All Of The Star Trek Movies, Ranked By Box Office

Few enterprises (no pun intended) in the history of pop culture have managed to endure the way that "Star Trek" has. Though it had relatively humble beginnings as a 1960s sci-fi television series (amd a groundbreaking one, at that), Gene Roddenberry's beloved creation eventually blossomed into a massive multi-media franchise that has been going strong for nearly 60 years at this point and shows no signs of slowing down.

Even though "Star Trek: The Original Series" was canceled after just three seasons, the show ultimately found great popularity in syndication. That opened the door for new life, one that would take shape on the big screen. Beginning with "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979, Trekkies have long enjoyed the exploration of deep space with various captains of the U.S.S. Enterprise in movie form, in addition to the many different TV shows that have hit the airwaves over the years. Many of these films have been sizable hits. Others? Not so much.

So, which "Star Trek" movie reigns supreme at the box office? Which of these major motion pictures resonated with audiences? Which ones flopped? Which ones represented the best bang-for-buck? We're here to take a deeper look at that, ranking all of the "Star Trek" films by their box office earnings. First, we'll look at them without adjusting for inflation. Then, we'll see how adjusting for inflation changes things and, after taking a look at both sets, examine which movies were the most profitable based on their initial costs.

Let's start out by looking at how all of the "Star Trek" movies performed at the box office during their theatrical runs. These numbers are going to be unadjusted, meaning they do not account for the rate of inflation. To get the numbers, I looked at various databases, including Box Office Mojo and The Numbers, using the highest reported gross for each film. It should also be noted that these are worldwide grosses, meaning they include both domestic and international ticket sales. With that said, here's how it shakes out:

1. "Star Trek Into Darkness" – $467.3 million worldwide

2. "Star Trek" (2009) — $386.8 million worldwide

3. "Star Trek Beyond" — $335.6 million worldwide

4. "Star Trek: First Contact" — $150 million worldwide

5. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" — $139 million worldwide

6. "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" — $133 million worldwide

7. "Star Trek Generations" — $120 million worldwide

8. "Star Trek: Insurrection" — $117.8 million worldwide

9. "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" — $96.9 million worldwide

10. "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" — $95.8 million worldwide

11. "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" — $87 million worldwide

12. "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" — $70.2 million worldwide

13. "Star Trek: Nemesis" — $67.3 million worldwide

Director J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek Into Darkness" came out on top. Though "Into Darkness" had its problems (which Abrams has acknowledged), it was building off of the success of the '09 reboot, which landed at number two on the list, and welcomed in a new audience to the franchise. The success of that film is partially why studios remain interested in reboots of old properties. However, by the time "Star Trek Beyond" arrived in 2016, we were already seeing the law of diminishing returns catching up with the property.

What's interesting is that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" ranks so high on the list despite having been released in 1979, back when the cost of a movie ticket was far cheaper. That speaks volumes about how much of an event it was sold as in its day. It's also interesting to note that "The Final Frontier" and "Nemesis" ranked last. What we see is that as the respective "Star Trek" movie casts get later on in their runs, interest seems to wane. Then, when a new cast comes in, interest spikes again.

Now, we're going to look at how all of the "Star Trek" movies performed at the box office when accounting for inflation. To do this, I used the U.S. Inflation Calculator and entered the original gross for each film, marking the year it came out, and calculating what that would translate to in 2024. Mind you, these numbers will change all of the time, so it's impossible to get a perfect sense of what the inflation-adjusted gross is. This is merely a snapshot of what this looks like now, to provide a better idea of how inflation changes things. With that said, here's how it shakes out:

1. "Star Trek Into Darkness" — $632.8 million worldwide

2. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" — $604 million worldwide

3. "Star Trek" (2009) — $568.8 million worldwide

4. "Star Trek Beyond" — $441.1 million worldwide

5. "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" — $382.8 million worldwide

6. "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" — $313.2 million worldwide

7. "Star Trek: First Contact" — $301.6 million worldwide

8. "Star Trek Generations" — $255.4 million worldwide

9. "Star Trek: Insurrection" — $228 million worldwide

10. "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" — $224.4 million worldwide

11. "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" — $264.1 million worldwide

12. "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" — $178.6 million worldwide

13. "Star Trek: Nemesis" — $118 million worldwide

As we see, "Into Darkness" still comes out on top. The biggest change, however, is that "The Motion Picture" movies all the way up into the number two spot, getting a major boost thanks to 35 years' worth of inflation being taken into account. What's really interesting is that, whether we account for inflation or not, "Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan," often considered the best "Trek" movie of them all, doesn't rank all that high. It's a movie that grew its reputation over time, to be certain. But, as we'll get into, in terms of overall value, it's one of the better movies on this list.

