A racing sequel that almost nobody in America has laid eyes on has taken $656.4 million this year. That is not a misprint. Pegasus 3 managed only $1.3 million in domestic theaters and still muscled into the top 10 of 2026’s worldwide box office, which explains most of what you need to know about how the year has played out.
Disney, Sony, Warner Bros., Universal, Paramount and A24 all arrived in 2026 hoping for a slice of it. Most of them walked away with one.
Marvel, the DC Universe, Star Wars, Dune, Toy Story, Hunger Games and Super Mario each have fresh installments either playing now or landing in the months to come. Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Robert Eggers and David Fincher all have new films as well.
And several of the year’s real success stories missed this list entirely. Zendaya and Robert Pattinson gave A24 an early winner with The Drama. Sony’s animated GOAT cashed in. Scream and Mortal Kombat each returned with the strongest box office runs those franchises have ever recorded. Not one of them cracked the top 10.
These are the films that did, counting up.
10. Minions & Monsters, $449.5 million
Illumination’s third Minions picture debuted with $37 million domestically — a low for the franchise — while the reviews came back raving. Seeing those two facts side by side made plenty of people uneasy.
Since then it has climbed to $449.5 million worldwide, made up of $168.3 million at home and $281.1 million abroad. Holding this position, never mind moving up, will take strong legs.
9. Obsession, $474.7 million
Curry Barker’s low-budget horror film arrived May 15 with $17.1 million and then pulled off something movies have largely stopped doing. It rose.
Weekend two brought $23.9 million. Weekend three, $27.3 million. Its fourth and fifth frames — $25.3 million and $19 million — each topped its opening. It sat in the domestic top five for seven consecutive weekends.
The running total is $474.7 million, of which $262.7 million came from North America and $212 million from overseas. Word of mouth, doing exactly what word of mouth is meant to do.
8. Pegasus 3, $656.4 million
The racing sequel launched in China on Feb. 17 to coincide with Chinese New Year and earned $653.9 million there. Five other territories have played it. That is the entire story.
The previous two entries took $255.5 million and $422.3 million in China, so nothing here is a fluke. Pegasus 3 now stands as the series’ top earner and carries the biggest international haul of any 2026 release.
7. Project Hail Mary, $684.2 million
Amazon MGM has a genuine blockbuster at last. The Ryan Gosling sci-fi film bowed March 20 with $80.5 million domestically and has since reached $684.2 million, close to an even split between $344 million stateside and $340.1 million internationally.
Not once did it post a weekend decline sharper than 42% until its 11th frame in release. The eleventh. It is now the highest-grossing title in Amazon MGM’s catalog and Gosling’s second-biggest, and it has moved past the other Andy Weir adaptation, The Martian, which wrapped up at $630.6 million.
6. The Devil Wears Prada 2, $690.8 million
Disney dipped into the Fox vault and came away with $690.8 million. The sequel starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway opened May 1 and claimed two weekends at #1 domestically, beginning with $76.7 million on the way to $220.5 million.
The serious money, though, is international: $470.3 million, paced by the United Kingdom ($46.3 million), Italy ($37.5 million), Germany ($35 million), Japan ($34.6 million) and Brazil ($33.3 million).
5. The Odyssey, $911.3 million
Three weeks. $911.3 million.
Nolan’s adaptation launched with $123.5 million domestically — his largest debut outside of Batman — before slipping only 29.6% in its second weekend for a further $87 million. That single second frame outgrossed Oppenheimer‘s entire opening.
It has already surpassed Oppenheimer‘s full domestic run. Overseas business accounts for $515.8 million versus $395.5 million at home. A $1 billion finish is guaranteed, and it may well end up as the highest-grossing R-rated film ever made.
4. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, $932 million
Tom Holland’s fourth solo film has racked up $932 million in a matter of days, powered by the second-largest global opening weekend on record.
At home it seized the record outright. Its $360 million bow topped the $357 million logged by Avengers: Endgame. It will clear $1 billion before its first week is out, and it is on track to finish among the biggest films ever released.
3. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, $1.011 billion
The Illumination and Nintendo sequel opened April 1 and needed a bit more than two months to pass $1 billion. It ruled the domestic chart for three weekends and never fell more than 50% across its opening eight.
North America accounts for $429.8 million and international for $581.6 million, with Mexico ($67.7 million), France ($54.1 million), the UK ($51.2 million) and Japan ($49.6 million) carrying the load abroad.
It will fall short of the $1.3 billion The Super Mario Bros. Movie collected. It also held the title of 2026’s biggest release for a long spell before being dethroned.
2. Michael, $1.016 billion
Lionsgate’s Michael Jackson biopic debuted April 24 with a record $97.2 million and has yet to register a weekend drop above 50% across nine weeks in theaters.
It is past $1 billion globally, $643.7 million of it from international markets led by the UK ($71.6 million) and France ($57.7 million). The domestic figure stands at $372.3 million.
Michael ranks as the biggest musician biopic ever made, and it overtook Oppenheimer some time ago to become the top-grossing biopic of any kind.
1. Toy Story 5, $1.06 billion
Pixar’s reunion with Woody and Buzz started with $159.6 million domestically, the strongest opening any Toy Story film has managed and the second-largest debut for a Pixar animated feature behind Incredibles 2.
It sits at $1.06 billion worldwide — $461.6 million domestic, $604.2 million international — and it topped the home chart across its first two weekends.
That makes it the biggest movie of 2026. For the moment. Spider-Man: Brand New Day trails by $128 million with just one week of release behind it, and that math is not remotely close.