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List of highest-grossing animated films
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Included in the list are charts of the top box-office earners, a chart of high-grossing animated films by the calendar year, a timeline showing the transition of the highest-grossing animated film record, and a chart of the highest-grossing animated film franchises and series. All charts are ranked by international theatrical box office performance where possible, excluding income derived from home video, broadcasting rights and merchandise.
Animated family films have performed consistently well at the box office, with Disney enjoying lucrative re-releases prior to the home video era with Walt Disney Animation Studios, who have produced films such as Aladdin and The Lion King, both of which were the highest-grossing animated film of all time upon their release. Disney Animation also enjoyed later success with the Frozen and Moana films, in addition to Pixar, of which the films from the Toy Story, Inside Out, Finding Nemo, and Incredibles franchises have been the best performers. Beyond Disney and Pixar, franchises Despicable Me, Shrek, Ice Age, Fengshen Cinematic Universe, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, and Doraemon have been met with the most success. Additionally, the current highest-grossing animated film is Ne Zha 2, a Chinese film that has grossed over $2.2 billion worldwide, the first-ever animated film to reach $2 billion worldwide.[1]
An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of more than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 per cent of the picture's running time.
—Rule Seven – Special Rules for the Animated Feature Film Award: I. Definition[2]
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Highest-grossing animated films
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The chart below lists the highest-grossing animated films. Figures are given in United States dollars (USD). Many films that were released during the 20th century do not appear on this list as figures have not been adjusted for inflation, and as a result the films on this list have all had a theatrical run (including re-releases) since 2005. Films that have not played since then do not appear on the chart due to ticket price inflation, population size, and ticket purchasing trends not being considered. If inflation were adjusted for, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would appear at the top of the chart with an adjusted gross of $2,354,000,000.[3][nb 1] All except the original 1994 version of The Lion King, which is a traditionally animated film (which currently occupies seventeenth place on this list), are computer-animated films. Despicable Me is the most represented franchise with all six films (including the Minions films) in the top 50 highest-grossing animated films. The top 12 films on this list, each having grossed in excess of $1 billion worldwide, are also ranked among the top 50 highest-grossing films of all time.
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Highest-grossing animated films by animation type
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Computer animation
The following chart is a list of the highest-grossing computer-animated films. The films on this list have all had a theatrical run (including re-releases) since 2005.
All feature films in the Despicable Me, Kung Fu Panda, Finding Nemo, Incredibles, Frozen, Inside Out, and Moana franchises, as well as the main films in the Madagascar franchise, are on the list while the Toy Story, Shrek, and Ice Age franchises feature often.
The top 49 films listed are also among the 50 highest-grossing animated films and the top 12 are among the 50 highest-grossing films, each having grossed in excess of $1 billion worldwide.
Stop motion animation
A total of 39 stop motion films have grossed in excess of $1 million. All feature films in the Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep franchises are on the list, with Wallace and Gromit being the most represented franchise on the list, with three films. The films on this list have all had a theatrical run (including re-releases) since 1975.
Traditional animation
The following chart is a list of the highest-grossing traditionally-animated films. The two films in the animated Jungle Book franchise appear on the chart, along with the first two from both the SpongeBob SquarePants and Pokémon feature series; these three are the most frequent franchises thereon with two titles each. The top film on this list is also among on the 50 highest-grossing animated films.
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Highest-grossing animated films by year
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The top-grossing animated films in the years 1937, 1940, 1942, 1950, 1953, 1955, 1961, 1967, 1992, 1994, 1995, 2004, 2010, 2013, 2020, 2024 and 2025 were also the highest-grossing films overall those years.[# 178]
Computer-animated films have been the highest earners in 1995, 1998–2019, and every year since 2021 while 1975 and 1993 are the only years when a stop motion animated feature grossed the highest. Traditional animated films have topped every other year.
The Ice Age franchises have had the most entries be the highest-grossing animated films of the year with four films, while the Rescuers and Finding Nemo all had both films in each respective franchise be the highest-grossing animated films of the year they were released.
Disney films has top the list the most of any studio topping the list 32 times.
Animal Farm, Out of an Old Man's Head, Fritz the Cat, and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train were the only four adult animated films on the chart.
The top-grossing animated film of the year has usually been an American film, with a few exceptions. Japanese animated features have topped the list at seven occasions: in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1987, and 2020; the list has also been topped by a German film in 1926, Spanish in 1945, French in 1949, British in 1954, Swedish in 1968 and 1974, Norwegian in 1975, Belgian in 1976, Canadian in 1985 and Chinese in 2025.
- † Background shading indicates films playing in the week commencing 8 August 2025 in theaters around the world.
- ( ... ) Since grosses are not limited to original theatrical runs, a film's first-run gross is included in brackets after the total if known.
- *U.S. and Canada gross only
- ITItaly only
- ESSpanish only
- SWSwedish gross only
- NWNorwegian gross only
- JPJapanese gross only
- RDistributor rental
- TBDTo be determined
- N/ANot applicable; no animated feature length film was released in that year.
