All charts are ranked by international theatrical box office performance where possible, excluding income derived from home video, broadcasting rights and merchandise.
Animated family films have performed consistently well at the box office, with Disney enjoying lucrative re-releases prior to the home video era with Walt Disney Animation Studios, who have produced films such as Aladdin and The Lion King, both of which were the highest-grossing animated film of all time upon their release.
Beyond Disney and Pixar, franchises Despicable Me, Shrek, Ice Age, Fengshen Cinematic Universe, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar and Doraemon have met with the most success.
An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of more than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters' performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique.
[2][nb 1] All except the original 1994 version of The Lion King, which is a traditionally animated film—are computer-animated films.
Japanese animated features have topped the list at seven occasions: in 1978, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1987, and 2020; the list has also been topped by a German film in 1926, Spanish in 1945, French in 1949, British in 1954, Swedish in 1968 and 1974, Norwegian in 1975, Belgian in 1976 and Canadian in 1985.
Shrek 2, made by DreamWorks Animation, is the only film on the list not produced by Disney or Pixar.
The original 1994 version of The Lion King was the most recent non-3D CG animated film to hold the record.
Toy Story is the only franchise to hold the record on multiple occasions doing so with the first three films.
Shrek 2, made by DreamWorks Animation, is the only film on the list not produced by Disney or Pixar.
Frozen is the only animated franchise where every installment grossed $1 billion; it has the highest per-film average, with nearly $1.4 billion unadjusted, and along with Inside Out, are the only animated franchises to average over $1 billon per film.