The 2010s saw Hollywood blockbusters making bank like never before.
It was a decade of Disney dominance and franchise fever, where pretty much every top-earner
was a sequel to a previous movie — usually one involving a lightsaber or an infinity
stone.
But exactly which movies won out in each year?
Disney kicked off its best-ever decade with the third film in the franchise that changed
animation forever: Toy Story 3.
The original Toy Story launched the series, made Pixar a household name, and became the
biggest grosser of 1995.
Toy Story 2 came out four years later, and earned even more than its predecessor.
With results like that, a third film seemed like a no brainer.
But it would be a whole 11 years before Pixar returned to the series.
While Pixar made billions in the interim, animation fans were still desperate to see
the "conclusion" to the original Pixar series.
And they got their wish when Toy Story 3 opened in 2010.
It was worth the wait, too, as the film earned an amazing 98% Tomatometer score, with a stellar
box office performance to match.
It earned $415 domestically and more than $1 billion worldwide, making Toy Story 3 the
highest-grossing movie released in 2010.
Here's a catch for you, though — it wasn't actually the movie to earn the most money
in 2010.
That honor went to Avatar, which was released in late 2009 — but made $466 million domestically
in the year that followed.
Of course, while Toy Story 3 seemed like the perfect conclusion to the trilogy, everyone
knows by now that you just can't keep a billion-dollar franchise down.
Toy Story 4 was released in 2019, and managed to outperform its predecessor with a worldwide
take of $1.07 billion.
"To infinity…"
"And beyond."
Harry Potter is big business at the box office.
The franchise, consisting of the seven Harry Potter films and the two Fantastic Beasts
prequels, has totalled more than $2.7 billion domestically and nearly $9.2 billion worldwide.
The high point in the franchise came at the very end of its first run with 2011's Harry
Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part II.
Deathly Hallows Part II was pitched as the epic conclusion to the eight-film saga that
had begun ten years before with Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone a movie that had itself
been the highest-grossing movie of 2001.
Surprisingly, the Harry Potter series wouldn't hit numbers like that again until this final
installment.
Anticipation for the movie was at a fever pitch right before release, so much so that
Deathly Hallows Part II set a then-opening weekend record of $169 million, on its way
to a total domestic gross of $381 million and a worldwide gross of $1.3 billion.
All in all, it was a good year to be a boy wizard.
But his reign at the top would be short lived.
It's hard to believe now, but Marvel's grand experiment of a shared cinematic universe
once had an uncertain future at the box office.
Iron Man exceeded all expectations when it opened in 2008, taking a B-level comic book
character and giving him a movie that earned $318 million domestically and $585 million
worldwide.
"Is it better to be feared or respected?
I saw, is it too much to ask for both?"
However, the ensuing MCU films weren't quite as successful.
The Incredible Hulk bombed in 2008 with $134 million domestic and $263 million worldwide,
only barely managing to make back its own budget.
While Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger fared better in 2011, none of these
films really screamed "biggest blockbuster franchise ever."
If anything, The Avengers felt like it might be little more than "Iron Man & Friends."
But movie history had other plans.
The Avengers set a then-opening weekend record of $207 million, becoming the first movie
to open with more than $200 million, and soon ended up with $623 million domestic and $1.5
billion worldwide total.
But as amazing as these numbers were, The Avengers' greatest achievement was giving
the Marvel Cinematic Universe the kick in the tights it needed to become a $22.5 billion
powerhouse.
$22.5 billion and counting, that is.
Disney may have dominated the decade, but in 2013 the biggest hit at the domestic box
office came from a much smaller film studio: Lionsgate.
The studio had previously scored a major coup when it won the rights to Suzanne Collins'
wildly popular novel series The Hunger Games.
The first film launched the franchise in a big way, earning $152 million in its opening
weekend, on its way to $408 million domestic and $694 million worldwide.
Its sequel, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, opened with $158 million, and earned $424
million in the United States and $865 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film
of 2013… but only domestically.
Beyond the U.S., the big winner of 2013 was the surprise Disney animated smash hit, Frozen.
Frozen opened on a one-theater limited release in late 2013 with $243,000, but then legged
its way to $400 million domestic and an incredible $1.27 billion worldwide.
While nobody should ever count out Disney at the box office, Frozen becoming 2013's
biggest hit worldwide was still surprising, given it wasn't a sequel, reboot, or remake
— and wasn't based on a popular pre-existing property, either.
From a wider perspective, 2013 proved that the global box office was more important than
ever, as the biggest domestic hit didn't actually become the biggest hit worldwide a trend that
would continue in the years ahead.
For decades, audiences' movie-going diets have been fattened by sequels, reboots, and
remakes.
Given this movie-going landscape, American Sniper was a genuine milestone in 2014.
It was the first original property since 2011 to top the domestic box office, and the only
movie this century to do so that wasn't a big-budget, CG-infused blockbuster.
This achievement is all the more impressive considering the movie was also given an R
rating.
That said, American Sniper's status as "2014's biggest movie" is a bit of a misnomer, since
it actually made most of its money in 2015.
The movie first opened in limited release in December 2014, making a little more than
$633,000 in just four theaters.
It opened wide in January 2015 with an incredible $92 million, and continued to leg it out to
a $350 million domestic haul.
And while American Sniper was the number one hit domestically, its total worldwide take
didn't even secure it a spot in the top ten.
The year's biggest worldwide hit was, unsurprisingly, a franchise picture Transformers: Age of Extinction.
