‘Best animated movie’ you’ve never heard of smashes world record by $400,000,000
Disney has ceded the number one spot.
The world record for the highest-grossing animated film of all time has just been broken by a new movie soon to open in the UK – and it’s highly unlikely you’ve ever heard of it.
Having grossed over $2,000,000,000 (£1,539,400,000) as of less than two weeks ago, according to Variety and Artisan Gateway, the haul for this movie will only continue to grow as it hits UK cinemas later this week.
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 the $1bn and $2bn benchmarks.
Despite this, film fans outside China are unlikely to know much – if anything – about Ne Zha 2.
Given the stats above, Ne Zha 2 is also, therefore, the highest grossing film of 2025 so far, and unlikely to be surpassed given that Detective Chinatown 1900 is in second place on $487million (£374m) – another Chinese effort – and Hollywood’s top film, Captain America: Brave New World, is third on $388m (£2.98m).
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).
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Previous Page Next PageIt’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.
Comment nowAre you going to watch Ne Zha 2?Comment NowThe 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.
Ne Zha 2 has taken over $2billion at the box office, surpassing Inside Out 2’s record (Picture: Everett/Rex/Shutterstock)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’.
Fans have called it the ‘best animated movie of all time’ (Picture: Everett/Rex/Shutterstock)‘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.
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 has also already claimed number five in the list of highest-grossing films of all time, surpassing the likes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Infinity War to settle in behind (for now) Avengers: Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water and Titanic in second, third and fourth respectively.
Avatar, released in 2009, still remains the biggest movie ever after raking in$2.9bn (£2.23bn) at the box office.
Ne Zha 2 opens in UK cinemas on Friday, March 21.
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