2026 movie release dates month by month, with verified box office totals. Five films have passed a billion dollars, Spider-Man: Brand New Day owns the biggest opening weekend in history, and Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three still share 18 December. Updated 9 November 2026.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Opens the Year
The 2026 calendar opened with genre films rather than tentpoles. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple arrived on 16 January, with Return to Silent Hill and Mercy following on 23 January and Netflix releasing The Rip and The Big Fake across the same month. Not one January title finished among the year's ten highest grossers. The studios held their franchise releases until April, which left the first six weeks to horror, book adaptations and streaming premieres.
Wuthering Heights Opens Big Overseas and Fades at Home
Emerald Fennell's adaptation opened over Valentine's Day weekend and took $37.5 million across four days to finish first domestically. Then it collapsed. The domestic run ended at $83.9 million while overseas audiences carried it to $157.6 million, or 65.2% of the $241.6 million worldwide total. Britain alone supplied $34.3 million, with Australia at $14.5 million and Italy at $12.8 million. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi drew the crowds abroad. At home the film left the conversation within a fortnight of release.
Pegasus 3 Takes $653.9 Million from China Alone
Most readers of a 2026 box office list have never heard of the year's fifth-highest-grossing film. Pegasus 3 opened on Chinese New Year and took $653.9 million in China out of a $656.4 million worldwide total. The American gross was $1.3 million, and the racing sequel reached only five territories outside China. The first two entries made $255.5 million and $422.3 million there, so the third nearly matched both combined and handed 2026 its largest single-market result.
Scream 7 and Mortal Kombat II Set Franchise Records
Scream 7 opened on 27 February alongside Dreams and the concert film EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. Both Scream and Mortal Kombat, whose second instalment followed on 8 May, went on to post the highest worldwide grosses in their respective franchises. Neither cracked the year's top ten, which says more about where the bar sat than about the films: tenth place required $220.6 million by mid-June.
Pixar's Hoppers Opens Spring at $45.3 Million
Spring is where the 2026 box office started in earnest. Pixar's Hoppers opened on 6 March to $45.3 million, held first place in its second weekend, and finished on $166 million domestically and $389.7 million worldwide. International audiences supplied $223.7 million of that, led by Britain, Germany, Japan and Mexico. Among Pixar originals it ranks second since Coco in 2017, behind Elemental.
Project Hail Mary Becomes Amazon MGM's Biggest Film
Ryan Gosling's adaptation of the Andy Weir novel opened to $80.5 million and then refused to drop. Not until its eleventh weekend in theatres did Project Hail Mary lose more than 42 percent of the previous week's business. It has finished on $684.3 million worldwide, split almost exactly down the middle at $344.1 million domestic against $340.3 million international. That makes it Amazon MGM's biggest release and Gosling's second-biggest film, and it clears the other Weir adaptation, The Martian, on $630.6 million.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Reaches $1 Billion
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie opened on 1 April and needed a little over two months to clear a billion dollars. Illumination and Nintendo have finished on $1.0125 billion, $429.8 million domestic and $582.7 million abroad, with Mexico, France, Britain and Japan leading overseas. It spent three weekends at number one and avoided a drop of more than 50 percent across its first eight. The 2023 Super Mario Bros. Movie still holds the franchise record at $1.3 billion.
Michael Becomes the First Billion-Dollar Biopic
Antoine Fuqua's Michael opened to $97.2 million, a record for a music biopic, and kept going. Twelve weekends later it crossed a billion dollars, and now stands at $1.021 billion, splitting $649.1 million overseas against $372.3 million at home. That makes it Lionsgate's first billion-dollar release and the first biopic of any kind to reach the mark, passing Oppenheimer on the way. Jaafar Jackson, the singer's nephew, plays Michael Jackson in his first acting role, with Colman Domingo and Nia Long as Joe and Katherine Jackson.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 Starts Summer on 1 May
Summer opened a month early. Disney put The Devil Wears Prada 2 into theatres on 1 May, reviving a Fox title, and took $76.7 million in its first weekend before holding number one for a second. Overseas the sequel did the heavy lifting: $472.3 million of a $692.8 million worldwide total, with Britain ($45 million), Italy ($37.1 million), Brazil ($32.8 million), Germany ($32.3 million) and Japan ($30.4 million) at the front. Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway and Stanley Tucci all returned. The domestic total is $220.6 million, and the film is sixth for the year.
Obsession Earns More in Its Fourth Weekend Than Its First
Curry Barker's low-budget horror film opened on 15 May to $17.1 million, a number nobody would call a hit. Its second weekend brought $23.9 million, its third $27.3 million, its fourth $25.3 million, which still beat the opening. Obsession has reached $505.7 million worldwide, $263.5 million of it domestic. It is the tenth-biggest film of the year and it made more in its fourth weekend than most horror films make in their first.
