Laughing all the way to the bank: the 10 highest-grossing comedies ever made
Although the content may be entirely subjective, comedies have always been reliable performers at the box office, with audiences always ready and willing to take a trip to the cinema in the hope and expectation of having their sides suitably split.
Laughter is called the best medicine for a reason, but not everyone swallows it in the same way. A movie that one person calls the funniest thing they’ve ever seen might not even be able to raise so much as a smirk for another, but the appeal tends to be measured best in how many tickets the films in question sell.
Comedies are often very successful, but it isn’t all that often they explode to become commercial juggernauts or cultural sensations. Some of them have made sums of money that are quite frankly eye-watering, but in the interest of fairness, it’s probably best to set out the parameters for what actually constitutes a comedy in this case.
Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool duology may have cleared a combined $1.5 billion, but in the broadest sense they’re comic book adaptations and superhero flicks first and foremost. Along similar lines, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ Men in Black would constitute sci-fi ahead of comedy, which by splitting hairs eliminates them from the conversation.
However, even in the strictest sense of the term, only one comedy has ever cleared a billion dollars, and it’s no shock to discover Greta Gerwig’s all-conquering Barbie takes that spot. Curiously, though, China has become the single most lucrative market for the genre in the last few years, with four of the ten highest-grossing comedies ever made hailing from the country.
Two of them are even from the same franchise, with the second and third instalments in Chen Sicheng’s Detective Chinatown series being joined by Jia Ling’s monster Hi, Mom, and Stephen Chow’s fantastical The Mermaid.
The oldest film on the list is Jim Carrey’s Bruce Almighty, which goes to show just how big of a star the rubber-faced funnyman was at the peak of his popularity, with his biblical romp continuing to reign as one of cinema’s most lucrative comedies more than 20 years on from its initial release.
There’s even a record-breaker in the mix, too, with Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano’s The Intouchables coming close to half a billion dollars on its way to becoming the biggest French hit in cinema history, something the English-language remake with Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston could only dream of.
Looking at how the box office continues to struggle, it could be a long time before any movie can make a concerted effort to dislodge Barbie from the summit as cinema’s biggest-ever comedy, especially when it’s $600 million ahead of its nearest competitor.
10 highest-grossing comedies ever made:
- Barbie (Greta Gerwig, 2023) – $1.445 billion
- Hi, Mom (Jia Ling, 2021) – $841 million
- Detective Chinatown 3 (Chen Sicheng, 2021) – $686 million
- The Hangover Part II (Todd Phillips, 2011) – $586 million
- The Mermaid (Stephen Chow, 2016) – $553 miillion
- Ted (Seth MacFarlane, 2012) – $549 million
- Detective Chinatown 2 (Chen Sicheng, 2018) – $544 million
- Meet the Fockers (Jay Roach, 2004) – $522 million
- The Intouchables (Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, 2011) – $484 million
- Bruce Almighty (Tom Shadyac, 2003) – $484 million
