11 Highest-Grossing Movies of 2025 (So Far)?

• Chinese animated movie Ne Zha 2 is the highest grossing movie of 2025 so far, bringing in USD$1.9 billion since it launched in January.
• Collectively, the top eleven films of the year so far have made USD$8.9 billion so far.

We’re about halfway through the year, and some of 2025’s biggest movies have already dropped. While there’s still a bunch of fantastic flicks to come in the second half, we want to take a look at what people are watching so far, and take stock of the big winners of 2025 so far.

The results are simultaneously surprising and exactly as you’d expect: big franchises and well-known IP largely crowd the top flicks, but with a few new ideas sprinkled throughout. All following data comes from IMDb’s Box Office Mojo, and is up to date at the time of publishing—though we’ll definitely update the rankings as things change.

We don’t want to waste any more of your time, so here are the 11 highest grossing movies of 2025 so far.

1. Ne Zha 2

Release Date: January 29, 2025
Budget: USD$80,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$23,322,209
International Earnings: USD$1,879,015,124
Worldwide Earnings: USD$11,902,337,333
IMDb Rating: 8.0

Simultaneously the cheapest film to produce on this list, as well as the most profitable, Ne Zha 2 is one of the biggest movies you’ve likely never heard of. While it had a paltry showing in most countries around the world, the movie absolutely killed in China—which makes sense: it’s made in China, for Chinese audiences, and is based on a famous Chinese novel.

In the six-ish months since release, the film has gone on to break basically every record it can, and is now listed as the highest-grossing animated film of all time, beating out fan favourites like Inside Out 2, The Lion King (the new one), Frozen 2, and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

The film follows the titular Ne Zha, and his frenemy Ao Bing, after the conclusion of the original film. Both have lost their bodies after absorbing the destructive heavenly lightning that was fated to obliterate Ne Zha, and after more sacrifices are forced to share a single body for seven days until the pair can complete a set of trials that will return them to individuality. Things are never so simple, of course, and the pair once again get dragged into a fight to save the world.

2. Lilo & Stitch

Release Date: May 21, 2025
Budget: USD$100,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$423,778,855
International Earnings: USD$613,967,307
Worldwide Earnings: USD$1,037,746,162
IMDb Rating: 6.7

If you’re wondering why Disney keeps remaking their classic animated films into quasi-live-action abominations, it’s because they’re making bank doing it. After a bit more than a month in cinemas, the remade Lilo & Stitch has made back its budget nine times over. I mean, it’s no Ne Zha 2, but few things are.

The movie follows the same basic premise as the 2002 original: Stitch escapes the clutches of The Intergalactic Federation after being sentenced to exile. He crash lands on Hawaiian island Kaua’i and is taken in by a little girl, Lilo, and her older sister Nani. Unfortunately for all involved, the Federation has sent Stitch’s creator Dr. Jumba Jookiba and agent Pleakley to track the missing creature down, and all hell breaks loose.

It’s a nice little story about found family, and was successful enough (again) that a sequel is already being worked on, so look forward to more Lilo & Stitch in your future.

3. A Minecraft Movie

Release Date: April 4, 2025
Budget: USD$150,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$423,949,195
International Earnings: USD$534,000,000
Worldwide Earnings: USD$957,949,195
IMDb Rating: 5.6

A movie that by all accounts was pretty bad, A Minecraft Movie still managed to do incredibly well at the cinemas—though some part of that is likely due to the fact it managed to become part of a TikTok trend where people collectively lost their shit at Jack Black’s “chicken jockey” exclamation: throwing popcorn, setting off fire extinguishers, throwing smoke bombs, screaming into the Nether, and even unleashing real-world chickens into the theatre – all filmed for viral attention.

While the filmmakers didn’t see much issue with the trend (of course not, it was getting people into the cinema to watch their film), theatre-owners, locals, and police tended to think differently, and some of these outbursts led to people being seriously injured. No movie is worth hurting other people, especially one as average as this.

Still, we’ll be seeing Another Minecraft Movie soon enough, as a sequel is reportedly in early production.