The Mandalorian and Grogu Posts Star Wars' Lowest Live-Action Opening
Star Wars returned to cinemas after seven years away and set a franchise record nobody wanted. The Mandalorian and Grogu took $98 million over the extended Memorial Day weekend, the lowest opening for any live-action Star Wars film, then fell 70.1 percent in its second weekend. It has finished on $345.8 million worldwide, $177.7 million domestic and $168.1 million international, the smallest box office of any live-action entry in the saga.
Backrooms Gives A24 Its Biggest Opening Weekend
Kane Parsons began The Backrooms as a series of creepypasta videos on YouTube. A24 turned it into a film, released it on 29 May, and watched it open to $81.4 million domestically, the largest opening in the studio's history. The second weekend fell 67.7 percent. It has still finished on $393.2 million worldwide, $197.5 million of it domestic, comfortably past Timothée Chalamet's ping pong drama Marty Supreme as A24's biggest earner.
Toy Story 5 Opens to $160 Million and Ends Past a Billion
Pixar's fifth Toy Story opened on 19 June to $160 million domestically, the biggest debut of 2026 to that point. It dropped 56 percent in weekend two and still held number one. It has since passed a billion dollars, finishing on $1.137 billion, with $479 million domestic and $657.6 million international. It is the third-biggest film of the year and Pixar's second billion-dollar release.
Supergirl Opens to $38 Million and $68 Million Worldwide
DC Studios opened Supergirl on 26 June against a Toy Story sequel in its second weekend, and lost. Milly Alcock's debut as the character took $38 million domestically and $68 million worldwide, $30 million of that from 77 international markets. The domestic figure came in under Marvel's weakest opening, The Marvels at $46.1 million, and close to Joker: Folie à Deux at $37.6 million. Reported production cost ran between $170 million and $186 million before global marketing.
Minions & Monsters Opens the July Corridor and Takes $513 Million
July is the month American exhibitors count on, and Illumination opened it. Minions & Monsters, the seventh Despicable Me film and third Minions spin-off, arrived on Wednesday 1 July. Pierre Coffin directs from a Brian Lynch screenplay, dropping the yellow henchmen into 1920 Old Hollywood where they try to make a monster movie of their own. Trey Parker, Allison Janney, Christoph Waltz, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeff Bridges and Zoey Deutch voice it. It has taken $513.5 million worldwide, $182.9 million of that domestic. Ninth for the year, and well short of the $970 million Despicable Me 4 managed in 2024.
The Live-Action Moana Finishes on $315 Million
Disney's live-action Moana landed on 10 July, a decade after the animated original and opposite Warner Bros. horror sequel Evil Dead Burn. Thomas Kail directs, Catherine Laga'aia plays Moana, Dwayne Johnson returns as Maui, and Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote new songs to sit beside the ones audiences already know. The comparison points were always unforgiving and the film did not survive them. It has taken $315.4 million worldwide, $126.1 million domestic. The Lion King remake opened to more than that in a single weekend. Fourteenth for the year.
The Odyssey Gives Nolan His Biggest Film
Christopher Nolan shot The Odyssey entirely on IMAX 70mm cameras, the first feature to do so, filming across Morocco, Greece, Italy, Scotland, Iceland and Malta. It opened on 17 July to $123.5 million domestically and $263.7 million worldwide, the largest global opening of his career, with IMAX supplying $51.8 million. The 70mm prints alone, playing on the 41 such screens that exist anywhere in the world, took around $6.1 million in the opening frame, 5 percent of all tickets sold at an average price near $22.50. It has since reached $1.559 billion worldwide, $569.9 million domestic against $989.4 million international. That is second for the year, the biggest film of Nolan's career by a distance, and it clears Oppenheimer and The Dark Knight Rises together.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Breaks the Opening-Weekend Record
The forecasters had disagreed with each other by more than $100 million. Boxoffice Pro said $280 to $300 million domestic, Box Office Theory capped it at $274 million, and Sony's own internal number was $190 to $195 million. All three were low. Tom Holland's fourth solo film opened on Friday 31 July and took $360 million over three days, beating Avengers: Endgame by $2.9 million to become the biggest domestic opening weekend ever recorded. Opening day, previews included, was $168 million against Endgame's $157.4 million. The worldwide opening was around $930 million, second only to Endgame. It has since passed Titanic. The running total is $2.34 billion, $898.1 million domestic and $1.442 billion international, and it is the biggest film of 2026 by nearly $800 million. Destin Daniel Cretton directs, and it is the first major feature shot for ScreenX, with extra footage covering that format's 270-degree wrap.