- HFilms contain animated/live-action scenes.
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Timeline of highest-grossing animated films
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At least 10 animated films have held the record of highest-grossing animated film at different times. Four of these were Disney films and three more by Pixar, alongside three more by other studios. All of these films are American with the exception of Ne Zha 2, which was produced in China.
Snow White held the record for the longest, with 55 years, while Inside Out 2 held it for the shortest period of 5 months. The original 1994 version of The Lion King was the most recent non-CGI animated film to hold the record. Shrek 2, Toy Story 3, Inside Out 2, and Ne Zha 2 are the four sequels to hold the record. The 2019 version of The Lion King is the only animated remake to hold this record. Finding Nemo was the first 3D CG animated film to hold this record.
All of these films are still among the highest-grossing animated films except Snow White, and only Snow White, Aladdin and Shrek 2 are not also among the highest-grossing films. The Lion King is the only franchise to hold the record twice. Ne Zha 2 is the first non-American animated film to hold this record.
The first three films on this list utilize hand-drawn animation, while the remaining six are animated in CGI.
- † Background shading indicates films playing in the week commencing 8 August 2025 in theaters around the world.
Computer animation
The following is a timeline of highest-grossing computer-animated films.
Toy Story is the only franchise to hold the record on multiple occasions doing so with the first three films. Pixar is the only studio to hold the record on multiple occasions doing so seven times, while A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo and Inside Out 2 held the record the shortest for five months. Shrek 2, made by DreamWorks Animation, and Ne Zha 2, made by Beijing Enlight Media, are the only two films on the list not produced by Disney or Pixar.
- † Background shading indicates films playing in the week commencing 8 August 2025 in theaters around the world.
Stop motion
At least three stop motion animated films have held the record of highest-grossing animated film at different times. Chicken Run currently holds the record for the longest, with 24 years, while The Nightmare Before Christmas held it for the shortest period of seven years.
These films are still among the highest-grossing stop-motion animated films.
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Highest-grossing animated franchises and film series
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The following chart is a list of the highest-grossing animated film franchises. The top three are among the highest-grossing film franchises of all time and, respectively, are between 13th and 20th of all time. Pixar is the most represented studio with six franchises on this list. Despicable Me is the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time with $5.6 billion; it is also one of three animated franchises (Toy Story and Frozen) with at least two films grossing over $1 billion worldwide. Frozen is the only animated franchise where every installment grossed $1 billion; it has the highest per-film average, with nearly $1.4 billion unadjusted, and along with Inside Out, are the only animated franchises to average over $1 billion per film.
- † Background shading indicates that at least one film in the series is playing in the week commencing 8 August 2025 in theaters around the world.
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See also
- List of highest-grossing adult animated films
- List of highest-grossing Japanese films
- List of highest-grossing openings for animated films
- List of most expensive animated films
- List of highest-grossing live-action/animated films
- List of animated films by box office admissions
Per decade
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Notes
- Inflation adjustment is carried out using the International Monetary Fund's global Consumer price index for advanced economies.[4] The index is uniformly applied to the grosses in the chart published by Guinness World Records in 2014, beginning with the 2014 index. The figures in the above chart take into account inflation that occurred in 2014, and in every available year since then, with 2024 the most recent year available.
- Disney, which produced The Lion King (2019), considered the film to be live-action despite the entire film (aside from its opening shot) being computer animated.[6] Others, such as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (then-presenter of the Golden Globe Awards), deemed it to be animated based on specified criteria.[7]
- An error in Box Office Mojo's gross estimate for the 2020 UK re-release of The Lion King (2019) led to an overestimation of the film's lifetime worldwide gross by approximately $5 million. As of September 1, 2024, BOM removed the mistake, but only amended the total from $1,663,079,059 to $1,662,020,819, which does not fully account for $5 million over-estimate; however, a summation of the individual releases section produces $1,658,058,299.[8] Until this discrepancy is resolved, the gross based on its original theatrical run will be used.
- Box Office Mojo stopped updating its main total for Frozen in August 2014, while it was still in release. The total listed here incorporates subsequent earnings in Japan, Nigeria, Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany up to the end of 2015, but omits earnings in Turkey, Iceland, Brazil, and Australia (2016) which amount to a few hundred thousand dollars. The total is rounded to $1 million to compensate for the numerical inaccuracy.
- Snow White earned $8.5 million in gross rental upon its initial release, in the process becoming the highest-grossing sound film. The gross rental is the distributor's share of the box-office gross and was more commonly reported than the exhibition gross up to the 1970s.
- It is possible Aladdin never took the record. Aladdin's release (1992–93) coincided with a Snow White reissue, and it is possible that Snow White ended up grossing more. Snow White had grossed a total of $330 million up to 1987, and then added a further $88 million in North America from its 1987 and 1993 reissues; it is unknown how much Snow White made from these reissues outside of North America, but if the foreign gross matched or exceeded the North American gross then Snow White would have earned more.
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References
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