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With the 2020 box office collapsing in March due to the global pandemic the Chinese market was the first an quickest to recover and it dominated the global scene over the whole year.

The top grossing movie of the year was The Eight Hundred wich was released in August and did big business in China.

Chinese films accounted for 6 of the top 20 movies of the year and 7 of the movie were released in 2019 with a holdover in 2020.

Tenet which was the first big movie released during the pandemic made it into the top 5 movies of the year despite being considered a flop.

Many movies have had there releases moved to 2021 and cinemas did not have the massive tentpole pictures that would have pulled in over a Billion dollars in revenue, in fact its the first time in over a decade there has been no movie taking over $1 Billion.

Here are the top 5 movies by gross across the globe in 2020.

The Eight Hundred

A massive hit in China the action war epic is directed by Hu Guan and took $161 Million on its full opening weekend.

Over its full global release the movie took $441.8 Million making the top grossing global movie of the year.

Bad Boys For Life

After a lengthy gap Will Smith and Martin Lawrence re-teamed as the Miami cops and the movie was a global smash.

Released at the start of the year its release just missed the cinemas closures due to COVID-19 and took $418.2 Million.

1917

Sam Mendes released his Oscar nominated was movie in America in late 2019 but got its global release in early 2020 and its the 3rd top movie of 2020 with $375.4 Million.

My People, My Homeland

Directed by 7 of Chinas top directors this anthology movie took $101 Million durings its Chinese opening.

Globally the movie is the 4th highest grossing of the year with $371.1 Million.

Tenet

In America this movie was moved to an August release with studios hoping that cinemas would have re-opened after 4 months of closures, but the global pandemic had other ideas and although countries has started to re-opened cinemas had limited capacity.

The movie did relatively well in global cinemas but with mixed reviews it was not the film Warner Bros. had hoped, but a top five of the year is not bad with a gross of $362.6.

The US box office got off to a good start for the first quarter of the year by which time the Will Smith and Martin Lawrence movie Bad Boys For Life was the surprise top movie, then in March everything changed.

When the pandemic hit hard cinemas closed for 4 months and although there were weekly charts it was mainly from drive in theatres and studios started shifting release dates hoping things would get back to normal by the end of the year.

Tenet opened in August and it was considered Warner Bros. opened it too early and the movie despite taking $58 Million was considered a flop.

Studios have moved their films around even more since cinemas started to re-open and have gone into 2021 or been moved to streaming, but Warner Bros. again have tested the water at the end of the year with Wonder Woman 1984 which got a release on Christams day 2020 at cinemas and on HBO Max.

Disney has bypassed cinema all together on 2 of their potential biggest movie with Mulan going direct to Disney+ (for a premium price) and the Pixar movie Soul released on Christmas Day.

As it stands the top 20 movies in the US took a reasonable $1.6 Billion but compared to 2019 the top 20 took $5.8 Billion.

Here is 5 top grossing movies at the US box office in 2020.

Bad Boys For Life

Starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence who return as the Miami cop duo in the third in the Bad Boys series.

The movie was a surprise box office hit on its release on 17th January and took $204.5 Million at the US box office making the top movie of the year.

1917

Released on the 10th January (wide, it cam out in 2019 on limited to catch the Oscar deadline) the movie is based during World War one and is film as if it was a continuous single shot.

Despite not winning the best movie Oscar the film took $158 Million at the US box office and is the second best movie of 2020.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

The last movie in the Skywalker Saga was released in 2019 where it took $362.1 Million and was the 6th top movie.

Because of the pandemic the movie managed to be the 3rd best film of 2020 after taking $153 Million.

Sonic The Hedgehog

After going through a strange redesign for its main character Sonic when fan feedback was not too good about his look in the trailer the movie moved to February 14th release date.

The film was a surprise hit and took $146.2 Million at the US box office making it the 4th top movie of 2020.

Jumanji: The Next Level

The sequel movie the 2017 smash hit Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle was released in 2019 where it took $175.4 Million and was the 11th top film in that year.

In 2020 the movie took $142.5 Million and is the 5th top grossing of the year.

See the full US top 20 of 2020

With cinema closures under the global pandemic continuing across the US which is for the 10th month disrupting the box office animated feature The Croods 2 stays at the top for a second weekend.

Top new movie of the weekend enters the box office at 2 in the shape of Mexican movie Half Brothers and All My Life also makes a new entry at 4.

Also making a new entry on the box office this weekend is the re-edited version of The Godfather Part II, called The Godfather, Coda: The Death Of Michael Corleone, which debuts at 15 with $52,000.

US box office Quickview.