Coyote vs. Acme Reaches Cinemas Three Years After Being Shelved
Warner Bros. Discovery shelved Coyote vs. Acme in November 2023 to claim a tax write-off. Public backlash reversed the decision, the filmmakers went looking for a buyer, and Ketchup Entertainment acquired the rights in March 2025 for a reported sum around $50 million. It opened on 28 August. Dave Green directs the live-action and animation hybrid, with John Cena, Will Forte, Lana Condor and P.J. Byrne, following an unemployed coyote who uncovers a corporate cover-up at ACME. It took $15.5 million domestically and $23.9 million worldwide, second on the domestic chart and fifth globally, behind a Spider-Man film in its fifth weekend. The reviews were 95 percent positive and the audience score was an A CinemaScore. For a film a studio wrote off as worth more unreleased, that is the whole argument settled in one weekend.
The Year So Far, With Four Months Left
Five films released in 2026 have passed a billion dollars, against two at the end of June. In order: Spider-Man: Brand New Day on $2.34 billion, The Odyssey on $1.559 billion, Toy Story 5 on $1.137 billion, Michael on $1.021 billion and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on $1.013 billion. Below them the year looks nothing like the forecasts. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is sixth on $692.8 million, a sequel to a twenty-year-old film that earned 68 percent of its money outside the United States. Project Hail Mary is seventh. Pegasus 3, which almost nobody outside China has seen, is eighth on $641.1 million. A $17 million horror opening, Obsession, is tenth on $505.7 million. Another Chinese film, Kung Fu Soccer, sits fifteenth on $306.9 million without selling a single American ticket. Two of the three biggest films of the year were made from material more than two and a half thousand years old or forty years old. The one original idea in the top ten cost less than most marketing budgets. December still holds two more.
Practical Magic 2 Opens Below Its Tracking
Warner Bros opened Practical Magic 2 on 11 September, with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman back as the Owens sisters twenty-eight years after the first film. It took $30.0 million in its first weekend in North America. Tracking had it above $40 million. It was still number one, which says more about the weekend than the film. The next weekend it fell 59 per cent, to $12.1 million, for $50 million in total. That same week Spider-Man: Brand New Day passed the $936.6 million that Star Wars: The Force Awakens took in the United States and Canada, and became the highest-grossing film ever released there. It had been out seven weeks.
Resident Evil Opens to $60 Million
Zach Cregger's Resident Evil opened on 18 September and took $60 million from 3,684 theatres in North America, the best start in the franchise's 24 years and the best of Cregger's career. The previous franchise record, Resident Evil: Afterlife in 2010, opened on $26.7 million and finished its whole domestic run on $60.1 million. The film cost $75 million. It follows a medical courier through a hospital outbreak and features no major character from the games. Critics gave it 96 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. It also carried horror past its 2017 total, to about $1.166 billion in North America for the year, and the domestic box office stood at $7.6 billion, 18 per cent ahead of the same point in 2025. DC's Clayface, once dated for September, now opens on 23 October. Disney put Avengers: Endgame back on screens a week later.
Endgame Comes Back With Two Minutes of New Footage
Avengers: Endgame Encore opened on 25 September, seven years and five months after the original release, with about two minutes of new footage bridging the film to Avengers: Doomsday in December, and extra material in premium formats under Disney's InfinityVision branding. Marvel is selling it as required viewing for the sequel. It went out against the second weekend of Resident Evil, and the trade forecasts had both in the mid to high twenties of millions, which would make the rerelease of a 2019 film one of the three biggest titles in the market. Endgame is third all time in North America on $858 million and second worldwide on $2.799 billion. The actual weekend figures land on 28 September.
Verity Opens at Number One
Amazon MGM opened Verity on 2 October, the Michael Showalter adaptation of the Colleen Hoover thriller, with Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett. It took $32.0 million from 3,510 theatres in North America, on a reported budget of $40 million. Resident Evil made $12.6 million in its third weekend and reached $125.0 million. A week later Verity fell by almost two thirds, to $12.0 million.
Other Mommy Wins the Weekend, The Social Reckoning Does Not
Universal opened Other Mommy, a Blumhouse Atomic Monster horror film with Jessica Chastain, on 9 October. It took $27.8 million from 3,365 theatres on a budget of about $19 million, and audiences gave it a D+ CinemaScore. The Aaron Sorkin film The Social Reckoning, with Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg, took $5.0 million from 2,606 theatres. It cost about $30 million. The Social Network opened to more than $22 million in 2010. The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender, once dated for cinemas the same day, went to Paramount+ instead. The domestic box office for the year passed $8 billion that Friday, up 19 per cent on 2025.
Mid-October, Still Five
The same five 2026 releases are past a billion dollars, in the same order as in September: Spider-Man: Brand New Day on $2.514 billion, The Odyssey on $1.784 billion, Toy Story 5 on $1.148 billion, Michael on $1.021 billion and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on $1.013 billion. In North America Spider-Man has taken $957.5 million. It passed The Force Awakens in the week after 18 September and is now the highest-grossing film ever released in the United States and Canada. Sixth place is still The Devil Wears Prada 2, on $693.5 million, with Project Hail Mary $9 million behind it.
