The 10 biggest movies of 2026, ranked by worldwide gross

A movie can sell out screens across the U.S. for six straight weekends and yet finish the year behind a title most American moviegoers have never heard of. Distributors build release calendars that span dozens of countries over months, each territory carrying its own dubbing work, advertising budget, and local partners. The weekend charts that fans follow at home capture one slice of that machinery. The full accounting arrives when receipts from every corner of the world land in a single column. Studios green-light sequels, hire directors, and set budgets against the global number, which makes the worldwide ranking the one scoreboard the industry treats as real.

The split between home-market and overseas earnings separates two kinds of hit. One film takes the bulk of its money from U.S. theaters and lives as a domestic cultural event. Another collects most of its total abroad, attracts little notice in American coverage, and hands its backers the larger check. The distinction shapes decisions that outlast opening weekend. Foreign runs carry different exhibitor splits, currency exposure, and marketing costs, so two films with matching worldwide totals can return unequal profits. The home share of a gross points to the audience a studio will court with its next picture, which is why these proportions matter beyond bragging rights.

The ranking below covers 10 movies that opened in 2026, ordered by cumulative worldwide ticket sales from the biggest earner down. This box-office tally lists four figures for every title, including the worldwide gross, the domestic gross, the international gross, and how much of that worldwide sum came from U.S. theaters. The totals capture the year to date, so the standings reflect where each film sits now and not where it will finish. The data carries no premiere dates, screen counts, or budget lines, which leaves the grosses themselves as the full basis for every comparison that follows. The 10 entries, read in sequence, map how a global audience spread its money across one year of blockbusters.

Illustration: Quartz

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has pulled in $2,506,881,993 worldwide, finishing more than $736 million ahead of the second-biggest earner of 2026 so far. No other title in the group has crossed $2 billion, and only two have passed $1.5 billion. The gap between first and second place alone tops the full worldwide gross of five of the 10 films here.

International theaters account for $1,551,516,426 of the total, a sum large enough to hold second place on this list by itself. Audiences outside the U.S. supplied close to 62 cents of every dollar the movie took in. The overseas haul outpaces the entire worldwide total of the year's third-biggest release by more than $400 million, and it exceeds the U.S. earnings of the next three films combined. A studio can build a $1.5 billion business out of territories that American weekend charts never register.

Domestic ticket sales reached $955,365,567, the biggest home-market figure among the 10 titles and more than $334 million clear of the next-highest. U.S. theaters contributed 38.1% of the worldwide gross, the fifth-largest home share of the group and a middling result for a film of this scale. No other 2026 release holds both the top domestic number and the top international number.

Five films have cleared $1 billion in 2026 so far, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day earns more than twice what the fourth-ranked title collected. The year's leader outgrosses the bottom four films here put together. Its $736 million cushion over second place runs wider than the international take of eight of the 10 titles.

Overseas receipts stand at 1.6 times the domestic figure, so a home market that delivered almost a billion dollars supplies the smaller half of the result. A U.S. run of that size would anchor most years, yet it leaves this total out of reach without the rest of the world. The year's largest number belongs to the film that traveled farthest, and a margin this wide shows what a global release pattern buys that a hit at home cannot.

Illustration: Quartz

The Odyssey earned $1,770,810,884 worldwide, and theaters outside the U.S. supplied $1,149,838,094 of the sum. American ticket buyers contributed $620,972,790, or 35.1% of the global haul, the slimmest domestic slice among the year's three biggest earners. The film trails the top title by $736,071,109 and sits $622,778,735 clear of the release beneath it.

Foreign receipts outrun the American take by $528,865,304, which puts the overseas column at close to 1.85 times the domestic one. A studio reading those two figures sees a release whose paying audience lives beyond its home territory. Reverse the proportions and the movie would need $1,149,838,094 from the U.S. market alone, a sum no title on this list has reached.

The Odyssey's international run of $1,149,838,094 exceeds the entire worldwide total of Toy Story 5, the third-biggest release of 2026, by $1,805,945. The foreign tally alone would outgross every 2026 title except Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The film's American gross falls $334,392,777 short of the $955,365,567 Spider-Man drew at home. Only Spider-Man opens a wider gulf between the two columns among the year's five largest releases.

