn't have anywhere close to the legacy that the toys or the '80s cartoon do. They made a sequel in 2013; Tatum's character gets killed off in the opening scene, almost as if he also wanted to forget about The Rise of Cobra.
16. Battleship
Year: 2012
Director: Peter Berg
Can it be a compliment to call something one of the stupidest movies ever made? Battleship, a big dumb adaptation of the classic board game that is inexplicably a sci-fi alien invasion flick rather than about maritime naval combat, is a guilty pleasure to those of us who can enjoy its many "so bad it's good" qualities. For most people, though, Battleship isn't something they think of at all. It made $303 million, though given the absurdly high production cost, it was still a financial disaster for the studio, one that they would probably like to forget.
15. Runaway Bride
Year: 1999
Director: Garry Marshall
A '90s rom-com directed by Garry Marshall, and starring Julia Roberts opposite Richard Gere? Pretty Woman has a deserved place in pop culture history, but it's not the only time those three collaborated during the decade. In 1999, Runaway Bride reunited them nine years after the smash hit that was Pretty Woman, and this time they made $309.5 million. (Pretty Woman made $463.4 million, for comparison.) Runaway Bride, which stars Gere as a reporter doing a story on a woman (Roberts) who keeps leaving people at the altar, simply isn't as good as their previous effort, so it is understandably overlooked.
14. Robin Hood
Year: 2010
Director: Ridley Scott
The movie that became Riley Scott's Robin Hood began as a very different sort of project. Originally, the script had the Sheriff of Nottingham as the main character—and in a subversion of the classic tale where he's a villain, this Sheriff is sympathetic. That version of the movie didn't come to pass, and by the time Russell Crowe came aboard to play the Emerald Archer, it was a much more generic telling of a well-known story. It still made $321.7 million, but without the novel hook, there's no real reason for 2010's Robin Hood to exist or to be remembered.
13. Wanted
Year: 2008
Director: Timur Bekmambetov
James McAvoy stars as a guy who learns his late father was a member of a top-secret order of professional assassins in Wanted, which made $342.5 million when it came out in 2008. Also starring Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie, Wanted's big gimmick was that the assassins could curve their shots to make their bullets go around obstacles. That, and an appearance from a pre-Parks and Recreation and Guardians of the Galaxy Chris Pratt, are really all there is to speak about it these days.
12. Deep Impact
Year: 1998
Director: Mimi Leder
The meteor disaster movie Deep Impact famously came out the same year as another similar film, Michael Bay's Armageddon. Deep Impact, the more serious of the two films, came out first and actually had a bigger opening weekend than Armageddon would, $41 million to $36 million. However, despite being dumber, the much more fun Armageddon would ultimately win not just the box office total ($553.7 million to $349.5 million) but audience's hearts. If Deep Impact is remembered these days, it's usually as "the other meteor movie that's not Armageddon."
11. Dinosaur
Year: 2000
Directors: Ralph Zondag and Eric Leighton
The early '00s were a rough time for computer-generated imagery because the technology just wasn't quite there yet, though that didn't stop movies like Disney's Dinosaur from going all-in on CG that looked rough at the time and looks awful now. Dinosaur blends live-action backgrounds with "realistic" dinosaurs for a prehistory adventure that's quite boring and drab to look at. It didn't stop it from making $349.8 million and being one of the highest-grossing movies of the year, though its legacy among Disney movies is decidedly extinct.
10. Snow White and the Huntsman
Year: 2012
Director: Rupert Sanders
This adaptation of the Snow White fairy tale is decidedly not a Disney movie, instead telling a PG-13 dark fantasy starring Kristen Stewart as the titular princess, Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen, and Chris Hemsworth as the huntsman, who now shares title billing with Snow White. It made $396.6 million and spawned a sequel (which Stewart didn't return for). That makes it a hit, certainly, but long-term, it turned out there really wasn't that much lasting interest in this sort of fairy tale riffing—especially when Disney kicked its live-action remake machine into high gear shortly after.
9. Rampage
Year: 2017
Director: Brad Peyton
An albino gorilla, a wolf, and an alligator getting mutated into giant kaiju and attacking Chicago made $428 million at the box office. Dwayne Johnson stars in this adaptation of the old arcade game series, resulting in a giant monster movie that isn't especially good but is probably one of the better video game movies of the time, just because of how notoriously bad most of the rest of them are. Compared to other giant monster movies or even other action movies starring The Rock from the decade, though, Rampage is hardly top-tier.
