Every Highest-Grossing Animated Movie & How Long It Held The Record

Animated movies have a long history of dominating at the box office, but only a handful of them have ever held the record for being the highest-grossing animated movie. The history of animated movies goes back to the late 1800s, but box office data, in general, did not start to become available until the early 1920s. Over the decades, the genre has grown in popularity as innovative and original stories are routinely made in animation, while the most successful often lead to franchises or live-action remakes. It is common for several major animated movies to be released every year and be among the highest-grossing movies of the year.

The overall success of the genre has resulted in over 10 animated movies grossing over $1 billion at the box office in history. However, not every one of these releases will go down in the record books for being the highest-grossing animated movie at any point in time. The reality is that the history of the genre goes back much further than the days when billion-dollar movies were possible. It should come as no surprise that Disney has dominated the field in this realm, with Pixar and DreamWorks also contributing to the history of animated movies at the box office (via Box Office Mojo).

9 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

$418 Million Box Office Total

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Director

David Hand , Perce Pearce , William Cottrell , Larry Morey , Wilfred Jackson , Ben Sharpsteen

Release Date

December 21, 1937

Writers

Ted Sears , Richard Creedon , Otto Englander , Dick Rickard , Earl Hurd , Merrill de Maris , Dorothy Ann Blank , Webb Smith

Cast

Adriana Caselotti , Roy Atwell , Pinto Colvig

Runtime

83 Minutes

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is largely considered to be the first animated movie to hold the genre’s highest-grossing record. Although a variety of animated movies were released before Disney’s first animated movie in 1937, box office data is not widely available for the earlier releases, and many of the movies have since been lost. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a massive success for Disney upon its release, as it made $66.5 million during its original run. The studio routinely re-released the movie every few years to add to its box office total. This has led to a discrepancy in what Snow White‘s box office total is.

Major box office tracking sites like Box Office Mojo and The Numbers have the movie making between $184-187 million in its lifetime worldwide. However, Henry Wilhelm’s book known as The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides, and Motion Pictures noted that the re-releases over the decades had brought the gross to $375 million by 1987. If that is true, then Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs‘ box office stood at over $418 million by 1993, which was the last time Disney re-released their first animated movie domestically.

Related

Disney’s Snow White Created A Strategy That Hollywood Still Follows 85 Years Later

Disney’s beloved original animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs set a standard in the 1930s that still holds up with modern movie releases.

The performance of the movie during re-releases looks to have been enough to keep Snow White at the top of the highest-grossing animated movies list for decades. While Disney released several other movies that performed well after 1937, the likes of Bambi, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and others did not make enough to even possibly beat Snow White through their own re-releases until many years later. For that reason, Snow White held the record for nearly 55 years, which is easily the longest amount of time of the remaining movies.

8 Aladdin (1992)

$504 Million Box Office Total

Aladdin (1992)

Director

Ron Clements , John Musker

Release Date

November 11, 1992

Writers

Ron Clements , John Musker , Ted Elliott , Terry Rossio , Ed Gombert , Burny Mattinson

Cast

Scott Weinger , Robin Williams , Linda Larkin , Jonathan Freeman , Frank Welker , Gilbert Gottfried , Brad Kane , Lea Salonga

Runtime

90 Minutes

Aladdin became the next highest-grossing animated movie ever upon its release in 1992. The movie made $504 million worldwide over the course of its theatrical run. This included setting other records for Disney like becoming the first feature-length animated movie to make over $200 million domestically and becoming the highest-grossing movie of 1992. Aladdin ultimately held on to the biggest animated movie box office record for less than two years, as it did not officially surpass Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs‘ gross until 1993, and Disney managed to beat itself by the following year. Its no wonder Disney remade Aladdin decades later.

