The Highest Grossing Movie to Never Make the Top 10 at the Box Office

The Big Picture

• The Artist, a Best Picture winner, had a successful extended theatrical run despite competition from major blockbusters.
• The film’s box office performance was boosted by the Academy Awards, leading to increased screenings and revenue.
• The Artist demonstrates that popular and award-winning films can coexist, debunking the notion that the Academy neglects box office hits.

The box office has undergone a drastic transformation since the turn of the century, from the way the public interprets it to how the studios approach their business strategies. Where the major blockbusters of today are defined by their opening weekend gross, the majority of the highest-grossing films of the past primarily accumulated revenue through their entire theatrical window. A film’s multiplier or longevity playing in theaters, referred to as “legs,” is still a valuable commodity for films that don’t belong to an extended franchise. In particular, box office legs are fortuitous to awards darlings. In the case of The Artist, the Best Picture winner stands as the highest-grossing live-action narrative feature film to never finish in the top 10 at the box office on any given weekend.

‘The Artist’ Dominated at the Academy Awards

The Artist, the 2011 throwback to silent cinema and Golden Age Hollywood, experienced a palpable cultural moment upon its release. Along with widespread critical adoration, The Artist dominated the awards circuit, with star Jean Dujardin and director Michel Hazanavicius taking home honor after honor. The film completed its awards run without a sweat on Oscars night in February 2012, winning 5 statuettes from the Academy, including Best Actor, Director, and Picture. Until the near-sweep of every major category by Everything Everywhere All At Once at last year’s ceremony, rarely do Best Picture winners of the last decade dominate the ceremony. With The Artist, everyone fell in love with the film’s pastiche tone and earnest tribute to classic Hollywood.

The ten highest-grossing films at the 2011 domestic box office comprised solely of sequels and franchise entertainment. For those who clamor for more original stories at a mainstream level in 2023, reading this graph will act as a bad case of déjà vu. In a year dominated by Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, Twilight, The Hangover, Fast and Furious, and Harry Potter (with The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 finishing at #1), a film like The Artist feels especially rare. The only original, adult-oriented films sitting within the top 20 are The Help and Bridesmaids. The future Best Picture winner completed its run as the 71st highest-grossing film of the year. While it merely earned $44 million in the U.S., its $88 million gross overseas gave it an overall earning of $133 million. However, the true story of The Artist‘s box office performance lies in its persistence in theaters against the big blockbusters.

‘The Artist’ Thrived at the Box Office Against a Vast Field of Blockbusters

The Artist expanded to a wide release (playing in at least 600 theaters) on January 20, 2012. Its limited release began on November 25, 2011, in conjunction with the traditional release of awards-centered films. Throughout the film’s prolonged theatrical window, which lasted through June 2012, The Artist competed against The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 21 Jump Street, and The Hunger Games. The Hazanavicius film never approached the aforementioned collection of films’ box office earnings on any weekend, but it routinely found itself within the top 20 as late as March 2012, ranked #13, #12, and #11 during its peak presence in theaters in the winter. Upon the completion of its theatrical window, The Artist finished as the highest-grossing live-action narrative film (with only Fantasia 2000 and a handful of IMAX nature/space documentaries grossing more) to never reach the top 10 in any weekend.

The timing of The Artist‘s increase in screenings across various weekends during the middle of its run is an insightful examination of the Academy Award’s impact on the box office. The nominees for the 84th Oscars ceremony were announced on January 24. The weekends before and after the nomination announcement saw a 99% and 40% increase in theaters for The Artist, respectively. The Oscars ceremony, hosted by the prolific Billy Crystal and featuring Moneyball, Hugo, and War Horse as fellow Best Picture candidates, was held on February 26. The film’s night of glory at the Oscars was subsequently complemented by a 25% increase in theater screenings. The glowing endorsement by the Oscars prolonged the film’s box office potential, as it was still playing in over 100 theaters in the middle of April.

The Oscar Bump Affected the Financial Success of ‘The Artist’

There is an all-too-prevalent myth that popular, financially successful movies are ostracized by the Academy Awards, and that the Academy thumbs its nose at box office hits and favors more obscure films. Every few years, outrage ensues over the snubbing of a blockbuster comic book movie for Best Picture, which was seen recently with Spider-Man: No Way Home. The notion that the Academy should abide by the standards of a popularity contest is fraught, but regardless, popular movies, when they aspire to creative excellence, are regularly recognized. The majority of Best Picture winners can be deemed financially successful and popular among the public, with some of the winners, including The Godfather, Forrest Gump, Titanic, and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, being the highest-grossing films of their respective eras. This fallacy was formulated as a result of most tent-pole films nowadays belonging to extended franchises of the comic book variety, a genre that has never clicked with Academy voters.

While it never caused lines to extend past the entrance at theaters, The Artist proved that, even in recent times, popularity and awards success are not mutually exclusive. If anything, the times have changed, not the Academy’s taste. The Artist‘s box office performance is a relic of the “Oscar Bump,” which is when a film’s revenue exponentially increases following the announcement of a film’s Oscar nomination. Last year’s pool of nominees experienced only a marginal boost relative to recent bumps that films such as Silver Linings Playbook and American Sniper had. In a different time, The Fabelmans and The Banshees of Inisherin would have made a seismic impact at the box office, rather than merely through streaming numbers. The advent of word-of-mouth has seemed to fade away as a sturdy marketing campaign in this fragmented media landscape.

The cultural imprint of an Academy Award nomination may not be as prominent in 2023, but the right kind of feel-good, comfort food film such as The Artist is designed to please the masses and awards voters. The last two Best Picture winners, CODA and Everything Everywhere All At Once, satisfy the innate desire for a “good time at the movies,” with just the precise amount of creative polish. In the case of the latter, its box office legs were impressive, as it reemerged in theaters following its uproarious acclaim from the Academy. Ultimately, the defining story of The Artist is the power of box office legs. Sometimes, the opening weekend gross is overrated. A real test of a film’s popular appeal is its extended stay at the movies.

The Artist is streaming on Max in the U.S.

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