List of most expensive films

Due to the secretive nature of Hollywood accounting it is not clear which film is the most expensive film ever made. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides officially holds the record with a budget of $378.5 million, while The Hobbit trilogy stands as the most expensive back-to-back film production with combined costs of $623 million after tax credits.

Inflation, filming techniques and external market forces have impacted the economics of film production. Costs rose steadily during the silent era with Ben-Hur (1925) setting a record that lasted well into the sound era. Television had a direct impact on rising costs in the 1950s and early 60s as cinema competed with it for audiences, culminating in 1963 with Cleopatra; despite being the highest earning film of the year, Cleopatra did not earn back its costs on its original release. The 1990s saw two thresholds crossed, with True Lies costing $100 million in 1994 and Titanic costing $200 million in 1997, both directed by James Cameron. Since then it has become normal for a tent-pole feature from a major film studio to cost over $100 million, and an increasing number of films are costing $200 million or more.

This list contains only the films that are already released to the general public, and no films that are still in production, post-production or just announced films, for the reason that these costs can still change in the production process. Listed below is the net negative cost: the costs of the actual filming, not including promotional costs (i.e. advertisements, commercials, posters, etc.) and after factoring in any tax rebates or credits. The charts are ordered by budgets officially acknowledged by the production companies, where they are known; most production companies, however, will not give a statement on the actual production costs, so only estimates by professional researchers and movie industry writers are available. Where budget estimates conflict, the productions are charted by lower-bound estimates.

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