4. Jurassic World: Rebirth

Release Date: July 2, 2025
Budget: USD$180,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$339,640,400
International Earnings: USD$528,839,113
Worldwide Earnings: USD$868,479,513
IMDb Rating: 5.9

We’ve pretty much seen it all in the Jurassic Park-World universe at this point, right? Dinosaurs on an island, corporate greed, dinosaurs on the mainland, war profiteering, wild and domesticated dinosaurs, and, now, genetically-mutated dinosaurs. It just can’t get any worse for the people that live in this franchise, can it?

At the end of Jurassic World Dominion, revived dinosaurs have escaped any form of captivity and are beginning a new existence as free-range apex predators. Well, the makers of Rebirth released this had all but ensured the eradication of human civilisation, and so added in a clause that the newly freed dinos could only survive along the equator, where climate conditions are close enough to the Mesozoic period to allow them to thrive. This allows people to live on either side of the equator without much fear of death by raptor, but also splits the world by a nice big no-fly-zone.

It’s a really interesting idea that the movie does nothing with, instead focusing on a group of mercenaries protecting a paleontologist as he attempts to retrieve samples from dinosaur eggs which will be key to a new treatment for heart disease. Along the way, the group encounter dinos that were mutated for financial gain and are now far more deadly – as if they needed more advantages.

If you’re after a thrill ride, Rebirth is absolutely going to deliver – it just doesn’t do a lot to change the formula or add to what we already know about this dino-infested world.

5. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle

Release Date: 18 July, 2025
Budget: USD$20,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$133,026,609
International Earnings: USD$541,476,681
Worldwide Earnings: USD$674,503,290
IMDb Rating: 8.5

A direct sequel to the acclaimed anime adaptation, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle is the first in a trilogy of movies primed to complete the Demon Slayer saga. Following a young boy named Tanjiro, whose family is slaughtered by demons (save for his younger sister, who is instead turned into one), the Demon Slayer anime finished up in 2020 after four seasons. It didn’t conclude the story laid out in the original manga, though, leaving room for these movies to pick up the tale.

This film kicks off the final chapter, with the Demon Corps trapped in the titular Infinity Castle – an ever-changing inter-dimensional fortress – with the aim of tracking down the first demon, Muzan Kibutsuji. In order to survive, the Corp will need to face powerful enemies and confront visions of their past, as they inevitably move toward the final battle.

If that sounds like typical anime-fare to you, I wouldn’t blame you, but the film has been widely praised for the high-quality animation, well-scripted fight sequences, and solid effort toward kicking off the end of a fan-favourite franchise.

6. How to Train your Dragon

Release Date: June 9, 2025
Budget: USD$150,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$262,958,100
International Earnings: USD$373,097,156
Worldwide Earnings: USD$636,055,256
IMDb Rating: 7.8

Another live-action remake? You bet – but this one is actually pretty good! When Hiccup Haddock III spares the life of a young dragon (a big no no in his dragon-hating Viking culture), he befriends the beast and names him Toothless. The pair set about ending the war between Viking and Dragon after learning that there is an alpha dragon, the Red Death, forcing the two cultures into clashing.

While it’s tempting to write off every modern remake of a childhood favourite, How to Train your Dragon manages to recapture some of the magic of the 2010 original, though also doesn’t innovate in any real way. If you’ve seen the original, you’ll know exactly what you’re getting here: a coming of age story, mixing with a fantastical tale of acceptance. Plus, dragons.

7. F1: The Movie

Release Date: June 25, 2025
Budget: USD$200,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$189,527,111
International Earnings: USD$440,000,000
Worldwide Earnings: USD$629,527,111
IMDb Rating: 7.7

Perhaps the biggest surprise of 2025 is the fact that Apple’s F1: The Movie actually turned out to be pretty good – taking everything director Joseph Kosinski learned making Top Gun: Maverick to bear on the race track, and delivering us in the audience a legitimate spectacle. Whether you’re one of the people more-recently drawn into the F1 sport by the success of Drive to Survive, or are a bolted-on die-hard, the film will deliver on the highs, lows, twists, and turns that you’re expecting.

Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, an aging former racer who takes up a gig at APXGP – a fading F1 team struggling to get any grip on the grid. While he brings experience to the pit, his much younger teammate, Damson Idris’ Joshua Pearce, isn’t so keen on doing things Hayes’ way. What follows is a fairly rote story of learning to work together for the benefit of the team, yadda yadda – but be honest, we’re all here for the racing, right?

