2017 may have been a tough year for theaters, with the worst movie summer since 2006, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a fair share of box office smashes that bucked the trend along the way.
The past year was a story of low-budget films doing good - like horror double-tap Get Out and IT - although when it comes to the Top 10, it's all about the franchises: every single one of the ten highest grossing films worldwide were sequels or reboots (and a whopping five passing the $1 billion mark). That's not to say there's creative bankruptcy though, with many of the biggest hits earning good reviews. It's clear Hollywood can still get people out of their houses in droves.
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Here are the top ten films at the worldwide box office from 2017 (numbers courtesy of Box Office Mojo, as of January 1, 2018).
#10-6 of the Highest Grossing Films of 2017 (This Page)
10. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales ($794.9 million)
Some U.S. filmgoers might be forgiven if they forgot there was even a Pirates movie this year. Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth in a series whose heyday is long in the past, with a star (Johnny Depp) whose appeal is at a nadir, made just $172.6 million in the U.S. upon its May release, the lowest domestic total in the franchise's history. But the film nearly quadrupled that in the foreign box office, taking in $622 million.
Every Pirates movie, with the exception of the 2003 original, has made at least 60% of its money overseas, but this year's film had the widest divide by far. Indeed, worldwide, Dead Men Tell No Tales had the fourth-highest overall total of the five films in the Pirates franchise.
9. Wonder Woman ($821.8 million)
The DC Extended Universe's first unmitigated triumph inspired audiences around the world - but in a standout for this list, more than half of its money came from within the U.S. Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot and directed by Patty Jenkins, made $412 million at the domestic box office and $409 million overseas. While it is the second-highest grossing DC film worldwide, behind 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Wonder Woman has the highest total domestically. It's also the highest-grossing female-centered superhero movie in history.
Related: Rotten Tomatoes Lists Wonder Woman as Highest-Rated Superhero Movie
8. Thor: Ragnarok ($848 million)
The supremely well-received third Ragnarok was, by a significant margin, the highest-grossing movie built around Chris Hemsworth's hammer-wielding Norse god. The first Thor, from 2011, made $449 million at the worldwide box office, while 2013's Thor: The Dark World took in $644.6 million. The new film won over Thor skeptics, thanks to the offbeat choice of Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows) as director, a witty script, a scene-stealing supporting performance by Jeff Goldblum, and some winning Thor/Loki banter. Thor: Ragnarok also made 63.3% of its haul overseas, the highest total of any of the three 2017 Marvel movies.
7. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($863.7 million)
The first of three Marvel Cinematic Universe releases in 2017, the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 outdid its predecessor, making $863.7 million to beat out the 2014 original by $90 million. Directed by James Gunn and starring a crew led by Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, David Bautista and the voices of Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper, the film made about 55% of its money overseas, just slightly more than the split for the original movie. The placement meant that Diesel and Kurt Russell, both of whom were also in Fate of the Furious, both had films in the top ten.
6. Wolf Warrior 2 ($870.3 million)
Wolf Warrior 2, directed by Wu Jing, is a film few non-Chinese audiences will have even seen. The film made $2.7 million in a brief July U.S. release, but pulled in the rest of its haul in the rest of the world- the rare worldwide box office smash to sustain virtually no cultural footprint in the English-speaking world. Starring Wu himself, along with Celina Jade, Frank Grillo, Hans Zhang, and Wu Gang, Wolf Warrior 2 is the sequel to the 2015 film (for which box office figures are not available), and -assuming the Chinese figures are in fact accurate - not only did Wolf Warrior 2 make the most money in the history of the Chinese box office, but had the second highest gross in a single country behind the Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the U.S. Wu is said to be getting courted by Hollywood.
5. Spider-Man Homecoming ($880 million)
The first film from the third live-action configuration of the Spider-Man franchise - and the first standalone Spidey film as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe - was a huge hit both foreign and domestic, with 62% of its total - nearly $546 million - coming from overseas audiences.
