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The 2025 box office was down compared to other years but one genre that continues to thrive is animation. It makes sense because families love to flock to the theater together to watch a movie that each member can enjoy, which is often found in animated projects.
Animation in 2025 was an expansive, varied genre. It included blockbuster sequels, new releases of established properties, international hits, adaptations of anime series, and more. The top-grossing animated film of the year even made history by surpassing $2 billion worldwide.
David – $84.2 Million
This isn’t a movie that popped up on many year-end lists or even received a ton of marketing, yet David still performed pretty well at the worldwide box office. The film features the character of David from the Old Testament’s Book of Samurai.
David acts as the follow-up to the Young David five-part miniseries, telling the story of a shepherd, poet, and warrior who is destined to become king. It was a movie that many religious families headed to theaters to see.
Although David certainly ranks in the top 10 when it comes to the top-performing animated films from the last year, it didn’t make a lot of money. The film had a budget of just over $60 million, so grossing $84.2 million wasn’t enough to turn it into a hit.
Smurfs – $124.1 Million
The first animated movie listed here to surpass $100 million was Smurfs. Based on the comic and TV series The Smurfs, this was yet another attempt to bring the characters to the big screen after the films from the 2010s.
Smurfs acts as a reboot and has a totally new animation style. It’s interesting to find that it grossed $124.1 million because it’s not the show is still running or that the characters are overly popular with younger audiences today. That makes its intake rather impressive.
Smurfs also wasn’t marketed as well as some other films in the genre, yet kids still loved it. Alas, reviews from critics weren’t positive, with the movie sitting at 21% on Rotten Tomatoes but the audience has it at 64%, showcasing that casual viewers appreciate it more.
Dog Man – $145.8 Million
The Captain Underpants franchise is something that became a bigger hit than most people expected. The books are beloved by kids everywhere, while the 2017 film Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie actually managed to pull in around $125 million.
Dog Man is a spin-off of that film and is based on its own graphic novel series. DreamWorks Animation put out this movie that centers on a police dog who was fused with his human owner during surgery and now protects his neighborhood as the titular Dog Man.
This spin-off managed to actually outgross its parent film, pulling in $145.8 million and becoming a surprise hit. It was also well-received by critics to the tune of an 82% Rotten Tomatoes rating and a nomination for Lil Rel Howery’s voice performance at the Annie Awards.
Elio – $154.2 Million
The 2020s haven’t been a great time for Pixar. While the studio still ranks near the top when it comes to producing animated movies, its box office numbers have dwindled. COVID forced several films to flop or even just get put straight on Disney+, where they made no money.
However, they turned things around with Elemental and Inside Out 2 being big hits. Elio is their latest original project and although it grossed $154.2 million, that wasn’t a good number given the budget was in the neighborhood of $150-$200 million.
Elio deserved better numbers at the box office, though. The film, about a boy who comes into contact with aliens and gets mistaken for an ambassador for Earth, was a hit with critics and presents a fun and unique original concept, combined with a tremendous animation style.
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc – $162.6 Million
Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man is one of the biggest and most popular manga around the world. It was then turned into an anime series that was also wildly popular when it initially ran in 2022. A movie that acts as a sequel to the series arrived last year and exceeded expectations.
While it was evident that Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc would be a hit, given the success of what it’s based on, it was bigger than most predicted. The film is indeed a sequel to the show, as protagonist Denji faces his toughest battle yet.
On top of being a hit commercially, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc was a success critically. It holds a 96% Rotten Tomatoes rating and received nominations at both the Annie and Satellite Awards.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants – $163.2 Million
There aren’t many names in animated entertainment bigger than SpongeBob SquarePants. His television series has been running since 1999 and has more than 300 episodes, with several generations loving the character and still watching to this day.
SpongeBob is so big that there have been six feature films released about him, with four hitting theaters. The most recent is The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, which proved that even more than two decades after the character debuted, he’s still immensely popular.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants grossed $163.2 million, which is actually the second most of any film in the series, only behind 2015’s The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. The movie sees SpongeBob go on a trip with the Flying Dutchman to prove his bravery.
The Bad Guys 2 – $239.4 Million
A lot of movies that were released after the COVID pandemic dominated the world struggled to find success. People weren’t going to theaters to sit with big crowds and while that mostly changed by 2022, some films still couldn’t find an audience. The Bad Guys did, though.
Based on the children’s book series of the same name, The Bad Guys proved to be a hit and a sequel arrived in 2025. The Bad Guys 2 follows our titular group of former criminals who are now heroes as they are forced to join an all-female team of thieves to pull off one final heist.
The Bad Guys 2 was just about even with the first installment in terms of its box office intake, with this one grossing $239.4 million. There are also several television spin-offs and short films that help add to the franchise’s level of success.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – The Movie Infinity Castle – $730.4 Million
Take what was said about Chainsaw Man and you can apply it to Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba on an even greater level. The manga series ran for four years from 2016-2020 and then the anime television adaptation spanned four seasons from 2019-2024, with both being major hits.
The popularity of both remains strong to this day and there was no greater evidence of that than looking at the box office numbers for Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle. The 2020 film pulled in $512 million, yet it managed to easily surpass that.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle became a whopping hit that grossed an astounding $730.4 million. Acting as a direct sequel to the show’s fourth season, this film was not only a commercial hit but fans and critics alike loved it, as it received sparkling reviews.
Zootopia 2 – $1.803 Billion
Walt Disney Animation Studios isn’t typically known for putting out major sequels. A lot of their classics, like The Lion King and Mulan, received direct-to-video sequels but nothing that hit theaters. That has changed in recent years to great success, with Frozen II and Moana 2 surpassing $1 billion.
The studio’s latest release is a sequel to a movie that already hit the $1 billion on its own, Zootopia. Set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, it centers on an underdog rabbit police officer who forms a bond with a cunning criminal fox, where they save everyone. In Zootopia 2, they are partners.
This time around, they work together with a snake to prove their innocence as reptiles have been banished from Zootopia. The film was actually quite a bit more successful than the first, grossing $1.803 billion, which puts it several hundred million over the initial entry.
Ne Zha 2 – $2.259 Billion
Most people in the United States likely think Zootopia 2 was the biggest animated movie of 2025 but when looking at the box office across the world, it was pretty clearly in second place. It got outgrossed by around $400 million by Ne Zha 2.
Based on the Chinese mythological character Nezha and the 16th century novel Investiture of the Gods, this movie is a sequel to 2014’s Ne Zha, which pulled in around $742 million. The sequel was a vast improvement in terms of intake, pulling in a ridiculous $2.259 million.
That means that Ne Zha 2 made history as it is now the highest-grossing animated movie, the highest-grossing non-English language movie, and the first animated movie to surpass $2 billion. It also sits as the fifth-highest-grossing film in history as well.
