The Biggest Opening Weekends of All Time — Updated After Spider-Man: Brand New Day

31 July 2026, and the first change at the top of this chart since 2019. What makes it remarkable is the base it was built on: Endgame was the payoff of a twenty-two-film crossover, whereas this is the fourth solo Spider-Man film with the same lead. Sony and Marvel got there on the strength of No Way Home's goodwill and a marketing campaign that gave away almost nothing. Still in cinemas.

The record-holder from April 2019 until July 2026, and still the biggest global opening ever at $1.223 billion — a mark Brand New Day did not take. Endgame is the high-water mark of the entire franchise era: eleven years of setup, an audience that had to see it opening weekend to avoid spoilers, and a three-hour runtime that limited showings and did not matter at all.

December 2021, in the middle of a pandemic that had convinced a lot of executives the theatrical business was structurally finished. $260 million in three days ended that conversation. It is the film that made the 2026 record possible — the goodwill Brand New Day monetised was generated here. Streaming in India on JioHotstar and SonyLIV.

The one that ends with half the cast turning to dust, which is the most commercially audacious thing a $300 million film has ever done — and the reason Endgame opened the way it did a year later. $257.7 million in April 2018, from an audience that had been told for a decade this was coming.

December 2015, and for three and a half years the biggest opening ever recorded. It is also the last Star Wars film to open anywhere near this level — the franchise has not put a film in the top fifteen since, which is the clearest evidence available that opening weekends measure anticipation rather than affection.

$220 million two years later, and then the most divisive reception any modern blockbuster has had. The opening was banked before any of that started, which is exactly the point of an opening weekend: it is the last number a studio can control.

July 2024, and the biggest R-rated opening in history by a very wide margin — $211 million, against a previous R-rated record of around $130 million. It is the film that proved a hard rating is not a ceiling, a lesson The Odyssey collected on two years later.

The only non-Marvel, non-Star Wars entry in the top ten, and the one that aged into a genuine surprise — a fourth Jurassic Park film, fourteen years after the third, opening to $208.8 million in June 2015. Nothing in the franchise since has come within $80 million of it.

May 2012, $207.4 million, and the moment the modern box office record book starts. Before this, the record was The Dark Knight's $158 million. The Avengers added fifty million dollars to the ceiling in a single weekend and set the template every film above it on this list is working from.

February 2018 — not a summer date, not a Christmas date, and $202 million anyway, which at the time was the biggest February opening by more than $100 million. It also held better than anything else on this list, finishing at $700 million domestically from a $202 million start.

Jon Favreau's photorealistic remake, July 2019, $191.8 million — the biggest opening ever for an animated or animation-adjacent film, and a number Disney has not approached with a remake since. The reviews were poor and the gross was $1.66 billion, which is the whole story of the live-action remake programme in one line.

$191.3 million in May 2015, and the last of the four Avengers films to make this list — all four are in the top thirteen, which no other franchise has managed with a single sub-series. Age of Ultron is also the one nobody defends, which has stopped mattering entirely.