Top movie genres in the U.S. & Canada 1995-2022, by total box office revenue

Between 1995 and early 2022, adventure was the highest-grossing movie genre at the so-called North American box office, which consists of Canada and the United States (including the unincorporated territories of Guam and Puerto Rico). Adventure films recorded a box office revenue of almost 65 billion U.S. dollars within that period. Action movies followed with more than 50 billion dollars in revenue.

Cinema: releases versus revenue

Titles with adventure and action elements are also on the top on a global scale. "Avatar" (2009) and "Avengers: Endgame" (2019) are the most commercially successful movies of all time, each grossing around 2.8 billion dollars worldwide. In terms of production, however, historically, the North American market has plenty of dramas, comedies, and documentaries. These were the top three genres of movie releases in the U.S. and Canada between 1995 and the beginning of 2022.

Will the cinema market fully recover?

The film industry in the U.S. faced unparalleled challenges after the COVID-19 pandemic led to preventive lockdowns across the globe. It remains to be seen if the demand for movies on the big screen will reach the same levels recorded before the outbreak. The number of movie tickets sold in the U.S. and Canada increased by more than 120 percent between 2020 and 2021, when it surpassed 498 million. Still, the latter figure amounted to only 40 percent of the nearly 1.23 billion tickets sold in 2019.