Street Fighter Anchors an October of Game Adaptations
Paramount's Street Fighter opens on 16 October with Andrew Koji in the cast, sharing the date with Whalefall. The week before, The Social Reckoning and Other Mommy opened on 9 October, and The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender went to Paramount+ instead of cinemas. Video game adaptations had already proved themselves twice in 2026 by that point: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie passed $1 billion in April, and Mortal Kombat II gave its franchise the best worldwide result in the series in May.
Street Fighter Wins, and a Three-Hour Documentary Comes Second
Paramount opened Street Fighter, with Callina Liang, Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji, on 16 October to an estimated $31 million from 3,575 theatres in North America and $51 million worldwide. It cost a reported $82 million. Disney's Whalefall, a $60 million survival thriller with Josh Brolin, took $8 million and came fourth. Second place went to You Can See Everything, the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, with $15 million from 855 screens. AP called it the biggest opening for a film on fewer than 1,000 screens since Borat in 2006. Other Mommy fell to third with $8.4 million in its second weekend. All figures are Sunday estimates.
Clayface Wins by $4.5 Million, the Documentary Grows
Warner Bros. and DC Studios opened Clayface, with Tom Rhys Harries, on 23 October to $24 million from 3,458 theatres in North America, first place on a reported $44 million budget. Laika’s Wildwood, directed by Travis Knight, took $11.8 million in third on a $100 million budget, more than double the studio’s previous opening. In between sat You Can See Everything. A24 widened the Elizabeth Holmes documentary from 855 screens to 2,655 and it took $19.5 million, more than its opening, for $45.1 million in ten days. Street Fighter fell 72% to $8.6 million. All figures are Sunday estimates.
A Documentary Wins Halloween
On the Halloween weekend of 30 October to 1 November, You Can See Everything, the A24 documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, moved to first place with an estimated 11 million dollars, down about 40%, ahead of Clayface at 10.5 million, down about 55%, and Wildwood at 7.5 million. The openers were small: the BTS concert film World Tour Arirang took about 3 million from 1,010 screens and Sony Pictures Classics' The Only Living Pickpocket in New York about 2 million. The same weekend in 2025, when Halloween also fell on a Friday, totalled 57.4 million. All figures are Sunday estimates.
Godzilla Minus Zero Takes the Weekend
On the weekend of 6 to 8 November, Godzilla Minus Zero opened first with an estimated 31.6 million dollars from 3,254 theaters, the biggest domestic opening for a foreign-language live-action film, according to Boxoffice Pro. GKIDS released it, and IMAX and premium screens supplied 74% of the gross. Warner Bros.' The Cat in the Hat opened second with 20.5 million from 4,003 theaters, the widest release of the weekend, and Drummer Boy third with 9.3 million. You Can See Everything, the Holmes documentary, reached 79.8 million dollars in its 24th day. All films together took about 121.7 million, 39.6% more than the same weekend in 2025. These are Sunday studio estimates.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping Returns to Panem
Francis Lawrence directs his fifth Hunger Games film, opening 20 November. Sunrise on the Reaping goes back 24 years before the first story, to the morning of the reaping for the 50th Games and the Second Quarter Quell. Joseph Zada, an Australian actor aged 20, plays young Haymitch Abernathy. Whitney Peak plays Lenore Dove Baird, a relative of Lucy Gray. Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes, Elle Fanning and McKenna Grace appear alongside them. Lionsgate dropped a surprise teaser in November 2025 and a full trailer in April 2026.
Narnia Opens in IMAX Only, a Month Before Netflix
Greta Gerwig's Chronicles of Narnia adaptation, The Magician's Nephew, opens on 26 November in IMAX and nowhere else. The run covers around 1,000 screens across 90 countries for two weeks, the largest theatrical release Netflix has ever arranged, before the film moves to the service on 25 December. Gerwig had pushed for a cinema window, and the IMAX arrangement became a reference point in the wider argument between streamers and exhibitors. She is signed to write and direct at least two Narnia films.
Dunesday: Avengers Doomsday and Dune Part Three Share 18 December
Two of the year's biggest films open on the same Friday, a date the trade press now calls Dunesday. Avengers: Doomsday runs 165 minutes, the Russo brothers' first Marvel film since Endgame, moved from its original May 2026 slot. Marvel confirmed Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom at Comic-Con in July 2026, with Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal on the same panel. Dune: Part Three has booked IMAX screens for its first three weeks in the United States, which leaves Doomsday without IMAX in that window. Denis Villeneuve's film began selling 70mm tickets in April, one show a day at 19 locations, eight months ahead of release.