The Odyssey leans on U.S. wallets less than either film flanking it at the top. Its 35.1% domestic share runs three percentage points under the 38.1% Spider-Man: Brand New Day posted and 6.7 points under the 41.8% Toy Story 5 took from American audiences. The dollar order and the share order diverge inside the trio, with The Odyssey holding second on worldwide receipts and last on domestic dependence. Three releases further down the list, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Pegasus 3, and Minions & Monsters, draw an even smaller fraction from U.S. screens, though none of them cleared $700 million worldwide.

Count U.S. receipts alone and The Odyssey still finishes second for 2026, though its cushion over Toy Story 5 narrows from $622,778,735 to $140,678,329. More than three-quarters of the gap separating the year's second- and third-place films comes from territories that U.S. weekend charts omit.

Illustration: Quartz

Toy Story 5 collected $1,148,032,149 worldwide, the third-largest haul of the year so far and the biggest home-market share among the three films that have cleared $1.1 billion. U.S. theaters generated 41.8% of its total, a wider slice than either of the two larger earners managed. The animated sequel took $480,294,461 from domestic screens and $667,737,688 from international ones, a split that leaves it $622,778,735 behind the second-place finisher and $126,605,554 ahead of the next title down.

The $480,294,461 from U.S. ticket buyers stands as the third-biggest domestic tally in the 10-title group, behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day at $955,365,567 and The Odyssey at $620,972,790. Toy Story 5 also out-earned Michael on U.S. screens by $107,991,073, which accounts for most of the margin separating the two worldwide.

The distance between Toy Story 5's two markets runs to $187,443,227, the tightest spread of any film above $1.1 billion. Spider-Man: Brand New Day separates its foreign and home takes by $596,150,859, and The Odyssey by $528,865,304. Toy Story 5 sold about $1.39 overseas for every dollar it took in the U.S., against $1.62 for the year's No. 1 release and $1.85 for the runner-up.

Across all 10 entries, only three movies draw a larger proportion of their money from U.S. screens, and each of those three sits lower in the worldwide standings. Domestic strength on this list tends to come with a smaller overall total, so the film occupies a narrow class of hits that scale up without surrendering the home base.

International sales of $667,737,688 rank third on the list as well, so Toy Story 5's position owes nothing to a weak overseas run. It built its total on solid returns in both columns, with the U.S. portion still falling short of half. Even the title with the steadiest American base among the year's three leading earners sends most of its money through foreign cash registers, which marks the practical ceiling on what U.S. audiences alone can deliver in 2026.

Illustration: Quartz

Michael took in $1,021,426,595 worldwide, passing the billion-dollar threshold by $21.4 million. U.S. theaters contributed $372,303,388 of the total. Everywhere else combined returned $649,123,207, more than 1.7 times the domestic figure. The year's fourth-biggest worldwide total belongs to a film that collected the bulk of its money outside its home country.

The home market supplied 36.4% of Michael's receipts, a proportion sitting in the middle of the 10 titles here. Five of those films claimed a bigger slice of their money from U.S. screens, and four claimed less. The dollar gap between the two columns reaches $276,819,819, the amount by which foreign territories outearned the American run. A studio reading those numbers sees a film that found a wide audience abroad while keeping a solid, though not commanding, grip at home.

Michael posted the smallest U.S. takings of the five 2026 releases that cleared $1 billion worldwide. Spider-Man: Brand New Day banked $955,365,567 at home, The Odyssey gathered $620,972,790, Toy Story 5 collected $480,294,461, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie earned $429,814,610. Michael joined the same tier on a domestic base worth less than four-tenths of the leading film's U.S. figure, which means overseas territories covered more of the climb for this title than for any other billion-dollar earner of the year except The Odyssey. Michael's overseas receipts stand fourth among the 10 titles while its U.S. gross sits fifth, a one-rung slide that marks where the weight of the release falls.

The margin separating Michael from the title in fifth place comes to $8,251,064, under 1% of either film's worldwide sum. Michael's overseas gross tops that film's by $65,762,286, while the same film beats Michael at home by $57,511,222. What survives the offset is the $8,251,064 that keeps Michael in fourth. The distance in the other direction runs much wider, with $126,605,554 standing between Michael and the third-place total of $1,148,032,149.

Michael's standing rests on its foreign run, where a swing of 1.3% in international receipts would hand the slot to the picture just behind it.

