Two of the most deciding aspects of any movie's success are its box office gross and the critical and audience reviews. While the reviews can often be polarizing and not reflect the movie's true quality, since every person has a different taste, the box office gross is a good indicator of whether the movie was successful with the audience or not.
Generally speaking, a movie is considered successful if it earns at least twice its budget. The highest-grossing movies of the 2020s have earned much more than that in multiple cases and proved that for some movies, the sky is indeed the limit when it comes to the box office gross.
5 The Battle At Lake Changjin (2021): 902 Million Dollars
Despite its box office gross of over 900 million dollars, The Battle at Lake Changjin has a few reviews on IMDb, only slightly over two thousand, and with an average rating of 5.3. The most likely reason for this is that the movie was filmed in China and IMDb is primarily aimed at the Anglo-American audience.
As the title suggests, the story is about the battle at lake Changjin, and it's set during the Korean War. An interesting fact about the movie is that it is the most expensive movie produced in China. The Battle at Lake Changjin cost 200 million dollars to make but fortunately for the movie, it earned the cost back and much more. It was so successful that it got a sequel only a year later, in February 2022.
4 Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022): 955 Million Dollars
When two of the highest-ranking movies at the box office in the 2020s come from the MCU, it's obvious the MCU universe is doing something right. Even though MCU had multiple box office mishaps in recent years, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is one of the most successful and highly profitable MCU movies. After six years, Benedict Cumberbatch returned to another solo movie where he worked alongside a new young hero, America Chavez, and helped finish storylines first created in the Disney Plus TV series WandaVision.
The movie was full of action, humor, and surprises, as it took the characters and the viewers alike into several universes, each different from the other. That allowed the introduction of new characters (John Krasinski's Reed Richards) as well as the return of old and popular ones (Sir Patrick Stewart's Professor X). Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness surpassed Doctor Strange (2016) with its box office gross, so it would make sense if Doctor Strange got another adventure in the upcoming years.
3 Jurassic World: Dominion (2022): 990 Million Dollars
Releasing a sequel to a popular franchise is often a good way how to earn a large box office gross - although not a guaranteed one. In the case of Jurassic World: Dominion, it worked out well for the movie that earned almost a billion dollars worldwide. The fans were curious to know how the Jurassic World trilogy would finish. Another important factor of the movie's success was that just like Spider-Man: No Way Home, it brought back popular characters from the original Jurassic Park movies and had them meeting and working with the new heroes.
This way, the movie attracted both new audiences and the ones who like Steven Spielberg's iconic Jurassic Park from 1993. Jurassic World: Dominion didn't get as high a rating as some other movies that did well at the box office in the early 2020s, as the audience only gave it 5.7 on IMDb. That doesn't change the fact that the return to dinosaurs was a success and that the topic continues to attract viewers.
2 Top Gun: Maverick (2022): 1,422 Billion Dollars
Top Gun has premiered in 1986, it helped bring stardom to Tom Cruise and became an iconic movie. Despite the movie's popularity, it took 36 years to come up with a sequel which is an exceptionally long time in the world of Hollywood movies.
Top Gun: Maverick proved that the long wait was worth it as the fans of the original movies, as well as action movies in general, visited the screenings in large numbers and brought the sequel to the box office gross of 1,422 billion dollars worldwide. Other than Tom Cruise who reprised the leading role, Top Gun: Maverick starred other popular actors, such as Miles Teller, Val Kilmer, and Jon Hamm. It even got a better rating online - 8.5 on IMDb as opposed to Top Gun's rating of 6.9.
1 Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021): 1,901 Billion Dollars
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It's safe to say that Spider-Man: No Way Home broke the curse of the Spider-Man third movie sequels as it earned almost two billion dollars at the box office! The movie brought back the beloved MCU hero, Tom Holland's Spider-Man, as well as popular versions of Spider-Man from previous movies, portrayed by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.
If that wasn't enough, it featured well-known villains, such as Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin, or Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus. Considering how many popular characters the movie worked with and how it combined action, humor, and drama, Spider-Man: No Way Home remains the most successful MCU movie of Phase 4 and of the 2020s so far.
Source: Box Office Mojo