7 The Lion King (1994)

$978.9 Million Box Office Total

The Lion King (1994)

Director

Roger Allers , Rob Minkoff

Release Date

June 24, 1994

Writers

Linda Woolverton , Jonathan Roberts , Irene Mecchi

Cast

Matthew Broderick , Moira Kelly , Nathan Lane , Ernie Sabella , Robert Guillaume

Runtime

88 Minutes

Disney broke the record again with the release of The Lion King in 1994. The heralded animated movie became a massive hit immediately upon its release. The Lion King grossed $763 million worldwide over the course of 1994. $312.8 million of this total came from domestic audiences alone, which was good enough for Disney to have the second-biggest movie domestically that year. The remaining $450.6 million came from international audiences.

The Lion King added to its box office record total in 2002 with an IMAX re-release. The movie made another $19.4 million, giving it a new total of $782.9 million worldwide. Although this was the gross that The Lion King had when it lost the animated movie box office record after nine years, its total has continued to climb in the years since. 2011 saw Disney re-release the movie in 3D, and another $185.5 million was made around the world. As it currently stands, The Lion King has made $978.9 million worldwide, which is higher than the next few entries, but not enough to reclaim the record by 2011.

6 Finding Nemo (2003)

$941.6 Million Box Office Total

Finding Nemo

Director

Andrew Stanton , Lee Unkrich

Release Date

May 30, 2003

Writers

Andrew Stanton , Bob Peterson , David Reynolds

Cast

Albert Brooks , Ellen DeGeneres , Alexander Gould , Willem Dafoe , Brad Garrett , Allison Janney

Finding Nemo topped the all-time box office list for animated movies upon its release in 2003. Coming out the year after The Lion King‘s IMAX re-release, the $782.9 million total became the benchmark that Pixar needed to clear to secure the record for the first time. Following a $70 million opening weekend domestically, it went on to make $339.7 million domestically and another $531.3 million internationally as audiences saw Finding Nemo‘s ending. The final result was Finding Nemo‘s box office making just over $871 million worldwide, which was almost $100 million more than the previous record.

Like The Lion King, Finding Nemo‘s total gross climbed in the years after it secured and then lost the record after only a year. Although it was no longer the highest-grossing animated movie by 2012, Pixar and Disney re-released Finding Nemo in 3D that year. The result was the movie making another $69.3 million around the world. This raised Finding Nemo‘s overall gross to $941.6 million, which is where it remains. It now sits behind The Lion King in the all-time box office charts despite previously passing it.

5 Shrek 2 (2004)

$932.3 Million Box Office Total

Shrek 2

Director

Kelly Asbury , Andrew Adamson , Conrad Vernon

Release Date

May 19, 2004

Writers

David N. Weiss , Joe Stillman , J. David Stem , Andrew Adamson

Runtime

93 minutes

Shrek 2 secured its place in animated movie history in 2004 thanks to its record-setting performance. DreamWorks needed to make over $871 million at this point to beat Finding Nemo the year after its release and take the record for the first time. Shrek 2‘s box office started off incredibly well with a $108 million opening weekend domestically. This propelled the movie to make $441.2 million domestically, which was enough for it to become the highest-grossing release of 2004.

Thanks to another $487.5 million coming from international audiences, Shrek 2 finished its original run with $928.7 million, breaking the record by over $50 million. It held the record for six years for DreamWorks. The studio re-released Shrek 2 in 2024 in honor of its 20th anniversary, raising its current box office total to $932.3 million.

4 Toy Story 3 (2010)

$1.067 Billion Box Office Total

Toy Story 3

Director

Lee Unkrich

Release Date

June 18, 2010

Cast

Jodi Benson , Ned Beatty , Tim Allen , Tom Hanks , Joan Cusack

Runtime

103 minutes

Toy Story 3 made box office history upon its release in 2010. Disney and Pixar spent years trying to reclaim the highest-grossing animated movie record and beat Shrek 2 with no such luck from 2005 to 2009. The return of Buzz and Woody and friends in Toy Story 3 delivered on its high box office expectations. The movie had a $110 million opening weekend domestically, which powered it to make over $415 million. The franchise’s return was an even bigger hit internationally, as it made $651.9 million. This rose Toy Story 3‘s box office total to over $1 billion, making it the first animated movie to cross that threshold.

