Movie soundtracks can be big business—sometimes bigger than the movie itself. (And sometimes better than the film itself.) In early December 2018, three soundtracks were in the Billboard Top 10, and Mariah Carey’s Glitter soundtrack has been in the news recently for reentering the charts. But they have a long way to go before entering the top echelon.
Here are the 20 best-selling movie soundtracks of all time—many of which have been on the list for decades.
(The following list is based on RIAA certified units).
1. The Bodyguard (1992)
Certified units: 18 million
Elvis Presley originally wanted to record Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” but his people wanted half the publishing rights. Parton refused and later commented that “when Whitney [Houston’s version] came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland.”
2. Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Certified units: 16 million
CPR will never be the same.
3. Purple Rain (1984)
Certified units: 13 million
Prince wrote around 100 songs for the movie—and “Purple Rain” wasn’t even in that original group.
4. Forrest Gump (1994)
Certified units: 12 million
Like a box of chocolates, except songs, with everything from Jefferson Airplane to Lynyrd Skynyrd featured in Robert Zemeckis’s Oscar-winning hit.
5. Dirty Dancing (1987)
Certified units: 11 million
Maybe don’t rush to get the album if you love the film’s songs: According to executive producer Jimmy Ienner, “We needed different mixes for the film and record … For example, the guitars were dropped way down for the film because guitars weren’t a dominant instrument back then; saxophones were. We took out most of the synthesized stuff and replaced it with organs in the film version.”
6. Titanic (1997)
Certified units: 11 million
Céline Dion told Billboard that when she was recording “My Heart Will Go On,” her thoughts were: “Sing the song, then get the heck out of there.”
7. The Lion King (1994)
Certified units: 10 million
“Nants ingonyama” apparently translates to “Here comes a lion.” And if you’ve seen this Disney classic—which is about to get a live-action remake—you certainly know what “Hakuna Matata” means.
8. Footloose (1984)
Certified units: 9 million
When Ann Wilson of Heart was prepping to duet for the song “Almost Paradise” for Footloose, she broke her wrist. But she refused painkillers because they’d affect her singing voice.
9. Top Gun (1986)
Certified units: 9 million
The songs of Top Gun “still define the bombastic, melodramatic sound that dominated the pop charts of the [mid-80s],” according to AllMusic
10. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Certified units: 8 million
According to Marcus Mumford of Mumford and Sons, they were introduced to bluegrass through the Coen brothers’s O Brother, Where Art Thou, saying “That movie kind of heralded the advent of bluegrass in mainstream British culture.”
11. Grease (1978)
Certified units: 8 million
According to Box Office Mojo, Grease is the second highest-grossing musical of all time, beaten only by 2017’s Beauty and the Beast.
12. Waiting To Exhale (1995)
Certified units: 7 million
The song “Exhale” is famous for its “shoop” chorus. But writer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds explained that it’s a result of every time he wanted to write actual lyrics, they just got in the way.
13. The Little Mermaid (1989)
Certified units: 6 million
According to co-directors Ron Clements and John Musker, “Part of Your World” was nearly cut from The Little Mermaid after a black-and-white and sometimes sketched version made a test audience squirm with boredom. Everyone kept with it until a more polished version solved the problem.
14. Pure Country (1992)
Certified units: 6 million
Not bad for a movie that only grossed $15 million (and one you’ve probably never heard of).
15. Flashdance (1983)
Certified units: 6 million
The song “Maniac” was originally inspired by a horror film the songwriters saw (the lyrics were rewritten for Flashdance).
16. Space Jam (1996)
Certified units: 6 million
Not only was “I Believe I Can Fly” the best-selling soundtrack single of 1997, but third place was Monica’s “For You I Will”—which is also from Space Jam.
17. The Big Chill (1983)
Certified units: 6 million
By RIAA certified units, The Big Chill soundtrack is the fifth biggest Motown album of all time.
18. City of Angels (1998)
Certified units: 5 million
One of the chief songs from the soundtrack—“Uninvited” by Alanis Morissette—caused some piracy issues. A California radio station got their hands on a bootlegged copy and played it. Someone recorded the song off the radio and uploaded it to the internet (this was in 1998) and even radio stations began playing illegally downloaded versions. As a result, Warner Music was forced to release the album to radio stations a week earlier than planned.
19. The Jazz Singer (1980)
Certified units: 5 million
Fun Fact: Neil Diamond won the first Razzie for Worst Actor for this movie and was also nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor.
20. Evita (1996)
Certified units: 5 million
Evita started off as a concept album in 1976. Then two years later it premiered on London’s West End. In 1979 it debuted on Broadway and an album was released that went platinum in the U.S. before Madonna got to it.
Honorable Mention: Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
Certified units: 5 million
Whether a Broadway cast recording counts as a soundtrack or not is debatable, but Lin-Manuel Miranda’s cultural powerhouse managed to shift as many units as Madonna and Neil Diamond, according to the RIAA .
