The 50 highest-grossing film franchises ever

Nowadays, it's very rare to spot a brand new movie at the cinema. And if it is an original film, chances are it's gonna kick off a new series.

But what are the biggest franchises of all time? We've compiled a list of the top 50 series (as of writing) based on worldwide box-office gross, and it's an intriguing list. For reasons of inflation, you won't find as many older series.

Our main rules are that we're only including franchises within their own "era" or continuity. For instance, we're not including every single Batman movie as one series. The same goes for all Dracula, Sherlock Holmes or Spider-Man films.