Thankfully, this is where F1: The Movie shines. Filmed on track at famous races like Silverstone, Monza, Las Vegas and Sazuka, and produced by Sir Lewis Hamilton, the film delivers as authentic an experience as you can without literally putting you in the cockpit.

8. Superman

Release Date: July 11, 2025
Budget: USD$225,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$354,184,465
International Earnings: USD$261,800,000
Worldwide Earnings: USD$615,984,465
IMDb Rating: 7.1

Somehow, after years of pretty average cinematic affairs, DC dropped what is probably the best superhero movie of 2025. Granted, it had to poach Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn and effectively give him the ability to rebuild the DC Cinematic Universe as he saw fit, but following the relatively successful launch of Superman it’s fair to say the DCU is on track for the first time in years.

In this 2025 reboot, we see a much more naive Superman than we may be used to. Here, the Man of Steel hasn’t quite been tempered yet, and isn’t as focused on ‘the greater good’ as he is on doing good at all levels. This is reflected perfectly by David Corenswet’s boyish performance, bringing that naivety front and centre.

Unfortunately, there’s a bit too much stuffed into Superman: it’s as if Gunn forgot he wasn’t making an ensemble film and fell back into his old ways. While the movie just about doubled its budget, DC is sure to view this one as a win. In fact, there’s already about 10 movies stuffed into the new DCU. Hooray.

9. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Release Date: May 21, 2025
Budget: USD$400,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$197,156,649
International Earnings: USD$397,100,000
Worldwide Earnings: USD$594,256,649
IMDb Rating: 7.4

While a solid movie overall, the latest entry in the storied Mission: Impossible franchise faced an uphill battle from the beginning due to the absolutely astronomical budget. The Final Reckoning cost approximately USD$400 million to make, which puts it firmly in the list of ‘the most expensive films to make of all time’ at a time where great movies are struggling at the box office.

While the movie did make back its budget, it didn’t earn a sizeable profit on top of that, which is likely to be viewed by Paramount as a bit of a fail. That’s not to say it’s a bad movie—we liked it quite a bit, in fact—but money talks.

If you don’t particularly care about the money side of the equation, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a banger of an action movie, and does bring quite a bit full circle for Ethan Hunt’s story, dating all the way back to the 1996 original.

10. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Release Date: 25 July, 2025
Budget: USD$200,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$274,286,610
International Earnings: USD$247,572,118
Worldwide Earnings: USD$521,858,728
IMDb Rating: 7.0

The latest attempt at getting The Fantastic Four to work on the big screen seems to have gone over quite well, commercially at least, more than doubling its budget and enjoying the second-highest grossing opening day of any film this year. As has been the case with many of Marvel’s more recent outings, however, First Steps didn’t quite have the staying power at the box office, with the film seeing an 80 per cent drop in moviegoers by its second weekend.

The film thankfully avoids retelling the team’s origin story, and instead focuses on The Fantastic Four’s run-in with the Devourer of Worlds, Galactus, and their efforts to stop his plan to—you guessed it—eat Earth. Throw in a bit of Silver Surfer (played excellently by Julia Garner), and a sneaky end-credits Dr. Doom cameo to tease 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday, and you’ve got a pretty good time.

11. The Conjuring: Last Rites

Release Date: 5 September, 2025
Budget: USD$55,000,000
Domestic Earnings: USD$177,402,530
International Earnings: USD$313,600,000
Worldwide Earnings: USD$491,002,530
IMDb Rating: 6.2

Proof that we still love a bit of schlocky horror, The Conjuring franchise (and its numerous spinoffs) has somehow gone from strength to strength over the past decade. And, here in 2025, it’s still delivering the kind of jump scare-laden thrills you’d expect. For better or worse. We may not have loved the movie ourselves, but its hard to deny its popularity—it’s a rare film these days that almost earns nine times its initial budget.

Following the ghost-hunting Loraine and Ed Warren, the film grapples with a demon from the pair’s past latching onto their psychically-gifted daughter, Judy. It’ll be up to the Warrens to figure out how to solve their daughter’s soul, and you can expect it’ll probably involve some supernatural, occult goodness. Maybe an exorcism or two? Who knows, you’ll have to watch it to find out.

The film is billed as a sort-of ending point for the franchise, but after the massive success of Last Rites it wouldn’t take an oracle to expect more from the Warrens—maybe helmed by Judy Warren instead?