Culture
Animated: Best Picture Oscar Winners vs. Box Office Hits
Article/Editing:
Best Picture Oscar Winners vs. Box Office Hits
When Oppenheimer won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 2024 ceremony, it joined a list of Best Picture Oscar winners as a box office behemoth, having earned $958.7 million at the 2023 box office.
But as this data-driven exploration from Vizzu shows, the movie’s success is not par for the course. Over the past 30 years, there has been a complex relationship between Oscar accolades and box office performance.
Comparing Oscar Winners and Box Office Hits (1993–2023)
Using annual worldwide box office hauls from Box Office Mojo, Vizzu compared the earnings of Best Picture Oscar winners with those of the highest grossing movie of each year.
At last year’s event, Everything Everywhere All at Once won six Oscars (including Best Picture) and earned $143.4 million globally. That’s a decent haul, but pales in comparison with Avatar: The Way of Water, which grossed more than $2.3 billion.
As this table shows, more often than not, this divide between critical darling and commercial juggernaut has been the norm over since 1993:
| Film Year | Best Picture Winner | Box Office (Worldwide) | Box Office (Highest Grossing) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Oppenheimer | $958.7M | $1,445.6M |
| 2022 | Everything Everywhere All at Once | $143.4M | $2,320.2M |
| 2021 | CODA | $1.9M | $1,912.2M |
| 2020 | Nomadland | $39.5M | $461.0M |
| 2019 | Parasite | $262.0M | $2,799.4M |
| 2018 | Green Book | $321.8M | $2,048.4M |
| 2017 | The Shape of Water | $195.2M | $1,332.5M |
| 2016 | Moonlight | $65.2M | $1,153.3M |
| 2015 | Spotlight | $98.7M | $2,068.2M |
| 2014 | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) | $103.2M | $1,104.1M |
| 2013 | 12 Years a Slave | $187.7M | $1,280.8M |
| 2012 | Argo | $232.3M | $1,518.8M |
| 2011 | The Artist | $133.4M | $1,341.5M |
| 2010 | The King's Speech | $427.4M | $1,067.0M |
| 2009 | The Hurt Locker | $49.3M | $2,743.6M |
| 2008 | Slumdog Millionaire | $378.4M | $1,003.8M |
| 2007 | No Country for Old Men | $171.6M | $961.7M |
| 2006 | The Departed | $291.4M | $1,066.2M |
| 2005 | Crash | $98.4M | $895.9M |
| 2004 | Million Dollar Baby | $216.8M | $929.0M |
| 2003 | Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King | $1,140.7M | $1,140.7M |
| 2002 | Chicago | $306.8M | $936.7M |
| 2001 | A Beautiful Mind | $316.8M | $974.8M |
| 2000 | Gladiator | $460.6M | $546.4M |
| 1999 | American Beauty | $356.3M | $924.3M |
| 1998 | Shakespeare in Love | $289.3M | $553.7M |
| 1997 | Titanic | $1,843.4M | $1,843.4M |
| 1996 | The English Patient | $232.0M | $817.4M |
| 1995 | Braveheart | $213.2M | $366.1M |
| 1994 | Forrest Gump | $677.9M | $763.5M |
| 1993 | Schindler's List | $322.2M | $978.2M |
Only two films won Best Picture while topping the box office in their release year: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003 and Titanic in 1997.
Just seven more films won major Oscars—including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor/ Actress, Best Original/Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor/Actress—while earning at least half as much as the top grossers of their release years:
- 2023: Oppenheimer
- 2013: Gravity
- 2008: The Dark Knight
- 2000: Gladiator
- 1998: Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan
- 1995: Braveheart
- 1994: Forrest Gump
This challenges the notion that blockbuster success and Oscar glory go hand-in-hand, but perhaps the success of Oppenheimer can help the box office kings reclaim their Oscar crowns.
This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.
Culture
Ranked: Most Popular Baby Girl Names in the U.S. (1925-2024)
Discover the most popular baby girl names in the U.S. over the past century and how their popularity has shifted by 2024.
Ranked: Most Popular Baby Girl Names of the Century vs. 2024
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Key Takeaways
- Mary is the most popular name (by numbers) in the last century.
- By 2024 however, it’s fallen out of favor, down 131 ranks.
- Elizabeth is the only top-10 name that’s retained popularity in 2024.
Deciding on a baby’s name is so polarizing that many new parents will only reveal the name after the child is born.
Of course, some parents like to go for the most unique ones—Elon Musk for example, with “X Æ A-Xii.” Then others go the exact opposite way: honoring grandparents or shared histories.
As a result, tracking naming trends over a period of time can reveal insights into how American society is assigning value to names.
This graphic ranks the most popular baby girl names in the U.S., both in the last 100 years (1925–2024), and for just 2024 to show how popularity has changed.
Ranks and figures are based on Social Security card application data as of March 2025. The sample set is restricted to names where the year of birth, sex, and state of birth are on record, and where the given name is at least two characters long.
The Most Popular Name for American Girls in the Last 100 Years
Mary is the most popular name in the last 100 years, but by 2024 it had dropped 131 ranking spots.
| 100-Year Rank | Name | # of babies (1925–2024) | Rank in 2024 | Rank Difference (100-Yr vs. 2024) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mary | 2,913,902 | 132 | -131 |
| 2 | Patricia | 1,539,442 | Not in the top 1,000 | N/A |
| 3 | Jennifer | 1,470,844 | 547 | -544 |
| 4 | Linda | 1,448,119 | 835 | -831 |
| 5 | Elizabeth | 1,387,113 | 17 | -12 |
| 6 | Barbara | 1,371,191 | 860 | -854 |
| 7 | Susan | 1,100,642 | Not in the top 1,000 | N/A |
| 8 | Jessica | 1,048,746 | 574 | -566 |
| 9 | Karen | 986,097 | Not in the top 1,000 | N/A |
| 10 | Sarah | 983,348 | 95 | -85 |
And Mary is not the only one. Patricia, Jennifer, and Linda—which, with Mary, collectively account for over 7 million births from 1925 to 2024—are all unpopular now.
Patricia (along with Susan and Karen) have exited the top-1,000 altogether. The negative associations with the name “Karen” may explain at least one of those data points.
The only exception to these rather dramatic shifts is Elizabeth, 5th all-time and 17th in 2024.
Parents Name Sons & Daughters With Different Considerations
Interestingly, naming patterns for girls show far more dramatic shifts than for boys (linked in the next section). This suggests that parents don’t feel as bound by tradition for naming their daughters.
Instead they look for uniqueness, which encourages diversifications across the top ranks. Different spellings of the same name (Ashley vs. Ashleigh) for example, will also be counted and ranked separately.
This helps explain why the traditional names that dominated for decades are no longer on 2024’s list.
Learn More on the Voronoi App 
What does this same list look like for the other half of the population? Check out, Ranked: The Most Popular Names for American Boys in the Last Century for a similar breakdown.
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