8. San Andreas
Year: 2015
Director: Brad Peyton
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was a very reliable star at the box office in the 2010s. The earthquake disaster movie he starred in, San Andreas, made a tidy $474 million. Co-starring Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario, it's a perfectly serviceable disaster spectacle. You just might name a dozen other, more notable movies Johnson led during the decade before getting around to San Andreas. (Rampage, from 2017, falls into the same category as San Andreas, and there's yet another film, 2018's Skyscraper, which could qualify, too. The Rock was clearly overexposed!)
7. Clash of the Titans
Year: 2010
Director: Louis Leterrier
A remake of the charmingly corny '80s movie of the same name, the 2010 Clash of the Titans was a more hardcore take on Greek mythology. However, the computer-generated monsters Medusa and other monsters lacked any of the charm of Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion creatures from the old movie. Even though it was a hit, making $493.2 million, Clash of the Titans is supremely generic down to its star, Sam Worthington, who, outside of his work as a giant blue cat-alien in the Avatar films, has rarely made an impact as a leading man.
6. Oz the Great and Powerful
Year: 2007
Director: Sam Raimi
Until 2024's adaptation of the Wicked musical beat it out, Oz the Great and Powerful was the highest-grossing movie based on L. Frank Baum's beloved books, bringing in $493.3 million. Given how ugly this James Franco-led adventure is, that feels like a travesty. Obviously, 1939's Wizard of Oz can't be held to the same box office standards as a 2007 movie that came out in a very different financial environment, but still… in a just world, Oz the Great and Powerful wouldn't have outgrossed it. Luckily, The Wizard of Oz is one of the most beloved movies ever made, whereas Oz the Great and Powerful might be one of the most forgotten.
5. The Da Vinci Code
Year: 2006
Director: Ron Howard
It can't be overrated how much of a sensation Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code was. An art history mystery that featured religious conspiracy theories of the highest order, the book was a smash. The Tom Hanks-led film adaptation that came out a few years later was also a hit, making $760 million, but despite the box office haul, it's one of Hanks' more forgettable roles—to say nothing of the sequels that came after it. The most memorable thing about the movie might just be Hanks' horrible haircut.
4. 2012
Year: 2009
Director: Roland Emmerich
A big honkin' disaster movie, 2012 is inspired by the (obviously untrue) belief that the ancient Mayans predicted that the world would end in the titular year. It is a stupendously dumb and gloriously absurd festival of destruction, and it made a hefty $791.2 million at the box office. And yet, despite being a very fun disaster flick, 2012 doesn't have quite the legacy you might expect. Perhaps that's because the premise of the movie became outdated on January 1, 2013, and it only gets more irrelevant every year since.
3. Alice in Wonderland
Year: 2010
Director: Tim Burton
It seemed like a tantalizing, inevitable question: What would Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland look like? Turns out it would look… pretty much exactly how you'd expected, and it would make $1.025 billion despite not being very good. In the year 2010, the innate appeal of Johnny Depp playing the Mad Hatter in Burton's recognizable aesthetic was catnip to moviegoers. They wised up pretty quickly; Alice Through the Looking Glass was released in 2016, but the sequel was a box office bomb. Now, if Burton's Alice in Wonderland has any lasting legacy, it's from people lamenting it as a low point of the director's creative filmography.
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Year: 2011
Director: Rob Marshall
The first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies followed Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) on swashbuckling supernatural adventures alongside Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow. Bloom and Knightly didn't return for the fourth movie, and they only made small appearances in the fifth one. And yet, On Stranger Tides and Dead Men Tell No Tales both managed to make a ton of money despite the main story of the franchise ostensibly being over. On Stranger Tides made $1.046 billion, yet if you bring up the Pirates franchise to just about anyone, chances are they'll only be thinking about the three films that came before it.
1. Aquaman
Year: 2018
Director: James Wan
It's perhaps unfair to call Aquaman, which starred Jason Momoa as the underwater superhero, a forgotten movie. It made $1.152 billion at the box office and is regarded as one of the high points of the DC Extended Universe. Consider this, though: Despite being the 20th highest-grossing film of all time when it was released, a mere five years later the entire DCEU franchise was getting ready to be put in the garbage bin and Aquaman's direct sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, limped into cinemas with basically no fanfare or excitement. If Aquaman had made a real impression on moviegoers like its box office would suggest, you'd think fans might stick around for the follow-up.
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