Top 10 Biggest Movies of Summer 2025

Top 10 Biggest Movies of Summer 2025

Summer 2025 has officially finished, Labor Day happened just a few days back. Today I’m looking back over the summer movie season and looking at the biggest movies of the summer. Let’s get started!  

NOTE: A large majority of these films are still in theaters which means the box office numbers will change daily. However, given that summer movie season finished, this is what the biggest movies of summer 2025 are. The movie at #10 has made $60 million then what #11 will be on this list. There’s really no way that the order of these films will change. 

HONORABLE MENTIONS

• The Bad Guys 2: $178,041,680
• Elio: $152,241,594
• 28 Years Later: $150,446,897
• From the World of John Wick: Ballerina: $135,935,006
• Freakier Friday: $132,649,885

10. Weapons ($235,172,687): I’m very excited that this film made it onto the list. If you saw my ranking of the summer 2025 films you know that I was very positive on this film. This is my favorite film of 2025 so far. All around, I think it’s a pretty fantastic film that reminded me why I love movies. This is an original horror movie with a $40 million budget and movie stars and it was just great. It debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a 100% and stayed there for nearly two weeks. It currently has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes with 345 reviews counted. It’s been out for 4 weekends now and has been #1 for ¾ of its weekends which is pretty crazy. Currently it’s the 29th highest grossing horror film of all time and if it keeps on killing it at the box office, it might just inch it’ll inch into the top 20. There’s one other original film on this list (that people have debated whether it's an original film or not), but I love the fact that an original horror movie like this made its way into being one of the biggest movies of summer 2025. 

9. Final Destination: Bloodlines ($300,930,814): This is the 2nd highest grossing horror film of the year behind Sinners. This is the one that really surprised me with just how much money it made. I’m a fan of horror movies, but there’s still a lot of gaps in my horror movie resume. This is the only film on the list that I haven’t seen. Maybe my disconnect from both this film and the franchise is why I’m surprised it made $300 million. This wasn’t a film that I saw a lot of people hyping up on social media. Most of the conversations I saw were of people being annoyed by the use of ” “Anxiety” in the marketing and then of course this being Tony Todd’s final film before he died. But sometimes the films that make the biggest ripples in theaters are the ones that people aren’t the ones that are getting the biggest or loudest conversations on social media. But 2025 is turning out to be a great year for horror films and I think this might be the highest grossing year for horror films between this film, Sinners, and Weapons horror is crushing it this year and will probably continue to crush it because we have some very exciting horror films releasing soon. 

8. Thunderbolts* ($382,436,917): This is an interesting one because I did a blog post last week giving 10 reasons as to why Thunderbolts* underperformed at the box office, but it’s #8 on this list. It’s a film that I rewatched the other day which is dropping on Disney+ and this movie is still awesome. I really dig this movie and it’s one of the MCU’s best films in the post-Endgame era. It’s just a bit of a shame that a great reviewed MCU film that’s pulling the universe together underperforms because there've been so many other lackluster MCU films over the years. Thunderbolts* feels like a proper return to form for the MCU. It had a budget of $180 million, it’s made about 2.1 times its budget. That means the film isn’t a disaster, but a film needs to make 2.5 times its budget to be profitable, it didn’t quite hit that margin. But it still made at least double its budget so it did ok, but definitely not the numbers that Marvel was hoping for. We’ll talk about the other comic book films of the summer shortly but in general this hasn’t been a great year for comic book movies at the box office. It’s the first year since 2011 that no comic book movie has made $700 million. Am I surprised Thunderbolts* made it on this list? No. Am I surprised it’s not higher up and it didn’t make more money? Yes. 

7. The Fantastic Four: First Steps ($506,626,180): This is of course the other MCU film of the summer and this will be the highest grossing MCU film by at least $100 million. This is another one that like Thunderbolts* got great reviews and I don’t feel like its box office is quite as good as you might think it is. This movie had a $200 million budget, and as you can see above it has made $500 million so the film is profitable. This film was profitable a little while ago because of the partnerships it had with different companies like Little Caesars. The profitability on this film is actually much higher when you factor other things into it. The fact that the highest grossing MCU film of the year is only at about $500 million I think goes to show how damaged their brand is. I saw somewhere that it’ll end its box office run between $520-$530 million. Isn’t a terrible number but I believe this will be the lowest grossing top grossing MCU movie in a long time. Every other year has had a film that’s at least made $800 million, 2025 is going to have nothing nowhere close to that number. I’m not as crazy about this film as a lot of people are. I think this is a good movie that is very flawed. I would’ve hoped Thunderbolts* would’ve been the highest grossing MCU film of the year, but Fantastic Four is a more recognizable brand and it has actors that people enjoy. 

6. Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning ($598,056,261): Another film that I did a blog post discussing the film’s box office. In the case of The Final Reckoning, this film actually bombed at the box office. The movie’s budget was inflated so much with so many factors increasing the budget. This movie cost $400 million which is pretty insane. This film has big action set pieces but nothing to justify a $400 million budget and the film probably isn’t even going to make $600 million. This film is a bomb and will be one of the biggest box office bombs of 2025. At the same time, the fact that the eight movies in a 30 year old franchise starring a 60 year old man are still able to make $600 million is pretty impressive. This film did better than Dead Reckoning that made about $20 million less so there are positives that come from these numbers. But $600 million against a $400 million budget isn’t what Tom Cruise or Paramount were hoping for. I’d imagine that maybe this is actually the final Mission Impossible given this film underperformed and Tom Cruise is in his 60s. I love this franchise so I was hoping the final installment’s box office would be better, but what are you going to do? 

5. Superman ($611,614,671): Another one of my favorite movies of the summer and this is one that disappointed at the box office and to some is a financial success. Sure, the film didn’t make it as Man of Steel did 12 years ago, but to me this is still a great number especially when DC’s reputation hasn’t been great over the last couple of years. About 58% of the film’s box office is coming domestically while 42% of it is coming internationally. It’s doing good internationally but if its international numbers were about equal or better than its domestic number, it’ll be in the $750-$800 million range. But to me, I view $611 million for Superman as a success. It’s made 2.7 times its budget. A sequel has been announced with James Gunn returning as the writer and director. With this film designed to start a new DC universe, I view these box office numbers as a huge win. With these numbers I think it means good things for the future of this DC universe and hopefully it’s a successful universe that lasts a long time and creates both quality entertainment and financial films. I think with the positive reception to this film, I think it’ll help Supergirl’s box office next summer. 

4. F1 ($613,942,104): This film kind of has the opposite of what I said about Superman’s box office. F1 is doing good domestically but killing it overseas. Formula 1 is a much bigger deal intentionally than it is domestically. The film is doing great domestically, it’s going to cross the domestic finish line at about $190 million but it’s made $425 million internationally for a grand total of $613 million. Two things about these numbers are very impressive. First up, this has become the highest grossing sports movie of all time beating The Karate Kid (2010). Second, this is Brad Pitt’s highest grossing film beating World War Z. I believe this is also the highest grossing film from Apple TV+. Plus the film got great reviews and will probably get a couple Oscar nominations. As of now, this is the highest grossing original film of the year. I loved this movie, it’s going to be one of my favorite movies of the year. It’s one of my favorite Brad Pitt movies. I really wasn’t sure how well this movie was going to do at the box office. The fact that it’s made over $600 million is a huge win in my book, it’s a great number. I think it means that Joseph Kosinski is going to get more work which is great in my eyes. 

3. How to Train Your Dragon ($629,028,019): I always love it when a movie succeeds and does well at the box office. I could see a lot of people not being thrilled with this movie’s success because it means we’re probably going to be getting more live action remakes of Dreamworks films. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens. But this film hasn’t made bonkers amounts of money the way some Disney live action remakes have done. But $630 million at the box office is a very solid number and it’s actually the highest grossing film of the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, it recently beat How to Train Your Dragon 2 to hold this title. I think it’s also a bit disappointing and weird that not even a film in the top three highest grossing movies of the summer made $700 million. But in terms of what I thought this film was going to do, $630 million sounds about right and feels like a good number. We’re getting the second live action film in June 2027, that one will probably do closer to $700 million, maybe it’ll even go over that $700 million mark. 

2. Jurassic World: Rebirth ($855,582,615): This is where things get interesting. Because this has been a franchise that people have been very vocal about needing to end. But whenever a new Jurassic film comes out, people flock to the theaters to go see it. The three previous Jurassic World movies all made over $1 billion. The fact that this movie only made $850 million is a disappointment. $850 million is a box office disappointment for this franchise, that’s crazy to me. On the one hand, $850 million for a summer blockbuster is a great number, but for the Jurassic franchise it’s a disappointing number. At the end of the day, the film did print a lot of money for Universal because the budget was $180 million so it’s made about 4.5 times its budget. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the coming months they announce that a sequel is in the works with this cast returning. I feel we’re going to keep on getting Jurassic sequels until one bombs at the box office. But as long as they’re making at least $800 million we’re going to be getting more sequels whether we want them or not. I dug this movie, I thought it was a ton of fun so I’m happy that it made money. 

1. Lilo & Stitch ($1,033,590,876): Not only is Lilo & Stitch the highest grossing film of the summer. It’s also the highest grossing Hollywood film of the year so far. This is one that I thought had a good chance of making $1 billion because the original is beloved by a certain generation. Based on the trailers it seemed like they were doing a more faithful adaptation and not turning it into something different like how Disney did with Snow White. It also got good reviews with a 72% on Rotten Tomato which for a live action remake is a very solid number. As soon as the opening weekend numbers came out and it had the biggest Memorial Day opening weekend of all time, I knew this film was going to make $1 billion and by mid-July it made $1 billion and is the highest grossing Hollywood film of the year thus far. Between this film making $1 billion and Snow White bombing, I’m very curious about what the future of Disney live action remakes is going to be. Given that this film made $1 billion, I think we’ll be getting more live action remakes but Disney wants more money.