Every Box Office Record That Fell in 2026 — and the Films That Broke Them

The record everyone assumed was untouchable. Endgame's $357.1 million opening in 2019 was the culmination of eleven years and twenty-one films; Brand New Day beat it by about $3 million on 31 July 2026 with what is, structurally, the fourth entry in one character's solo series. It then took $1 billion worldwide in six days — the second-fastest ever — posted a $42 million Tuesday, which is the biggest single Tuesday ever recorded in the US, and passed $1.7 billion by mid-August to become the tenth-highest-grossing film ever released. Its global debut of $932 million is the second-biggest in history behind Endgame.

A three-hour R-rated adaptation of Homer opened to $263.8 million worldwide — the biggest global debut of Christopher Nolan's career — and has since passed $1.12 billion, overtaking The Dark Knight Rises ($1.085 billion) as his highest-grossing film. That makes it the first Nolan billion-dollar film that is not a Batman picture, the highest-grossing R-rated release of 2026, and the biggest hit of Matt Damon's, Anne Hathaway's and Robert Pattinson's careers. It is also the first feature ever shot entirely with IMAX 70mm film cameras, which is the record most likely to still be interesting in twenty years.

Antoine Fuqua's Michael Jackson film, with Jaafar Jackson playing his uncle, did something no biopic has ever done: cross $1 billion. It opened to $97 million domestically and $217 million worldwide, obliterating the music-biopic opening record Straight Outta Compton had held since 2015, and finished as the highest-grossing biopic of all time ahead of Oppenheimer. It is also Lionsgate's first billion-dollar film in the studio's history. Reviews were mixed to poor, which turned out to be entirely beside the point.

Twenty years after the original, a sequel nobody in 2006 would have predicted opened to $233.6 million worldwide — $77 million of it domestic — and finished with $691.9 million, roughly double what the first film made in its entire run. It pushed the two-film franchise past $1 billion combined. The wider record it set is a category one: this is now the highest-grossing live-action comedy sequel of the modern era, in a genre studios had spent a decade insisting was dead theatrically.

Pixar's fifth Toy Story crossed $1 billion and is the third film of 2026 to do it, which matters mostly as evidence that the studio's post-pandemic problem was distribution rather than demand — three of its previous features went straight to Disney+ and were then blamed for underperforming. A $472 million domestic run puts it comfortably ahead of Toy Story 4's domestic total.

The second Illumination-Nintendo film cleared $1 billion, which makes Mario the only video game property with two billion-dollar films. It did it with a lower domestic take than the 2023 original and a materially larger international one — the pattern of the whole year. Already streaming in India on JioHotstar, which makes it the most-watchable entry on this list.

The year's first genuine hit, out in March, and the one that suggested 2026 was going to be unusual. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's adaptation of Andy Weir's novel, with Ryan Gosling, finished at $684 million on a near-even domestic/international split — rare for original science fiction, and the biggest opening for a non-franchise original since Oppenheimer. Streaming in India on Prime Video.

The record that says the most about where the business is going. Han Han's Chinese racing sequel took $656 million worldwide — of which $1.37 million came from North America. It is the eighth-biggest film of the year and it is, to all practical purposes, a domestic Chinese release. Half a dozen films now do this annually, and none of them register on the conversation Hollywood has about itself.