The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

Released April 1, 2026, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the most commercially successful film on this list by a significant margin — and one of the most critically divisive. Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, the creative team behind the 2023 original, the film again features Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, and Charlie Day as Luigi, this time setting the adventure in the cosmic, gravity-defying playground of the Galaxy games. The animation is, by all accounts, visually breathtaking — a genuine upgrade on an already technically impressive predecessor. The numbers are staggering. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie became the first film of 2026 to cross one billion dollars in worldwide theatrical gross, and as of late June 2026 it has accumulated roughly $1.007 billion — the highest-grossing film of the year so far, by a margin that the second-place film (Michael, at ~$960M) has not yet closed despite extraordinary momentum of its own. The critic-audience split, however, is among the sharpest in recent blockbuster history. Rotten Tomatoes critics have given the film 42%, while audiences have returned a 88% score — a 46-point gap that reflects a film almost perfectly designed to delight the people critics are not. Families, Nintendo fans, and viewers for whom a joyful, maximalist adventure with beloved characters is its own sufficient argument turned out in extraordinary numbers. Critics, meanwhile, found the film's story thin, its emotional beats manufactured, and its total submission to Nintendo IP over narrative coherence frustrating. Both groups are right about what they saw. The question is what you're looking for. On this list, the $1 billion gross and the cultural impact of becoming 2026's first ten-figure film earns The Super Mario Galaxy Movie a firm place in the top half — even with the critical reception factored in.