Titanic is a film.
Leonardo DiCaprio . He gained public recognition with leading roles in The Basketball Diaries ( 1995 ) and the romantic drama Romeo + Juliet ( 1996 ) , before achieving international fame with James Cameron 's epic romance Titanic ( 1997 ) , which became the highest-grossing film of all time until Cameron 's science fiction film Avatar ( 2009 ) overtook it . Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance-disaster film directed , written , co-produced , and co-edited by James Cameron . It remained the highest-grossing film of all time until Cameron 's 2009 film Avatar surpassed it in 2010 .