Oppenheimer’s intense three hours didn’t bother the paying audience in the slightest. On the contrary, the film’s take becomes more and more interesting.
You will not have missed the face of Rami Malek while watching Oppenheimer. The actor, who appears for a few minutes in the film Christopher Nolanwon an award Oscar as best leading actor for playing Freddie Mercury in the box office hit Bohemian Rhapsody. Although it tells the story of Queen in a very sweetened way, Bohemian Rhapsody was so popular with the public that it became the highest-grossing biopic ever worldwide. From today, however, things have changed.
Oppenheimer is the most watched biopic ever at the cinema
With the obligatory premise that all the following figures are not updated with inflation, let’s take a look for pure fun at the data from the Box Office Mojo website exclusively dedicated to biopics, precisely at the first five positions:
- 5. The king’s speech (2010) – 484.068.861 $
- 4. The Greatest Showman (2017) – 435.732.529 $
- 3. American Sniper (2014) – 547.459.020 $
- 2. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) – 910.809.311 $
- 1. Oppenheimer (2023) – 912.701.115 $
The film of Nolan it is now the highest-grossing biopic globally. However, we update the ranking to also include Christ’s passion which is not considered in many online newspapers. Isn’t that a biopic too? It’s even taken from four, not one, books you may have heard of: the Gospels second Matteo, Marco, Luca e Giovanni.
- 5. The Greatest Showman (2017) – 435.732.529 $
- 4. American Sniper (2014) – 547.459.020 $
- 3. Christ’s passion (2004) – 612.054.506 $
- 2. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) – 910.809.311 $
- 1. Oppenheimer (2023) – 912.701.115 $
At this point there is another ranking that can be taken into consideration, namely that of the highest grossing banned films ever. When in the United States a work receives the ban R (Restricted), means that unaccompanied minors under the age of 17 are not permitted to enter the room. The film released with this ban that has grossed the most in the world is Jokerwith a total of $1,074,458,282, a sum probably no longer reachable by Oppenheimer.
The Passion of the Christ remains the most watched biopic and banned film in the USA
You may say… but what is the point of comparing the takings of banned films also considering the countries in which the ban (if any) was different from that of the United States? Exactly, you can also ask all the online magazines that publish and republish these rankings because, we know, the rankings are popular precisely because of the superficiality and immediacy that characterize them. So Let’s limit the ranking of R-rated films that have most seduced Americans at the cinema to the USA alone (always without calculating inflation):
- 7. Oppenheimer (2023) – 318.634.610 $
- 6. Deadpool 2 (2018) – 324.591.735 $
- 5. It (2017) – 328.874.981 $
- 4. Joker (2019) – 335.477.657 $
- 3. American Sniper (2014) – 350.159.020 $
- 2. Deadpool (2016) – 363.070.709 $
- 1. The Passion of the Christ (2004) – 370.782.930 $
And so we find out that Christ’s passion is both the biopic be the R-rated films which boasts the highest grossing in the US market alone.