Avengers: Endgame (2019) is the highest-grossing comic book movie of all time at $2.8 billion worldwide. Twelve comic-book films have crossed the $1 billion mark, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe accounting for nine of them. The Dark Knight (2008) was the first superhero film to break $1 billion globally.
The complete box office ranking
Comic book cinema has become the dominant commercial genre of the 21st century. Since Blade (1998) proved the genre could be profitable and X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002) demonstrated franchise sustainability, comic-book films have produced more billion-dollar successes than any other film category in history. The list below ranks every major comic-book film by approximate worldwide gross, including the few non-superhero adaptations (Joker, Deadpool) that nonetheless originate from comic-book source material.
Note: Box-office figures below are unadjusted for inflation. Older films like Tim Burton's Batman (1989, $411 million) or Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002, $825 million) would rank substantially higher if adjusted for ticket-price inflation. The list also excludes films that earned less than approximately $500 million, which would extend the chart to several hundred entries.
The ranking
Marvel Studios' culmination of 22 prior films into a single $400+ million-budget event. Joss Whedon's Russos-replacing Russo Brothers brought their Captain America-trilogy structural rigor to the cosmic-scale time-travel finale of the Infinity Saga. Endgame is the only film in history to gross over $2.5 billion in initial theatrical release. Read our complete Endgame plot breakdown.
The first half of the Russo Brothers' Infinity Saga conclusion. Thanos (Josh Brolin) achieves his goal of universal population reduction in the famous Snap, killing half of all life in the universe and producing the most-shocking final-act twist in any comic-book film. The film is widely-considered the more thematically-ambitious of the two Endgame-Infinity-War halves.
The first multiverse-crossover Spider-Man film. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield return to fight alongside Tom Holland. The film grossed $1.9 billion despite COVID-era reduced theatrical capacity. Read our complete No Way Home plot guide.
Marvel's first R-rated film. Hugh Jackman returns as Wolverine alongside Ryan Reynolds's Deadpool in a multiverse-spanning team-up that closes the Fox-X-Men cinematic universe with celebratory rather than mournful tone. The film grossed $1.3 billion, confirming R-rated MCU films as commercially viable. Read our Deadpool & Wolverine coverage.
Joss Whedon's second Avengers film. The team-versus-Ultron storyline produced franchise-defining new characters Scarlet Witch and Vision but its compressed runtime and Whedon's reported creative-control conflicts with Marvel produced uneven critical reception. Read more.
Joss Whedon's first Avengers film and the original team-up event that defined the MCU's broader franchise approach. Whedon's screenplay assembly of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, and Hawkeye into a coherent team produced the template every subsequent superhero ensemble has followed. Read more.
Ryan Coogler's political-allegorical Marvel film. Chadwick Boseman's T'Challa and Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger remain two of the most-acclaimed superhero-film performances. The film received seven Academy Award nominations including Best Picture — the first superhero film to receive a Best Picture nomination. Read more.
The Russo Brothers' second Captain America film. The Avengers split over the Sokovia Accords surveillance treaty in a comic-book-faithful adaptation of the original 2006 Civil War crossover event. Read more.
Shane Black's post-Avengers Iron Man film. Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark deals with the PTSD aftermath of the New York alien invasion while confronting the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) — whose third-act reveal as a fictional construct became one of the most-divisive creative choices in the MCU's history. Read more.
Christopher Nolan's conclusion to the Dark Knight Trilogy. Tom Hardy's Bane brought a different physical threat to the franchise than Heath Ledger's Joker; the film's nuclear-bomb climax and Bruce Wayne's retirement provided the trilogy's thematic closure. Read more.
Todd Phillips's R-rated Joker origin film. Joaquin Phoenix won the Best Actor Oscar; the film was the first R-rated film to cross $1 billion globally. Read more.
James Wan's DCEU Aquaman film. Jason Momoa's charismatic reinvention of the character, combined with Wan's Atlantean-scale underwater visual design, produced the highest-grossing DCEU film. Read more.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $1.08B worldwide. Read our complete The Dark Knight Rises coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $1.08B worldwide. Read our complete Joker coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $1.01B worldwide. Read our complete The Dark Knight coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $956M worldwide. Read our complete Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $894M worldwide. Read our complete Spider-Man 3 coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $880M worldwide. Read our complete Spider-Man: Homecoming coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $873M worldwide. Read our complete Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $859M worldwide. Read our complete Black Panther: Wakanda Forever coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $856M worldwide. Read our complete Venom coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $855M worldwide. Read our complete Thor: Ragnarok coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $845M worldwide. Read our complete Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $785M worldwide. Read our complete Deadpool 2 coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
A major comic-book theatrical release grossing approximately $691M worldwide. Read our complete Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse coverage for full plot, cast, and trivia details.
Box office trends and analysis
The dominance of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in this ranking — 16 of the top 25 highest-grossing comic-book films — reflects both the franchise's sustained commercial success and the broader collapse of pre-MCU standalone superhero film economics. Before Iron Man (2008) launched the MCU, comic-book films were generally one-off productions priced for the $300–500 million worldwide gross range. The MCU's shared-universe model raised audience expectations and substantially shifted the genre's economic floor upward.
Post-Endgame box-office for individual MCU films has substantially declined from peak. Subsequent MCU entries including The Marvels (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), and Captain America: Brave New World (2025) all underperformed relative to similar Phase 3 and Phase 4 entries. Industry analysts attribute the decline to a combination of streaming-platform fatigue, perceived narrative complexity, and reduced critical reception of recent MCU output.
DC's box-office trajectory has been more volatile. The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Aquaman (2018), and Joker (2019) all crossed $1 billion, but the DCEU as a whole has underperformed relative to MCU benchmarks. James Gunn's 2025 DC Universe reboot with Superman (David Corenswet) is the franchise's attempt at a fresh narrative reset.
Related guides
- Top 25 Comic Book Films — our critical ranking (separate from box-office ranking).
- MCU Watch Order — complete viewing order for the 16+ MCU films on this list.
- Every Spider-Man Movie in Order — comprehensive guide to every Spider-Man film, including the four ranking in our top 25 highest-grossing.
- Every Batman Actor Ranked — coverage of the Batman films on this list, including The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
- Best Comic Book Films on Streaming — where to watch every film on this list.