The 10 Highest-Grossing Movies Of 2024

2024 was a straight-up wild year at the box office. I have no doubt that a great many people reading this are more casual observers of such things, looking to find out what the biggest movies of the year were. That said, it truly cannot be overstated what a rollercoaster of a year this was. 

Due in large part to last year’s SAG and WGA strikes, the first half of the year was a mess. Were it not for a handful of big, breakout hit movies that helped save the box office, theaters may well have been in serious trouble. But theaters did rebound in a big way, with a wide array of releases resonating with audiences in the back half of the year. From the return of major franchises like “Alien: Romulus” to unexpected breakout hits like “It Ends With Us,” there was much to celebrate. But what were the biggest of the big movies in 2024? Which ones rose above the competition to sell the most tickets and make the biggest impact with viewers? We’re here to run down the top ten, while explaining why these movies worked, as well as what they can teach us.

It should be noted that some of these movies are still in theaters, so the final numbers may change. We’re only counting in-year grosses, meaning movies like “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” since they were released at the end of the year, couldn’t make the list. We’re also limiting this to Hollywood releases; it should be noted that the Chinese blockbuster “YOLO” ($479.5 million) would have made the cut otherwise. This list is more about highlighting movies that the majority of audiences around the world enjoyed, rather than something that was a big hit in one country. With that all out the way, let’s get to it.

Tim Burton hadn’t had an outright hit in quite some time. Movies like “Dumbo” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” fell short of the mark and it seemed like the filmmaker’s best days were behind him. Cut to 2024 and the release of a long-awaited sequel, as “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” not only gave Burton his mojo back, but became one of the biggest theatrical hits of 2024, particularly at the domestic box office.

Warner Bros. and Burton’s “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” made $451 million worldwide, including a whopping $294.1 million domestically. While the global total is just the tenth biggest for the year, that domestic number is the sixth biggest. Not bad when we consider that the original “Beetlejuice” made a little less than $75 million in its day. It just goes to show how much the audience for that film has grown, and how much fans wanted to see Burton back in his element.

With a $100 million budget, this is going to be hugely profitable for all involved. The craziest part? Warner Bros. was, at one point, pushing for “Beetlejuice 2” to go directly to streaming on Max. Luckily, Burton kept the budget reasonable and WB did the right thing. It worked out better for literally everyone.

It has not exactly been a banner year for superhero movies, relatively speaking. Save for one ultra-massive hit we’re going to be talking about in a moment, the misses outweighed the hits this year, while DC sat it out entirely as the world waits for “Superman” to usher in James Gunn’s new DC Universe. Sony, on other hand, released not one but three different “Spider-Man” spin-offs as the studio attempts to further exploit that franchise for all it’s worth. Both “Madame Web” and “Kraven the Hunter” flopped in spectacular fashion. “Venom: The Last Dance,” on the other hand, helped round out Tom Hardy’s trilogy on a third and final successful note.

Though the film’s run is not quite over, as of this writing, “The Last Dance” has earned $475.5 million worldwide. It is, on the one hand, the lowest-grossing entry in the “Venom” trilogy. On the other hand, it has out-grossed “Let There Be Carnage” internationally. 2018’s “Venom” earned an astonishing $856 million worldwide in 2018 and it’s clear that was a fluke. That’s part of the reason why the $51 million opening for “The Last Dance” was sort of a disappointment. Even so, director Kelly Marcel’s goodbye to Venom and Eddie disappointed its way to becoming one of the biggest movies of 2024.

More than that, Sony kept the budgets for these films reasonable the whole way, with this one carrying a $110 million price tag. Is that still expensive? Oh yes. But it’s a heck of a lot more reasonable than the average $200 million MCU film. That lowers the bar for success and maximizes profit.

As we’re going to discover running down this list, 2024 was a banner year for animation. In a year when so many things just weren’t working — particularly in the first six months — animated movies kept coming in to save the day. The first big one came in March with the release of “Kung Fu Panda 4,” which truly cemented Jack Black as one of cinema’s best modern box office bets. Aside from “Borderlands” flopping in spectacular fashion (which he can hardly be blamed for), Black rarely misses.

Po had been away from the big screen for eight years but the franchise didn’t lose any of its juice. At a time when the box office was desperate for a win, “Kung Fu Panda 4” became the hero it needed. The film finished its run with $547.7 million worldwide, which was even more than “Kung Fu Panda 3” ($520.1 million). “Kung Fu Panda 4” also helped push the franchise past the $2 billion mark globally, making it one of the biggest animated franchises in history. Perhaps more importantly, it gave the box office its first honest to goodness family-friendly blockbuster-sized hit in 2024.