Illustration: Quartz

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie took 42.4% of its $1,013,175,531 worldwide gross from U.S. theaters, the largest home-market portion among the five titles that cleared $1 billion in 2026. American ticket buyers supplied $429,814,610 of the total. Toy Story 5 trails at 41.8%, and the other three billion-dollar earners each kept a thinner slice of their money at home. Mario owns the most home-grown profile of that group while occupying its final slot, clearing the billion-dollar mark by a margin of $13,175,531.

Overseas theaters delivered more money than American ones, contributing $583,360,921 and exceeding the domestic figure by $153,546,311. No other release above $1 billion in 2026 held its two markets that close together. Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened a $596,150,859 canyon between its international and domestic hauls, a spread close to four times as wide as Mario's. Mario's two ledgers read as an even split instead of the lopsided pattern defining the rest of the tier.

Michael finished $8,251,064 ahead on the worldwide tally, yet Mario out-earned it inside the U.S. by $57,511,222, with Michael drawing $372,303,388 from American screens. The top-10 order understates how much work the home market did for one film and how little it did for the other. A studio reading only American receipts would flip the position of these two releases without hesitation.

Mario's domestic haul lands within $50,479,851 of Toy Story 5's $480,294,461, while the gap between the two worldwide totals stretches to $134,856,618. Most of that separation opened outside the U.S., where Toy Story 5 ran $84,376,767 ahead of Mario. Mario's $583,360,921 overseas take sits sixth among the year's 10 biggest releases, below where the film lands on the global chart, since Pegasus 3 pulled $639,684,577 from abroad while trailing Mario by $372,116,008 overall. Its $429,814,610 at home counts as the fourth-largest American gross of 2026, one notch better than its standing across every market. The film performs above its rank wherever U.S. dollars decide the question.

Illustration: Quartz

The Devil Wears Prada 2 earned $693,255,456 worldwide and routed 31.8% of that money through U.S. theaters, the smallest domestic slice among the top six earners of 2026. Overseas audiences supplied $472,698,805, while American ticket buyers contributed $220,556,651. Foreign receipts ran more than double the U.S. take.

Every film above the sequel keeps a firmer grip on its home market. The year's biggest release sends 38.1% of its total through American box offices. The next four finishers post 35.1%, 41.8%, 36.4%, and 42.4%. No other movie in that group doubles its U.S. figure abroad. The chart leader brings in $1.62 from overseas for every dollar it takes at home, and the second-place title $1.85, short of the 2.1 spread this sequel carries. Its position in the top six rests on demand gathered outside the U.S. The film would fall to eighth among these 10 titles on U.S. sales alone, trailing Project Hail Mary and Obsession even though it outgrossed both worldwide. Obsession, last on this list by worldwide gross, drew $263,451,715 from U.S. theaters, nearly $43 million more than this sequel took in at home.

The gap from fifth place to this sixth slot spans close to $320 million, the point where the 2026 standings leave the billion-dollar tier behind. Each of the five titles ahead of it cleared $1 billion. This sequel stopped short of $700 million, and the field beneath it tightens, with under $9 million separating it from Project Hail Mary in seventh. Domestic sales amount to under a quarter of what Spider-Man: Brand New Day pulled from the same market. Its overseas receipts alone come within $48 million of Obsession's entire worldwide haul.

A sequel can finish among the year's six biggest draws while close to two of every three dollars it collects arrive from theaters outside the U.S. A studio weighing a third chapter would look first at the international column, where returns dwarf the American total. U.S. moviegoers gave the franchise a solid run. Audiences overseas handed it a future.

Illustration: Quartz

Project Hail Mary pulled $344,050,007 from U.S. theaters against $340,439,940 from every other market, the first title on this list whose home audience supplied the majority of the gross at 50.3%. Its $684,489,947 worldwide haul arrives seventh in the order, and the shape of that money separates the film from everything above it.

The two sides of the ledger stand $3,610,067 apart, just over half of 1% of the worldwide figure. American moviegoers and the rest of the planet each delivered about $342 million, which makes the domestic majority a technical one. Near-parity of that kind appears nowhere else in the upper half of the ranking, where no other film comes within 7 percentage points of an even split between the two columns.

Every film ahead of Project Hail Mary earned the larger portion of its money outside the U.S., with home-market shares running from 31.8% to 42.4%. Project Hail Mary clears the top of that band by 7.9 percentage points. The step from the sixth entry to the seventh covers 18.5 percentage points, the widest move between consecutive titles anywhere in the top seven, and it marks where the ranking stops sorting films by overseas reach alone.