Pixar’s highest-grossing movie at the time led to a reclamation of the box office record that lasted three years. It did not have much competition in terms of losing the crown during this time. Pixar’s movies Cars 2 and Brave both made about half of Toy Story 3‘s box office. DreamWorks’ best attempt to reclaim the record came with Kung Fu Panda 2, but it only made $665.6 million in 2011. 20th Century gave Pixar the biggest scare in 2012 as the studio released Ice Age: Continental Drift, which made $877.2 million. That’s a huge performance but still well short of Toy Story 3‘s record-setting numbers.

3 Frozen (2013)

$1.3 Billion Box Office Total

Frozen

Director

Chris Buck , Jennifer Lee

Release Date

November 27, 2013

Writers

Jennifer Lee

Cast

Edie McClurg , Kristen Bell , Santino Fontana , Idina Menzel , Robert Pine , Maurice LaMarche , Jonathan Groff , Stephen J. Anderson , Alan Tudyk , Josh Gad , Ciarán Hinds , Chris Williams

Runtime

102 minutes

Frozen broke box office records upon its release in 2013, including topping every other animated movie ever made. It started with a $93 million opening over the extended 5-day Thanksgiving weekend. It continued to resonate with families for weeks to come, eventually allowing the movie to cross the $400 million mark domestically. The impressive nature of its run extended through its popularity around the world, as another $905 million from the international box office brought Frozen‘s final tally to over $1.3 billion. It became only the second animated movie to make over $1 billion worldwide.

Although the movie’s box office total now is over $1.3 billion thanks to a variety of re-releases, Frozen managed to hold on to the animated box office record for six years. That means it ties Shrek 2 for the third-longest hold on the title, behind The Lion King‘s nine years and Snow White‘s 55 years. Frozen‘s run did not come without several close calls, as six more animated movies made over $1 billion during the next few years. Incredibles 2 came the closest, falling only $38 million away from breaking the record. Instead of Pixar reclaiming the crowd, Disney beat Frozen themselves in 2019.

2 Frozen 2 (2019)

$1.45 Billion Box Office Total

Frozen 2

Director

Jennifer Lee , Chris Buck

Release Date

November 22, 2019

Writers

Allison Schroeder

Cast

Sterling K. Brown , Kristen Bell , Santino Fontana , Evan Rachel Wood , Jonathan Groff , Josh Gad , Idina Menzel

Runtime

103 minutes

Frozen 2 is currently the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. Frozen 2‘s arrival in 2019, almost six years to the date since the original debuted, is where its record-setting run began. It started with a $130 million opening weekend leading up to Thanksgiving, propelling the movie to make $477 million domestically. With another $976 million coming internationally, Frozen 2‘s box office made $1.4 billion.

Frozen 2 held onto its animated movie box office record for nearly five years. It did so without much competition, partially due to the pandemic hindering the box office for a few years. Minions: The Rise of Gru came just shy of making $1 billion but was still well short of Frozen 2‘s box office. Disney’s greatest challenger was The Super Mario Bros. Movie‘s box office, which made over $1.3 billion for Illumination and Universal. Instead of beating Frozen 2 and setting a new record for animated movies at the box office, Mario’s animated adventure came up about $91 million short.

1 Inside Out 2 (2024)

$1.46 Billion Box Office Total

Inside Out 2

Director

Kelsey Mann

Release Date

June 14, 2024

Writers

Meg LeFauve

Runtime

96 Minutes

While some could argue that Disney’s remake of The Lion King is the actual record holder, it is considered a “live-action” remake thanks to its realistic designs, even though it was entirely made using CGI. Ruling The Lion King out of the equation means that Inside Out 2 is the highest-grossing animated movie of all time now. Pixar confirmed the news in July 2024 after the movie’s box office hit $1.462 billion, edging past Frozen 2‘s record from four and a half years before. It’s unclear how long Inside Out 2 will remain the biggest animated movie ever made.

Sources: Box Office Mojo, The Numbers, Henry Wilhelm