The fourth film in the Transformers series made a so-so $245 million domestically, but
it was big business overseas, with a total worldwide take of just a little more than
$1.1 billion.
American Sniper may have been an historic achievement stateside, but worldwide, Chris
Kyle couldn't top the bots.
Disney purchased LucasFilm in 2012 for $4 billion, and they didn't do it just to re-release
the Star Wars Holiday Special on Blu-ray.
No, the Mouse House was on a serious mission: to resurrect the beloved franchise from a
galaxy far, far away.
Inevitably, Star Wars: The Force Awakens became one of the most anticipated films of the century.
Fans had waited decades to see what happened to Han, Luke, Leia, and the gang after the
Empire had fallen in 1983's Return of the Jedi.
This would be the first Star Wars film in 10 years too, as well as the first that wasn't
a prequel in 32 years.
It'd also be the first ever that wasn't led by series creator George Lucas.
While the original Star Wars helped invent the summer movie season, this would be the
first film in the franchise to open during the holiday season.
This turned out to be a brilliant move.
The Force Awakens opened like a summer blockbuster with a then-record $247 million, but had the
legs of a holiday release.
By the end of its run, the movie had earned $936 million stateside to become not only
the number one domestic release of 2015, but the then-biggest domestic hit of all time.
The Force was strong overseas, too, as the film earned just over $2 billion globally,
making it the biggest hit worldwide of 2015.
Almost inevitably, Disney won 2016 too, with the biggest box office hit both domestically
and worldwide though those were different movies.
Captain America: Civil War kicked things off, opening in the spring of 2016 and pitting
Cap against Iron Man in a franchise-shaking fight to the death.
Adding Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark to the movie proved to be a big boon to the film's
box office, as Civil War opened to $179 million, nearly twice as much as its predecessor, The
Winter Soldier.
The movie managed a massive $408 million domestic gross, and more importantly, made a grand
total of $1.15 billion quickly becoming the biggest global box office hit of 2016.
After Star Wars: The Force Awakens' historic run during the 2015 holiday season, Disney
wisely chose to release Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in December 2016.
Rogue One was the first Star Wars movie that wasn't part of the main Skywalker Saga, but
moviegoers were nonetheless ravenous for more.
The movie opened to $155 million, on its way to a $532 million domestic take, and just
over $1 billion worldwide, making it the biggest domestic hit of 2016 and number two worldwide.
The battle for box office supremacy was no longer a fight between rival studios; it was
a fight between rival Disney properties.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
Before the year even began, the biggest box office hit of 2017 was practically a given:
Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
It was just a matter of how much money Rian Johnson's followup to The Force Awakens would
make.
That said, 2017 featured strong performances from several other films.
Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast remake opened in the spring, earning $504
million domestically and $1.26 billion worldwide.
The Fate of the Furious opened in the summer, earning a respectable $226 million domestically
but making an insane $1.2 billion worldwide, becoming the year's biggest international
hit by a pretty sizable margin.
You can't stop destiny though, and Star Wars was destined to dominate.
"Not now [...]"
The Last Jedi opened during the 2017 holiday season with $220 million less than its predecessor,
but that wasn't too surprising given it wasn't preceded by decades of pent-up demand.
It's possible that a divided response from moviegoers and a stronger-than-expected performance
from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle didn't exactly help, either.
But the film made $620 million domestically and $1.3 billion worldwide, making it easily
the biggest hit of the year.
And that's not so bad, is it?
The only Star Wars movie released in 2018 somehow managed to tank at the box office,
so it soon became pretty obvious that a Marvel movie would take the year's top spot.
However, the Marvel movie that won the day domestically was a bit of a surprise.
Black Panther opened in February, a season not typically known for blockbuster releases,
and rode a wave of awesome reviews and positive sentiment to score a mammoth $202 million
on its opening weekend.
Black Panther wasn't a one-weekend wonder either, as it continued to leg it out, earning
a historic $700 million domestically and $1.3 billion worldwide.
Black Panther was the biggest domestic hit of 2018 and is one of only a handful of movies
ever to earn more than $700 million at the domestic box office.
But while that movie was an historic surprise, the biggest worldwide earner was a given.
Avengers: Infinity War was the beginning of the sort-of-end for the most successful franchise
of all time, bringing together a range of characters from across the entire MCU.
With anticipation at a fever pitch, Infinity War set the then-opening weekend record with
$257 million.
The movie couldn't quite match Black Panther's runaway success at the domestic box office,
though it still earned a mammoth $678 million stateside.
And with a global take of just over $2 billion, it was the biggest hit of the year worldwide
by far.
After Infinity War's shocking cliffhanger ending, Disney made a shrewd decision with
the marketing for the movie's follow-up.
Fans didn't even know the film's title until a few months before its release, and the trailers
revealed practically nothing about the story only that the story's remaining heroes would
do "whatever it takes" to stop Thanos.
"I am inevitable."
This mysterious marketing campaign paid off in spades.
While it was set in stone that Avengers: Endgame would break records, not even the most optimistic
observers could predict that the movie would obliterate the opening weekend record set
by its predecessor, earning $357 million domestically, and more than $1.2 billion worldwide.
A midsummer expansion propelled Endgame's final gross to $858 million domestically and
an incredible $2.79 billion worldwide.
Its combined total makes it not only the biggest hit of 2019 stateside and worldwide, but the
highest-grossing film of all time, too.
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