The highest-grossing superhero movies of all time are led by Avengers: Endgame at $2.80 billion worldwide, followed by Avengers: Infinity War ($2.05 billion) and Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.93 billion). Spider-Man: Brand New Day has already climbed to fourth with $1.69 billion. Here is the full chart, updated for August 2026.
The 15 highest-grossing superhero movies
All figures are unadjusted worldwide lifetime grosses and include re-release earnings where applicable.
| # | Film | Year | Worldwide gross |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avengers: Endgame | 2019 | $2,799,439,100 |
| 2 | Avengers: Infinity War | 2018 | $2,048,359,754 |
| 3 | Spider-Man: No Way Home | 2021 | $1,926,899,310 |
| 4 | Spider-Man: Brand New Day | 2026 | $1,688,767,811 |
| 5 | The Avengers | 2012 | $1,518,812,988 |
| 6 | Avengers: Age of Ultron | 2015 | $1,402,809,540 |
| 7 | Black Panther | 2018 | $1,346,913,171 |
| 8 | Deadpool & Wolverine | 2024 | $1,338,073,645 |
| 9 | Incredibles 2 | 2018 | $1,242,805,359 |
| 10 | Iron Man 3 | 2013 | $1,215,577,205 |
| 11 | Captain America: Civil War | 2016 | $1,153,304,495 |
| 12 | Aquaman | 2018 | $1,148,161,807 |
| 13 | Spider-Man: Far From Home | 2019 | $1,131,927,996 |
| 14 | Captain Marvel | 2019 | $1,131,416,446 |
| 15 | The Dark Knight Rises | 2012 | $1,081,041,287 |
The pattern hiding in the release years
Read the chart by title and it looks like a genre in permanent good health. Read it by year and something much stranger appears.
Of the fifteen biggest superhero films ever made, thirteen were released between 2012 and 2021. Exactly two fall outside that ten-year window: Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024 and Spider-Man: Brand New Day in 2026.
Nothing before 2012 makes the list at all. The Dark Knight, Spider-Man (2002), the original Iron Man — none of them clear the bar, because the bar has been reset by inflation and by the global exhibition build-out in China and elsewhere.
But the back end of that window is the interesting part. 2018 alone put four films on this chart. The four years since 2021 have produced two.
And both of those two are legacy events
Look at what the post-2021 entrants actually are. Deadpool & Wolverine is built entirely on the return of Hugh Jackman to a role he retired from in 2017. Brand New Day is the continuation of a Spider-Man run whose previous instalment was itself a multiversal reunion of three decades of Spider-Man casting.
Neither is a new franchise launch. Neither introduces a character audiences hadn’t already paid to see. Both are, structurally, reunion tours.
That’s the genuine finding in this data: the billion-dollar tier of superhero filmmaking has not disappeared, but the route into it has narrowed. Between 2012 and 2019, a studio could reach these numbers by introducing someone new — Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Aquaman all did it with characters who had never headlined a film. Since 2021, the only films to get there have done it by bringing back people audiences already loved.
Whether that’s a temporary condition or the genre’s new equilibrium is the single most important open question in blockbuster filmmaking right now.
The one that isn’t a comic book movie
Ninth place belongs to Incredibles 2, and it’s worth flagging because it exposes a definitional wrinkle people trip over constantly.
“Superhero movie” and “comic book movie” are not the same category. The Incredibles is an original Pixar creation with no comics source material whatsoever, yet it is unambiguously a superhero film. Meanwhile plenty of comic book adaptations — Road to Perdition, A History of Violence, Ghost World — contain no superheroes at all.
If you see a chart that omits Incredibles 2, it’s measuring comic book adaptations. If you see one that includes it, it’s measuring the genre. Both are legitimate; they just answer different questions.
Adjusted for inflation, the chart changes completely
Every figure above is unadjusted, which systematically favours recent releases. Adjust for ticket price inflation and older films climb sharply — Batman (1989) and Superman (1978) were far bigger cultural and commercial events relative to their moment than their raw dollar totals suggest.
Unadjusted charts are best understood as a measure of scale of release rather than popularity: how many screens, how many countries, how high the ticket prices. A film released into 4,300 North American theatres and a fully built-out Chinese market has structural advantages no 1989 release could access.
What’s next on the chart
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is still in active release and climbing — we covered its record-setting second weekend and the $654 million ten-day domestic total behind it. Third place is within reach.
Beyond that, Avengers: Doomsday is the obvious candidate to join the top five, being both an Avengers film and a legacy event in the exact mould the chart now rewards.
For more on the genre, see our rankings of the best superhero teams and the greatest comic book villains of all time. Box Office Mojo tracks daily figures for films in current release.
Frequently asked questions
What is the highest-grossing superhero movie of all time?
Avengers: Endgame (2019), with $2,799,439,100 worldwide. It is roughly $750 million ahead of second-place Avengers: Infinity War.
How much has Spider-Man: Brand New Day made?
$1,688,767,811 worldwide as of August 2026, placing it fourth all time among superhero films while still in active release.
How many superhero movies have made $1 billion?
Fewer than twenty films in the genre have crossed $1 billion worldwide. The fifteen listed above all clear it comfortably.
Is Incredibles 2 a superhero movie?
Yes. It is an original Pixar property rather than a comic adaptation, but it is a superhero film by genre. Charts limited to comic book adaptations exclude it.
