‘Oppenheimer’ Becomes Second-Biggest R-Rated Movie at Global Box Office

The Labor Day weekend is delivering multiple box office milestones. Not only has overall revenue for the summer passed the $4 billion mark for the first time since pre-pandemic 2019, the two major contributors to that feat — Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer — are passing their own personal milestones as well. Barbie finally overtook The Super Mario Bros. Movie to become the year’s biggest hit at the global box office, while simultaneously passing the $600 million mark domestically. Oppenheimer, meanwhile, has now overtaken a slew of superhero and science-fiction hits to become the second-biggest R-rated film in history.

This is likely where it’ll settle, although there’s no telling how much gas it has in the tank. The three-hour biographical thriller has made $787 million worldwide, which puts it behind only Joker on the list of the biggest R-rated movies ever. Released in 2019, Joker became the first R-rated movie to gross more than $1 billion worldwide, ultimately finishing with $1.066 billion. Incidentally, like Joker, Oppenheimer was also produced on a relatively modest budget, reportedly in the $100 million range.

Nobody would’ve expected Oppenheimer to perform as well as it has, so it would be foolish to write it off now, when it’s possible that it legs it past the $900 million mark globally. After all, it is expected to pass the $850 million this weekend, overtaking Inception to become Nolan’s third-biggest hit behind his two billion-dollar blockbusters — The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. Oppenheimer is also the third-biggest hit of the year domestically, and the fourth-biggest movie of the year worldwide. It will, however, soon overtake Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and claim the third spot on the global list.

Here Are All the Other Top R-Rated Movies in History

On its way to the number two spot on the all-time R-rated list, Oppenheimer overtook movies such as The Hangover Part II ($586 million), Logan ($614 million), The Passion of the Christ ($622 million), the Chinese film Detective Chinatown 3 ($699 million), It ($701 million), The Matrix Reloaded ($738 million), Deadpool ($781 million) and Deadpool 2 ($786 million).

Domestically, it remains the seventh-biggest R-rated movie ever, behind Deadpool 2 ($324 million), It ($328 million), Joker ($335 million), American Sniper ($350 million), Deadpool ($363 million) and The Passion of the Christ ($370 million). Along with Mel Gibson’s biblical epic and Clint Eastwood’s war drama, Oppenheimer stands out in a field dominated by genre pictures.

Based on the life of the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer has been described as Nolan’s most mature feature yet, favoring an ominous, dialogue-heavy tone as opposed to the spectacle that he is usually associated with. The movie is also something of an Oscar front-runner, and while several of its cast members — Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr. and Matt Damon, to name a few — will likely be shoo-ins for nominations, attention will also be on Nolan, who has yet to win that elusive Best Director Oscar.