The highest-grossing film of 2025 has recently broken the world record for the highest-grossing animated film of all time – before it even opened worldwide.
And now, it’s officially in the top five most successful movies at the box office ever.
Having smashed an eye-popping barrier after initially grossing over $2,000,000,000 (£1,561,800,000) as of last month, according to Variety and Artisan Gateway, the haul for this movie has only continued to grow after it hit UK cinemas on March 21.
It’s the first animated film to have managed this feat, snatching the number one spot from Disney’s Inside Out 2 (which grossed $1.6 (£1.2) billion), and also the first non-English language film to pass both the $1bn and $2bn benchmarks.
And now, it’s vaulted over Star Wars: The Force Awakens to claim fifth place on the all-time box office list with $2,125,757,964 (£1,659,791,8180.
Despite this, film fans outside China are unlikely to know much – if anything – about Ne Zha 2.
Ne Zha 2 (Nezha: Mo Tong Nao Hai in Simplified Chinese) revolves around a demon child raised by humans and draws on stories from Chinese mythology stories and the 16th-century novel Fengshen Yanyi (Investiture of the Gods).
It’s also, as the title suggests, a sequel to 2019’s Ne Zha and the third film in the Fengshen Universe, after 2020’s Jiang Ziya.
Directed by Yang Yu, Ne Zha 2 sees our hero embark on a quest including trials to win a precious potion to restore his friend, dragon prince Ao Bing, to his physical body after it was destroyed by a heavenly lightning strike.
Ne Zha 2 has also surpassed Avengers: Infinity War to settle in behind (for now) Avengers: Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water and Titanic in second, third and fourth respectively.
Titanic’s gross box office currently stands at $2,257,844,554 (£1,763,602,381), $130m (£101m) ahead of Ne Zha 2 and a long-term fixture in the number one spot before filmmaker James Cameron dethroned himself.
His Avatar, released in 2009, still remains the biggest movie ever after raking in $2.9bn (£2.23bn) at the box office.
The film so far has a remarkable 99% critics’ rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with Screen Daily writing that Ne Zha 2 ‘stands up to the best that Disney, DreamWorks, Aardman or Studio Ghibli can offer’.
Meanwhile Variety calls it ‘breathtaking’ and argues that it ‘surpass[es] its predecessor in all manner of visual ambition and kinetic intensity’ – although there are only 11 reviews so far counting towards the ‘Tomatometer’ score.
At the opposite end of the scale, The Telegraph’s opinion is a one-star piece – yet to be added – which calls Ne Zha 2 ‘an absolute headache to sit through’ and ‘by turns frantic, gaudy and puerile’ and ‘as mindless as Hollywood’s worst’.
The audience so far have also been overwhelmingly positive though, with a 99% score derived from over 1,000 reactions.
‘I [have] watched all Disney and Dreamworks animated movies, and all movies on the world history chart, in the past 40 years. I can say this is definitely the BEST animated movie of all time,’ shared Annie, while Michelle Y echoed her praise with: ‘Best animation movie ever! Epic!’
It was also praised as ‘absolute cinema’, ‘mesmerising’ and ‘a spectacle and a half’.
‘Damn satisfying for my first Chinese film at the cinema. Probably didn’t need to be as long as it was, but goddamn, this film needs to be seen!’ added Rob B.
For 2025 so far,Detective Chinatown 1900 – another Chinese effort – is the year’s second-best effort and Hollywood’s top film, Captain America: Brave New World, is third on $411m (£320m).
It’s been a landmark year so far for non-English language animation as Flow became Latvia’s first-ever Oscar winning film – and highest grossing film – after it picked up the Academy Award for best animated feature.
Ne Zha 2 is in cinemas now.
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