There are still a few days to go in the calendar year, but barring a surge from Avatar: Fire and Ash (which is more than possible, though I sense this one might not conquer the world quite like its predecessors), the highest-grossing movies of 2025 look more or less set in place. So, with Zootopia 2 still in theatres, let’s take a minute to sift through the tea leaves and see what clicked with audiences this year.
Even a cursory glance at the top ten is enough to reveal some shifts in viewing habits. For one, not counting the Covid summer of 2020, this is the first time in 14 years that no Marvel movie has broken into the top ten — with Fantastic Four: First Steps (11th), Brave New World (14th) and Thunderbolts (15th) all underperforming. In their place, and building on the recent success of movies like Super Mario Bros. (second in 2023) and Inside Out 2 (first in 2024), we’re seeing a clear domination of animated and family movies, with a couple even coming from non-English-language territories.
Indeed, the top film of 2025 made more money than any movie in the Harry Potter, Jurassic Park or Star Wars franchises, but made 99% of its money in mainland China. Read on to learn more and use the guide below to find out where to watch them on services like AppleTV, Netflix, Prime Video and elsewhere.
10. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning ($0.6 billion)
Tom Cruise might have been hoping that Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, the final sprint of his three-decade run as Ethan Hunt, would have placed a little higher on the year-end list, but the last couple of M: I movies just haven’t drawn quite the same crowds as earlier installments—certainly nowhere close to the heady days of Rogue Nation and Fallout.
Whatever the case, I still highly recommend seeing this one—especially if you’re a fan of how director Cristopher McQuarrie, over four M: I movies now, has mixed no-nonsense plotting with some of the most elaborate stunts ever caught on camera.
9. Superman ($0.61 billion)
Marvel might have struggled a little in 2025, but there was at least one superhero movie on the top-ten highest grossers this year: James Gunn’s Superman. This is the movie that launched Gunn’s DCU, so if you’re a fan of the director’s sense of humour (think Guardians of the Galaxy, Peacemaker) and appreciate all things Man of Steel, you’ll surely want to give it a watch over the festive season.
As Kal El, David Corenswet leads a deep bench of charismatic actors—including Rachel Brosnahan (Lois Lane), Nicholas Hoult (Lex Luther) and Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen).
8. F1: The Movie ($0.63 billion)
Hollywood might have stopped making movie stars, but there are still some around who know how to open a movie. Case in point, this year was Joseph Kominski’s F1, in which Brad Pitt played a retired racecar driver who gets lured back onto the world’s circuits for one last season.
This was Kominski’s follow-up to the awesome Top Gun: Maverick, and it basically does for Formula 1 what that film did for military jets—in other words, using the most technically advanced equipment available to give you the feeling of what it might actually be like to drive one of these things.
7. How to Train Your Dragon ($0.63 billion)
The second live action remake—and another story, like Lilo & Stitch, about the bond between a human and a fantastical creature—to make the list of the year’s most successful movies was How to Train Your Dragon, a faithful and gorgeous adaptation of the 2010 computer-animated feature about a young Viking who makes friends with a dragon named Hiccup.
Both were written and directed by Dean DeBlois, a filmmaker and animator who started working at Disney in 1994, contributing to the story for Mulan before directing his debut feature, which was, to go full circle, the original Lilo & Stitch.
6. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle ($0.66 billion)
Given the success of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot more anime movies released theatrically in the coming years. The second movie in director Haruo Sotozaki’s Demon Slayer franchise was an obvious sensation, a movie that not only became the highest-grossing anime of all time, but it blew the previous record holders (Spirited Away, Your Name., Demon Slayer: Mugen Train) out of the water.
If you’re unversed in the series’ narrative, it’s probably best to go back and watch at least the previous movie, if not the animated TV show, too. But if you’re a fan of shows like My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan, you’ll definitely vibe with it.
5. Jurassic World: Rebirth ($0.86 billion)
Now here’s a franchise that just keeps rolling, at least when it comes to getting cinemagoers in seats. After the not very loved Chris Pratt years, the seventh movie in the series, Jurassic World: Rebirth, managed to bring things back to relative basics and ended up, at least in my opinion, delivering the best Jurassic Park movie not directed by Steven Spielberg.
It managed to do this by bringing original screenwriter David Koepp on board to rekindle some of that Spielberg wonder while hiring Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Rogue One), a master of visual scale, to direct. Added to that, we got Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey, as well as Mahershala Ali playing a character called Duncan Kinkaid, who wore a beret—what’s not to like?
4. A Minecraft Movie ($0.95 billion)
Whatever you do, don’t say “chicken jockey.” Outside the world of Chinese animation, the biggest multiplex story of the year was the mania that surrounded A Minecraft Movie’s release—especially the videos that started to do the rounds of the chaotic scenes whenever Jack Black’s character said that phrase.
If that all sounds like gibberish to you, it’s because it kind of is. Like Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, A Minecraft Movie (which was directed by Napoleon Dynamite’s Jared Hess) wasn’t an attempt to make a story set in the world of the game as much as a movie about all the little idiosyncrasies that make people love the game to begin with. Whatever the case, it worked!
3. Lilo & Stitch ($1 billion)
The first of two live-action remakes on this year’s Box Office top-ten is an adaptation of a modern Disney classic: Lilo & Stitch. Starring Maia Kealoha as the titular Hawaiian girl who adopts a wild but adorable alien, named Stitch, this reimagining of the beloved 2002 Disney animation cruised to a cool $1 billion after hitting cinemas in May to become the most successful summer movie of the year.
If you’re nostalgic for the original, you’ll naturally want to check it out. The same goes for fans of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a delightful A24 animation that was director Dean Fleischer Camp’s breakout hit.
2. Zootopia 2 ($1.1 billion)
The most recent juggernaut on this list is Disney animation’s Zootopia 2, the long-awaited sequel to the excellent 2016 original, in which a detective bunny and a con artist fox have to work together to crack a case a working metropolis inhabited by animals—imagine if Chinatown was animated like Ratatouille and had the humour of Puss in Boots and you’ll have some idea of what to expect.
Like the first installment, Zootopia 2 explores important themes like greed and prejudice while offering viewers an action packed adventure with some truly heartfelt moments—not to mention a wonderful voice cast. I can’t recommend it enough.
1. Ne Zha 2 ($2.2 billion)
It’s hard to know where to begin with Ne Zha 2, a movie that broke record after record this year without anyone you know having heard of it. This movie is now the highest-grossing animated movie, non-English language movie and non-Hollywood movie of all time. It also reached that mark with only $20 million of its ticket sales coming from outside China.
The all-conquering sequel, in which the eponymous young god forms an uneasy alliance with a former enemy to fight against the evil Shen Gongbao, combines elements of Chinese mythology with a modern animation style—so if you enjoy the world of Kung Fu Panda and the action of movies like How to Train Your Dragon, you might be interested in checking it out.