• Number 1 - The Croods: A New Age (2nd weekend)
• Highest Debut - Half Brothers (@2)
• Longest run - Tenet (14 weeks)^*
• Highest total gross - Tenet ($57,600,000)^*
^*Not including catalogue re-releases

Here is the US box office top 5 rundown for 4th - 6th December 2020.

The Croods: A New Age

Second weekend at the top for the animated movie from director Joel Crawford starring Nicolas Cage and Ryan Reynolds which takes $4.4 Million, 55% down from last weekend.

This gives the movie a total gross of $20.3 Million after 2 weeks of release.

Half Brothers

A Mexican movie from director Luke Greenfield is the highest new movie of the weekend making its debut at number 2 on the US box office.

The film took a very respectable $720,000 on its debut weekend of release.

Freaky

The horror comedy former number 1 movie falls to number 3 this weekend with $460,000, a 42% drop from last weekend.

The Christopher Landon directed movie has now taked $7.74 Million during its 4 weeks of release.

All My Life

New at number 4 this weekend is this romance from director Marc Meyers which takes $350,000 on its debut weekend.

The War With Grandpa

Surprise hit of the year starring Rober De Niro falls to number 5 this weekend with $329,359, a 44% drop, giving the movie a total gross of $17.63 Million after 9 weeks of release, all in the top 5!

The US box office has just passed the $2 Billion mark, its November, for the past few years this has happened in March.

When the pandemic spread around the world, cinemas globally started closing down, in the US this is still ongoing.

This biggest movie of the year in the US is Bad Boys For Life which has taken over $204 Million in the US, and no film will overtake that total this year, the film was released in January of 2020 and had a good run at the box office.

In context of this the biggest movie in the US was Avengers: Endgame which took over $850 Million.

To start with all blockbusters started putting their release dates to later in the year or to 2021, but as it became clear that the pandemic would last far longer than originally expected movies started to appear on streaming services.

The effect of this is all those big Hollywood blockbusters that could have, and would have, grossed close a billion either took far less on basically limited release, or nothing due to a DVOD release.

Tenet was the first movie with blockbuster potential to be release during the pandemic and although it grossed over $50 Million in the US it was a potential $800 million plus grosser.

Drive-in theatres gave a small lifeline but even a blockbuster in this arena was worth just over a Million.

With a vaccine being likely by year out to hopefully go into mass production for 2021 we can hope that 2020 will go down in history as a one off, although with companies like Disney suggesting it will release future movies on Disney+ as exclusives or day and date releases it could be bad news for the cinema industry.

With the English box office still MIA and the UK box office relying on Scotland and Wales for a life line what movies were hitting the box office over the last 30 years?

Each week we present a rundown of the UK box office chart headlines on this same week from last year to 1990.

A year ago (2019)

No. 1 and highest debut:
Last Christmas starring Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding and directed by Paul Feig

Top total grossing and longest run:
Joker which had taken £56.1 Million over 7 weeks of release.

Five years ago (2015)

No. 1 movie:
Spectre which had been at the top for 3 weeks and with a total gross of £77.6 Million it was also the top total grossing film.

Highest Debut:
The Lady In The Van directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings which entered the box office at number 2.

Longest run:
The Martian which had been on the box office for 7 weeks.

Ten years ago (2010)

No. 1 and Highest debut:
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 starring Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson and directed by David Yates

Longest run:
The Social Network which had been on the box office for 6 weeks.

Top total grossing:
Despicable Me which had taken £19.1 Million after 6 weeks of release.

Fifteen years ago (2005)

No. 1 and highest debut:
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire starring Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint and directed by Mike Newell

Longest run:
Kinky Boots which had been on the box office for 6 weeks.

Top total grossing:
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit which had taken £31.2 Million after 6 weeks of release.

Twenty years ago (2000)

No.1 movie:
What Lies Beneath which had been at the top for 3 weeks.

Highest debut:
Little Nicky directed by Steven Brill and starring Adam Sandler and Patricia Arquette which entered the box office at number 3.

Top total grossing and longest run:
Billy Elliot which had taken £14.9 Million over 8 weeks of release.

Twenty five years ago (1995)

No.1 movie:
To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar which had been at the top for 2 weeks.

Highest debut:
A Walk In The Clouds directed by Alfonso Arau and starring Keanu Reeves and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon which entered the box office at number 2.

Top total grossing and longest run:
Batman Forever which had taken £21.4 Million over 18 weeks of release.

Thirty years ago (1990)

No. 1 and highest debut:
Darkman starring Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand and directed by Sam Raimi

Longest run:
Die Hard 2: Die Harder which had been on the box office for 12 weeks.

Top total grossing:
Ghost which had taken £22.9 Million after 7 weeks of release.