Working in Universal and DreamWorks’ favor is the fact that they produced the film for a shockingly reasonable $85 million budget. For contrast, the third film had a $160 million budget. Bringing those budgets down lowers the bar for success and ensures that these franchises, which are anchors for the industry, can live on.

“Godzilla” celebrated its 70th anniversary as a franchise this year. Do you know how many franchises that are still relevant today can say they’ve been around for seven decades? It’s a short list, I can tell you that much. But the King of the Monsters is arguably more relevant than he’s ever been. Case in point, the latest entry in Legendary’s MonsterVerse, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” became the biggest “Godzilla” movie ever this year. This iteration of the franchise is now a decade old but seems to have plenty of gas left in the tank. That’s a testament to Adam Wingard’s no-holds-barred take on the characters, dating back to 2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong.”

Arriving in late March, audiences were ready to keep the blockbuster vibes going after the release of another major blockbuster sequel we’ll be talking about in a moment. It also didn’t hurt that “Godzilla Minus One” released in late 2023, becoming a surprise breakout hit and bringing the fandom together. It helps that “Godzilla x Kong” is the polar opposite of that film, offering fans of kaiju cinema something totally different, yet something that could scratch that same itch. That’s why “The New Empire” made $571 million worldwide, becoming the biggest MonsterVerse movie to date.

Wingard made a movie that was unapologetically monster-first. The idea of seeing a pink Godzilla and Kong with a metal arm charging into battle together was simply too tantalizing to resist. Warner Bros. and Legendary sold big monster fun to the masses, and they happily bought it.

Musicals are a big gamble in the modern era. When it pans out, we can get something like the Oscar-winning sensation “La La Land.” When it doesn’t? We wind up with something like the disaster that was “Cats.” That being the case, there were never any guarantees when Universal Pictures decided to adapt the famed Broadway musical “Wicked” for the big screen, even though it is connected to “The Wizard of Oz,” one of the most cherished classic films in the history of classic films. Fortunately, it worked out better than the studio could have possibly hoped for.

As of this writing, “Wicked” has pulled in more than $572 million worldwide and counting. That figure includes an outsized showing from domestic audiences, with North American ticket sales accounting for more than 67% of that figure. It’s not unlike “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in that way. As of this writing, the film still has quite a bit of gas left in the tank and may well finish closer to $700 million than $600 million. One of the most impressive things is that director Jon M. Chu’s musical accomplished this while opening directly against “Gladiator II.” Both movies found bit audiences, but “Wicked” found a bigger one.

Just about everything went right here, from winning over critics to effectively selling this as a cinematic event that demands to be seen on the big screen. Universal already looks incredibly smart for splitting the adaptation in two, with “Wicked: Part Two” coming our way next year. Could that be an even bigger hit, building on the back of what this film did? It might defy gravity and do just that.

Denis Villeneuve accomplished nothing shy of a miracle with 2021’s “Dune,” an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s cherished sci-fi novel that was faithful to the material, massive in scale, but still felt like an auteur film. It’s almost impossible, yet he pulled it off. The only downside? 2021 was a terrible time to release a movie, particularly a Warner Bros. movie, as all of the studio’s films were going to HBO Max the same day they hit theaters. Yet, “Dune” made $400 million in its original run, which was enough to justify a sequel. Evidently, the audience for this franchise grew exponentially in the years before “Dune: Part Two” hit theaters in early March.

“Dune: Part Two” posted an opening weekend twice the size of its predecessor, which was a good omen for things to come. The film continued to demonstrate mass appeal both domestically and internationally, particularly on IMAX screens. All told, Villeneuve’s sweeping, epic sequel pulled in $714.4 million worldwide, all while garnering tons of acclaim once again. Also, not for nothing, Villeneuve got it made for less than $200 million. Given the state of blockbuster budgets these days, that’s worth celebrating. It’s the kind of well-rounded hit most studios dream of making.

Without “Dune: Part Two” making what it made, the box office might have been in truly dire shape. As a relatively dead April and very weak May followed, this overperformance helped keep theaters afloat until greener pastures arrived in the back half of the year. The Spice must flow, as it were.

There are movies that made more money in 2024 than “Moana 2” did, but this is arguably the most consequential hit of the year. Disney making a sequel to 2016’s “Moana,” a movie that was a big hit in its day and went on to win several Oscars, was a no-brainer. However, that sequel was originally conceived as a Disney+ series. Late in the game, the studio decided to turn that series into a movie. It proved to be one of the best financial decisions that Disney has made in quite some time.