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Homecoming, directed by Jon Watts and starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker, finished just shy of the title of the highest-grossing of the six Spider-man movies, with the final Tobey Maguire/Sam Raimi film, 2007's Spider-Man 3, still holding the #1 spot. Nevertheless, the new film overtook the first and second Raimi films, as well as both of the Marc Webb/Andrew Garfield The Amazing Spider-Man movies. Interestingly, both Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man: Homecoming had the same overseas/domestic split of 62%/38%. Homecoming also ranks as the #5 film in the MCU series at the worldwide box office, ranking just behind the movie where Holland's Spidey debuted, 2016's Captain America: Civil War.
4. Despicable Me 3 ($1.033 billion)
The latest entry in Universal/Illumination Entertainment's series, Despicable Me 3 was the year's #1 animated film both domestically and internationally, although three quarters of its haul came from overseas: the fourth film in the franchise (counting Minions) made $768.9 million outside the U.S. compared to $264.60 million domestically. And with its success, Despicable Me became the highest-grossing animation franchise in history, overtaking Shrek.
Despicable Me 3, directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda and featuring a duel voice role for Steve Carell, outperformed both Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 internationally, although it remains behind the series' 2015 spinoff Minions, which took in $1.159 billion worldwide, also with an overseas percentage over 70 ( throughout the franchise's life, the foreign haul has become more and more of its gross, going from 53.7% to 62.1 to 71 to 74.4).
3. Star Wars: The Last Jedi * ($1.056.4 billion)
The latest film in the Star Wars series recently crossed the billion mark worldwide, and only took 15 days to do it. Director Rian Johnson's film, which was released Dec. 15, had a box office performance that was not only strong, but remarkably balanced: The Last Jedi has thus far $533.1 million domestically and $523.3 million overseas, with that domestic performance pushing it ahead of Beauty and the Beast to the top spot at the domestic box office for the year. The Last Jedi is also now the second-highest-grossing Star Wars movie worldwide, overtaking last year's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in recent days.
Related: Star Wars Franchise Passes Harry Potter At Worldwide Box Office
And while The Last Jedi remains a billion dollars or so shy of 2015's The Force Awakens as the #1 Star Wars movie, it's still got a lot of time left in theaters to close the gap - as well as catch the other two films that top the list.
2. The Fate of the Furious ($1.235 billion)
The eighth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise was only the 11th-highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office for the year, but its huge overseas performance more than made up for it, comprising 81.7% of the film's total gross and making it the only film this year to earn over $1 billion overseas. At the worldwide box office, The Fate of the Furious was the second-highest performer in the series, behind only 2015's Furious 7, but it beat out the next one on the list, 2013's Fast & Furious 6, by nearly $500 million.
The film, directed by F. Gary Gray, starred the usual Fast & Furious company of Vin Diesel, Dwayne œThe Rock Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Tyrese Gibson, Kurt Russell and Chris œLudacris Bridges, while Charlize Theron and Helen Mirren joined the film as œguest stars. It was, of course, the first film since the passing of longtime series star Paul Walker to not feature the actor. With two more sequels and spinoffs in the pipeline as well, there don't appear to be any signs of deceleration.
1. Beauty and the Beast ($1.263 billion)
Disney's live-action remake of its 1991 classic, among other accomplishments, served to vindicate the studio's ongoing strategy of rehashing its hits from that particular golden era. Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Kevin Kline and Josh Gad, earned more than 60 percent of its gross overseas, even though its domestic haul of more than $500 million made it the #1 movie of the year in the U.S. until it was overtaken in the year's final days. Worldwide, Beauty and the Beast's earned more than doubled the total of the animated version, which grossed just under $425 million worldwide upon its release in 1991.
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The film is now the #10 movie all-time when it comes to the worldwide box office. More impressively, four of the films ahead of it - Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Frozen - were released by Disney or its subsidiary studios.