Inside Out 2 Just Got Dethroned as the Highest-Grossing Animated Movie Ever

Well, that didn’t take long. It hasn’t even been a year since Inside Out 2 took over Frozen 2‘s spot atop the list of highest-grossing animated movies of all time—en route to becoming 2024’s highest-grossing movie worldwide, full stop, though Deadpool & Wolverine did make a run for it. The top movie of 2025 is still to be decided, but that animated list has a new champ: China’s Ne Zha 2, which has racked up $1.7 billion to date.

This stat comes from Deadline, which notes Ne Zha 2 is also rocketing its way up the all-time highest-grossing list; it’s at number eight (Inside Out 2 now sits at number nine), though it’ll take some doing for any movie to dislodge the James Cameron trio (plus a certain Avengers flick) that currently hold the top four spots.

The trade further notes that Ne Zha 2 is the first movie made outside of Hollywood to cross the billion-dollar mark. Here’s the film’s synopsis from the AMC Theaters website, a good place to start if you want to see if Ne Zha 2 is playing in a theater near you: “After the heavenly lightning, although Ne Zha and Ao Bing survived by becoming Spirits, they would soon dissipate completely. Taiyi plans to rebuild Ne Zha and Ao Bing’s mortal bodies with the Seven-colored Precious Lotus. However, during the process of reconstruction, numerous obstacles arise. What will become of the fate of Ne Zha and Ao Bing?”

Have you seen Ne Zha 2 yet? Do you recommend it? Let us know below!

Update: The four top-grossing films of all time reference has been updated to correct an error, which io9 regrets.

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