In Britain they obsess over the Christmas number-one single. In America, the equivalent contest happens at the multiplex, and the stakes are enormous: the week between Christmas and New Year’s is one of the most lucrative stretches of the entire movie calendar, when families with time off and gift-card money pour into theaters. Winning it has become a coveted, jealously guarded prize — and over twenty years, a remarkably consistent cast of contenders has claimed it.
The kings of the holiday week
Two franchises tower over the Christmas leaderboard. James Cameron’s Avatar films have repeatedly commandeered the final week of the year, and the modern Star Wars saga made December its home base for a decade, opening each new chapter into the holiday rush. Add the year Spider-Man: No Way Home detonated across Christmas 2021 — taking a staggering 86% of the week — and you have the template: a colossal, four-quadrant franchise event, timed to the one week when nearly everyone is free to go.
| Year | Christmas #1 | Share of the week |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Avatar: Fire and Ash | 45% |
| 2024 | Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | 32% |
| 2023 | Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom | 21% |
| 2022 | Avatar: The Way of Water | 65% |
| 2021 | Spider-Man: No Way Home | 86% |
| 2020 | Wonder Woman 1984 | 63% |
| 2019 | Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker | 60% |
| 2018 | Aquaman | 32% |
| 2017 | Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi | 36% |
| 2016 | Rogue One: A Star Wars Story | 63% |
| 2015 | Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens | 76% |
| 2014 | The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies | 32% |
The years nobody dominated
Not every Christmas produces a king. In some years the holiday week fragments — several mid-size releases splitting the audience so evenly that the “winner” takes only a modest share. These softer Christmases, marked in gold on the chart, tend to happen when the studios blink: when no franchise giant is ready in time, and the week becomes a genuine free-for-all. They are increasingly the exception. As the calendar has concentrated, the holiday slot has become something studios plan years around, and a soft Christmas now reads as a missed opportunity.
Batmandir · The Circle Full access to theatres, museums & exhibitions. S2 · ongoing membership, without a Founder’s seat. Explore membership →There is a strategic reason the holiday king so often dominates completely. A film that opens at Christmas doesn’t just win one week — it inherits a long, competition-light run into January, when studios traditionally dump their weakest titles. Owning Christmas is therefore worth far more than a single strong weekend; it is a launchpad into a month of near-uncontested play. That is why the biggest franchises fight so hard for the date, and why the films that win it so often go on to become the year’s highest earners.
So while Britain argues over a novelty song every December, America stages a quieter but far costlier coronation. The Christmas number one at the box office is rarely a surprise — it is usually the most expensive, most anticipated film of the year, arriving exactly when the country has nothing to do but watch it. The holiday belongs, more years than not, to whoever spent the most to own it.
