Universal said on Friday, September 25, 2026, that its films had passed $5 billion in ticket sales worldwide this year, making it the first distributor to reach that figure in 2026.
The studio put $1.788 billion of that total on screens in the United States and Canada and $3.218 billion in the rest of the world. Roughly 64 percent of the money, in other words, came from outside North America — the share that decides how a modern studio year ends, and the reason a domestic number alone no longer describes one.
It is the third time Universal has finished above $5 billion. The other two years were 2015 and 2017, which makes this the first since then.
Three films above $1 billion each
The year's largest contributor was The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan, at about $1.73 billion. It is the second-highest-grossing release of 2026 worldwide and the biggest film in Universal's history.
Behind it came the music biopic Michael, directed by Antoine Fuqua, at about $1.03 billion, the fourth-largest release of the year. Variety reports it has passed Bohemian Rhapsody to become the highest-grossing music biopic.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie took about $1.01 billion, fifth for the year.
Only five films have crossed $1 billion worldwide in 2026, and Universal distributed three of them. The other two were Sony and Marvel's Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5.
The smaller titles that made the difference
Two releases well short of the billion mark did a disproportionate amount of work.
Minions & Monsters took $523 million. Obsession took $519 million and became the highest-grossing film in the history of Focus Features, Universal's specialty label. According to Variety it was made for less than $1 million, and TheWrap describes it as the highest-grossing film-festival acquisition on record — a return that has less to do with scale than with what a distributor pays for a finished film.
Universal also finished first at the global box office on 11 weekends during 2026.
Reporting from Variety and TheWrap.