“Moana 2” shot out the gate like a rocket, leading the biggest Thanksgiving ever at the box office. As of this writing, the animated sequel has made more than $790 million worldwide, and it still has a ton of gas left in the tank. At this rate, it’s very likely going to become Disney’s third release this year to end up crossing the $1 billion mark when all’s said and done. Even if it didn’t make another dime, it would be a resounding success, and one that might be big enough to change the industry’s thinking more broadly.

The streaming wars led to straight-up irrational spending at times in the pursuit of amassing subscribers. Yet, as we’ve seen time and time again, it doesn’t often make a lot of financial sense. “Moana 2” should be the death of the big direct-to-streaming movie. Disney is going to make a fortune here and Disney+ will still benefit in the end. That won’t go unnoticed both at Disney and throughout Hollywood.

Circling back to another animated behemoth, Gru and the Minions returned and showed precisely no signs of slowing down as “Despicable Me 4” very nearly became our third $1 billion grosser this year. If this movie ever gets any kind of re-release, it will almost certainly cross that milestone. For now, the fourth entry in the main series in Illumination’s flagship franchise will have to settle for $969.4 million worldwide against a very reasonable (relatively speaking) $100 million budget. In all likelihood, that makes this one of the most profitable movies of the year, in addition to being one of the biggest.

Once again, Universal managed to keep the budget for this massive sequel extremely reasonable. Whereas the average Pixar movie still costs $200 million to make, getting to make a “Despicable Me” movie for half that amount means the bar for success is far lower. Be that as it may, Gru and his little yellow companions soared over the base level bar for success and brought us yet another global hit, one that helped push the “Despicable Me” franchise past the $5 billion mark globally. Whenever the next “Minions” movie arrives, it will sail past the $6 billion mark, with no end in sight.

A great many adults may not love the “Minions” movies or these later “Despicable Me” sequels in the way many of us love Pixar movies, or even DreamWorks movies. That said, audiences continue to eat these characters up, with all of these films except the original making just shy of or more than $1 billion. That’s the kind of consistency studios dream of.

Perhaps the biggest lesson Hollywood learned (or should have learned) in 2023 is that superhero movies are no longer automatic hits at the box office. “The Marvels,” “Blue Beetle,” and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” all outright flopped, with “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” disappointing majorly. Marvel or DC, it doesn’t matter. There are no guarantees anymore. That being the case, when the MCU went R-rated with “Deadpool & Wolverine,” it was unclear how big the movie would be. Spoiler alert, it was literally more successful than any other R-rated movie in history.

Beginning with a record-shattering opening weekend, “Deadpool & Wolverine” decimated any and all expectations. The first two “Deadpool” movies were huge and helped to truly open the door for R-rated comic book movies. But by adding in Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine for a long-awaited team-up, Marvel Studios and Ryan Reynolds managed to bring the series past the $1 billion mark. To date, the film has made $1.33 billion globally, ranking as the second-biggest movie of 2024, and the biggest R-rated movie in the history of the box office. To say that the film exceeded expectations would be a dramatic understatement.

At a time when the MCU is looking for a reliable identity for the future, and at a time when superhero cinema in general is need of a more sustainable path forward, “Deadpool & Wolverine” proved that it’s still absolutely possible to bring in massive global audiences for these films – and they don’t have to be PG-13 affairs. It’s just about effectively tapping into that audience. Easier said than done, sure, but maximum effort, maximum results.

Nothing that happened at the box office in 2024 was bigger or more shocking than Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2.” Context is very much needed here. Disney sent several Pixar originals directly to Disney+ between 2020 and 2022 due to the pandemic. This did immeasurable damage to the brand, something that even CEO Bob Iger has acknowledged. After “Lightyear” flopped in 2022, it was unclear if Pixar would ever get its theatrical mojo back.

Cut to 2023 when, after a disastrous opening weekend, “Elemental” went on a surprise tear, making nearly $500 million worldwide. Especially in light of that being an original film from Pixar, there was hope that things could turn around. Even with that, if anyone told you that “Inside Out 2” would literally become one of the biggest movies in history at the beginning of this year, I would encourage said person to buy a lot of lottery tickets. Not only is the sequel to 2015’s “Inside Out” the biggest movie of 2024 overall, it’s the eighth biggest movie ever at the box office, with $1.698 billion to its name.

It made more money than “Jurassic World.” It made more money than “The Avengers.” More impressively? It surpassed “Frozen II” and “The Lion King” to become the unquestioned biggest animated movie ever. Director Kelsey Mann’s film has etched its place in cinema history. It arguably saved theaters this summer and proved that Pixar’s future is, first and foremost, on the big screen. In short? This isn’t just a massive, massive hit, it’s a wildly important one as well.