You’ll be shocked to learn the highest-grossing movie of 2025

Originally appeared on E! Online

Moviegoers were changed for good this year.

Several blockbuster sequels cast a spell on theater audiences in 2025, and you won’t be surprised to learn that the top 15 money-making films of the year include “Zootopia 2,” “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” “Captain America: Brave New World” and “Wicked: For Good” — which each earned over $440 million worldwide.

And live action adaptations of popular franchises also came in hot, with Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” and Warner Bros.’ “A Minecraft Movie” becoming the third- and fourth-highest grossing movies of the year, as they each took in about $1 billion at the box office.

But the sequel that claimed the No. 1 global spot is a flick that many Americans haven’t yet seen, considering it made just $23 million in the U.S.

So, which one took the crown as the highest-grossing movie of 2025? That would be “Ne Zha 2,” a Chinese animated film that raked about $2.2 billion worldwide (that’s nearly double the runner-up, “Zootopia 2,” which banked about $1.3 billion).

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And no, the cartoon wasn’t made by Disney, DreamWorks or Pixar, but rather Chengdu Coco Cartoon and Beijing Enlight Media as a sequel to 2019’s “Ne Zha.” Directed and written by Jiaozi (also known as Yu Yang), the movie is inspired by the Chinese mythological character Ne Zha, a demon child voiced by Lü Yanting and Joseph Cao in Mandarin and Crystal Lee and Griffin Puatu in English.

“Ne Zha 2” broke the world record for the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, topping “Inside Out 2” —which claimed the spot last year with $1.7 billion in ticket sales.

In addition to being record-breaking, it’s simply rare for an international film to reign supreme at the box office, as past winners include “Barbie” in 2023 (raking in $1.4 billion), “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2022 ($2.3 billion) and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in 2021 ($1.9 billion).

But “Ne Zha 2” has blown audiences away. As The Guardian put it in March, “Epic battle scenes and spellbinding graphics — and a dose of symbolism — have enticed Chinese audiences to the cinema in their millions.” Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter’s review praised its “endless action sequences,” stating, “The sequel is certainly a stupendous achievement in terms of its animation, and clearly has great cultural resonance in its native country.”

Not to mention, it got a boost in August when A24 — known for such Oscar winners as “Moonlight,” “Lady Bird” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — released an English dub in the U.S. with none other than Wicked’s Michelle Yeoh voicing Nezha’s mom Lady Yin, alongside fellow voice actors Aleks Le, Vincent Rodriguez III, Rick Zeiff and William Utay.

And this month, the hit became available to stream on HBO Max, so there’s still time to watch the biggest movie of 2025 before that ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

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