The other thing that stands out is, regardless of adjusting for inflation or not, the "Next Generation" cast films were all middling hits, more or less, with the very highly-regarded "Star Trek: First Contact" ranking as a true highlight. From there, it was kind of a downhill slide.

Before taking a larger look at what these numbers tell us, it's important to examine the budgets for each of the "Star Trek" movies. Box office is all relative, and that really comes into play here. We're going to look at each of the movies and what it cost to make (not including marketing), as well as what that budget would be when accounting for inflation. Here's how it shakes it:

1. "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" — $44 million unadjusted/$191 million adjusted

2. "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" — $12 million unadjusted/$39 million adjusted

3. "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" — $16 million unadjusted/$48 million adjusted

4. "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" — $24 million unadjusted/$69 million adjusted

5. "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" — $30 million unadjusted/$76 million adjusted

6. "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" — $30 million unadjusted/$69 million adjusted

7. "Star Trek Generations" — $35 million unadjusted/$74 million adjusted

8. "Star Trek: First Contact" — $45 million unadjusted/$90 million adjusted

9. "Star Trek: Insurrection" — $70 million unadjusted / $135 million adjusted

10. "Star Trek: Nemesis" — $60 million unadjusted/$105 million adjusted

11. "Star Trek" (2009) — $140 million unadjusted/$205 million adjusted

12. "Star Trek Into Darkness" — $185 million unadjusted/$250 million adjusted

13. "Star Trek Beyond" — $185 million unadjusted/$243 million adjusted

As we can see, both "Into Darkness" and "Beyond" were incredibly expensive to make. The problem with "Star Trek Beyond" is that it didn't gross nearly as much at the box office, which is why it was classified as a bomb. That's also — at least in part — why a fourth movie with the Abrams cast, as of this writing, never materialized. The financials just didn't work out anymore.

It's also worth looking at "Wrath of Khan" once again. As we can see, Paramount over-spent on "The Motion Picture," which became tremendously expensive for its time. The studio then wisely reduced the budget greatly on the sequel, which allowed the franchise to thrive for years. Therein probably lies the biggest lesson for not only the "Star Trek" movies, but also Hollywood overall.

Whether adjusting for inflation or not, we see that "Star Trek" has a loyal audience. The catch is that the audience is only so big. None of these films ever got near the $1 billion mark at the box office. Not that such a milestone should be the bar for success, but budgets in the $190 million range should only be reserved for the biggest of big movies with outsized global audiences. For example, even a mixed bag of a movie like "The Rise of Skywalker" made $1 billion for "Star Wars." I'm not here to ignite the "Trek" vs "Wars" argument, it's merely to demonstrate that one has a larger theatrical audience.

Even "Star Trek Generations," the franchise's biggest crossover event, was just a modest hit. Almost every time a "Trek" movie got past a certain budget level, it was bad news for that movie. However, when we look at something like "Wrath of Khan" or even "First Contact," the value proposition is huge. Relative to their budgets, the films were huge hits, even if they weren't by any means the highest-grossing ones. But Paramount undoubtedly turned a huge profit on those films, which it didn't on "Nemesis" or "Beyond." That's where the relativity of it all becomes extremely important, particularly as it relates to the future.

Looking ahead, Paramount is working on several new "Star Trek" movies, including a prequel that will be directed by Toby Haynes ("Black Mirror"). There also remains the possibility of a fourth film featuring the Abrams cast. No matter what the case, Paramount needs to budget these movies according to the audience that exists, not the audience it wants to exist. Trekkies are loyal and will pretty much always be there, but the franchise also has its limitations.

You can grab all of the "Star Trek" movies on 4K, Blu-ray, or DVD from Amazon.