The Highest-Grossing Movies at the US Box Office in 2021: List

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The North American box office ended 2021 with $4.5 billion total box office.
It’s double 2020’s total, but down 60% from 2019.
The top four movies of the year were Marvel properties.

Movie theaters in the US ended the year strong with “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” but the industry is still far from the pre-pandemic box office.

The North American box office totaled $4.557 billion in 2021, according to the data firm Comscore, double 2020’s box office when theaters shut down for most of the year amid the coronavirus pandemic. But it’s still down 60% compared to 2019’s total of $11.4 billion.

Here’s what the last 10 years of the domestic box office looked like, according to Comscore:

2021 — $4.5 billion
2020 — 2.27 billion
2019 — $11.4 billion
2018 — $11.9 billion
2017 — $11.1 billion
2016 — $11.4 billion
2015 — $11.1 billion
2014 — $10.4 billion
2013 — $10.9 billion
2012 — $10.8 billion

Last year’s box office was driven by younger audiences seeing big-budget tentpoles like Marvel movies “No Way Home” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” The top four movies of the year were Marvel films from Disney and Sony.

Adult dramas that skewed toward older audiences largely underperformed or just plain flopped. “West Side Story,” which cost $100 million to produce, has earned just $53 million worldwide since debuting last month. Others, like “Nightmare Alley” and “The Last Duel,” also didn’t fare well in theaters.

The industry will likely continue to recover in 2022, but there are plenty of potential blockbusters for theater owners to look forward to: “The Batman,” “Avatar 2,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” and more.

The rise in coronavirus cases in the US may have already caused one major movie to be delayed, though. On Monday, Sony said it was pushing its Marvel movie “Morbius” from January to April.

Below are the top 10 movies at the domestic box office of 2021:

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