The Devil Wears Prada 2, the entry just above Project Hail Mary, finished $8,765,509 higher worldwide while selling $123,493,356 less at home and $132,258,865 more abroad. Two films within $9 million of each other on the global tally reached that point by opposite routes, one through foreign auditoriums and one through American ones.

Project Hail Mary carries the sixth-largest U.S. gross among the 10 titles even though its worldwide total comes in seventh. Its American turnout outruns its global standing by a full position, a flip one other film in the top seven matches.

Project Hail Mary needed less overseas business than any other film in the top seven to clear $680 million. Its $340,439,940 international total is the smallest in that group, and ticket buyers at home covered what the rest of the world did not.

Illustration: Quartz

Pegasus 3 (飞驰人生3) collected $641,059,523 worldwide, and U.S. theaters accounted for $1,374,946 of that sum, or 0.2% of the total. Markets outside the U.S. supplied the other $639,684,577. American screens contributed just over $2 of every $1,000 the film took in across the globe, a ratio no other entry on this list approaches.

The $639,684,577 Pegasus 3 drew from abroad exceeds the overseas earnings of two films placed above it. The Devil Wears Prada 2 took $472,698,805 from foreign theaters and Project Hail Mary brought in $340,439,940, both short of what Pegasus 3 made outside the U.S. Those two titles finished ahead of Pegasus 3 because U.S. audiences handed them $220,556,651 and $344,050,007. Pegasus 3 found no comparable backing from U.S. ticket buyers, and the $43,430,424 separating it from seventh place amounts to under 13% of what Project Hail Mary earned in American theaters.

Every other title among the year's 10 biggest earners pulled at least 31.8% of its money from U.S. screens. Pegasus 3 lands 31.6 percentage points beneath that floor. The distance between its domestic share and the next-smallest figure on the list surpasses the entire 18.9-point spread covering the other nine films, which run from 31.8% to 50.7%.

Nine of the 10 titles in this group passed $180 million at home, while Pegasus 3 stopped short of $1.4 million. Its U.S. gross falls below 1% of the smallest American haul any rival posted, the $183,171,260 Minions & Monsters registered. Transplant that $183 million onto the Pegasus 3 figure and the movie reaches about $824 million, enough to clear both sixth and seventh place and to come within $190 million of fifth. Its eighth-place standing comes down to one empty market.

Global scale and U.S. presence diverge here. A 2026 release can gather more than $600 million from audiences worldwide, outgross two better-ranked films in markets beyond the U.S., and post American receipts under $1.5 million, leaving the U.S. box office with no trace of a hit the rest of the world delivered.

Illustration: Quartz

Minions & Monsters has amassed $526,215,264 worldwide, with $183,171,260 of that sum from U.S. theaters and $343,044,004 from abroad, leaving the home market responsible for 34.8% of the gross. Overseas audiences supplied about $1.87 for every dollar the movie earned at home. The animated release sits ninth among the year's biggest earners, yet the geography of its money resembles the pattern that titles far above it on the chart established, where foreign receipts carry about two-thirds of the load.

The $183,171,260 that American theaters contributed stands as the second-smallest home-market figure among the 10 titles, ahead of just the $1,374,946 Pegasus 3 managed in the U.S. Obsession, the single title below Minions & Monsters on the list, banked $263,451,715 at home, roughly $80 million more from the same country. Only two other films on the list finished with a thinner slice of U.S. money. Minions & Monsters landed inside the year's top 10 while attracting a modest American crowd, stacking its revenue in territories that U.S. weekend coverage overlooks.

Foreign receipts of $343,044,004 edge past the $340,439,940 that Project Hail Mary gathered outside the U.S., a difference of $2,604,064, even though Project Hail Mary stands $158,274,683 ahead on the worldwide line. The two totals split apart inside American theaters, where Minions & Monsters came up about $161 million short of its higher-grossing neighbor. Abroad, Minions & Monsters matches a film that outearns it by more than 30% across all markets.

Six million dollars separate Minions & Monsters from Obsession at the bottom of the list, the narrowest distance between any two consecutive entries among the 10. The $6,208,549 margin covers about 1% of either film's running total, small enough that one strong weekend in any sizable foreign market could reorder the pair. Positions eight through 10 sit within $121 million of one another, so the shape of the year's lower half remains unsettled while each of the top three keeps more than $126 million of daylight between itself and the film one place behind.