A blockbuster is a work of entertainment—typically used to describe a feature film produced by a major film studio, but also other media—that is highly popular and financially successful. The term has also come to refer to any large-budget production intended for "blockbuster" status, aimed at mass markets with associated merchandising, sometimes on a scale that meant the financial fortunes of a film studio or a distributor could depend on it.
Etymology The term began to appear in the American press in the early 1940s, referring to the blockbuster bombs, aerial munitions capable of destroying a whole block of buildings. Its first known use in reference to films was in May 1943, when advertisements in Variety and Motion Picture Herald described the RKO film, Bombardier, as "The block-buster of all action-thrill-service shows!" Another trade advertisement in 1944 boasted that the war documentary, With the Marines at Tarawa, "hits the heart like a two ton blockbuster."
Several theories have been put forward for the origin of the term in a film context. One explanation pertains to the practice of "block booking" whereby a studio would sell a package of films to theaters, rather than permitting them to select which films they wanted to exhibit. However, this practice was outlawed in 1948 before the term became common parlance; while pre-1948 high-grossing big-budget spectacles may be retroactively labelled "blockbusters," this is not how they were known at the time. Another explanation is that trade publications would often advertise the popularity of a film by including illustrations showing long queues often extending around the block, but in reality the term was never used in this way. The term was actually coined by publicists who drew on readers' familiarity with the blockbuster bombs, drawing an analogy with the bomb's huge impact. The trade press subsequently appropriated the term as short-hand for a film's commercial potential. Throughout 1943 and 1944 the term was applied to films such as Bataan, No Time for Love and Brazil.
History
Golden Age era The term fell out of usage in the aftermath of World War II but was revived in 1948 by Variety in an article about big budget films. By the early 1950s the term had become standardised within the film industry and the trade press to denote a film that was large in spectacle, scale and cost, that would go on to achieve a high gross. In December 1950 the Daily Mirror predicted that Samson and Delilah would be "a box office block buster", and in November 1951 Variety described Quo Vadis as "a b.o. blockbuster [...] right up there with Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind for boxoffice performance [...] a super-spectacle in all its meaning".
According to Stephen Prince, Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai had a "racing, powerful narrative engine, breathtaking pacing, and sense-assaulting visual style" (what he calls a "kinesthetic cinema" approach to "action filmmaking and exciting visual design") that was "the clearest precursor" and became "the model for" the "visceral" Hollywood blockbuster "brand of moviemaking" that emerged in the 1970s. According to Prince, Kurosawa became "a mentor figure" to a generation of emerging American filmmakers who went on to develop the Hollywood blockbuster format in the 1970s, such as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.
Blockbuster era 1970s In 1975, the usage of "blockbuster" for films coalesced around Steven Spielberg's Jaws.‘Jaws @ 50’ shows why Spielberg’s blockbuster changed movies forever – San Francisco ChronicleNo Substitute for the Soul: 25 years of Steven Spielberg’s emotional sci-fi A.I. Artificial Intelligence · Journal · Letterboxd It was perceived as a new cultural phenomenon: fast-paced, exciting entertainment, inspiring interest and conversation beyond the theatre (which would later be called "buzz"), and repeated viewings.Tom Shone: Blockbuster (2004). London, Simon & Schuster UK. . See pp. 27–40. The film is regarded as the first film of the "blockbuster era", and founded the blockbuster film genre.Neale, Steve. "Hollywood Blockbusters: Historical Dimensions." Ed. Julien Stinger. Hollywood Blockbusters. London: Routeledge, 2003. pp. 48–50. Print. Two years later, Star Wars expanded on the success of Jaws, setting box office records and enjoying a theatrical run that lasted more than a year. After the success of Jaws and Star Wars, many Hollywood producers attempted to create similar "event" films with wide commercial appeal, and film companies began green-lighting increasingly large-budget films, and relying extensively on massive advertising blitzes leading up to their theatrical release. These two films were the prototypes for the "summer blockbuster" trend, in which major film studios and distributors planned their annual marketing strategy around a big release by July 4.Shone (2004), Chapter 1. George Lucas's 1973 hit American Graffiti is often cited for helping give birth to the summer blockbuster.
Blockbuster cinema of this decade also included The Exorcist (1973), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Rocky (1976), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Grease, Hooper, Convoy, Superman (each from 1978), 10, Kramer vs. Kramer and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (each from 1979).In 1978, audiences couldn’t get enough of Burt Reynolds/The DissolveCritic’s Notebook: William Friedkin’s Towering ‘The Exorcist’ Redefined Horror – The Hollywood Reporter
1980s–1990s The next fifteen years saw a number of high-quality blockbusters released including the likes of Alien (1979) and its sequel, Aliens (1986), 9 to 5 (1980), the first three Indiana Jones films (1981, 1984 and 1989), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Tootsie (each from 1982), Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop (each from 1984), the Back to the Future trilogy (1985, 1989 and 1990), Top Gun (1986), Die Hard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (both from 1988), Batman (1989) and its sequel Batman Returns (1992), The Little Mermaid (1989), Ghost, Home Alone, The Hunt for Red October (each from 1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Beauty and the Beast (each from 1991), Aladdin (1992), Jurassic Park (1993), Forrest Gump, Speed, The Lion King (each from 1994), Toy Story (1995), Independence Day (1996), Men in Black, Titanic (each from 1997) and The Matrix (1999).The Circle Of Life: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About The Lion King (1994)|Screen RantToys Are the Story on Holiday Weekend: Disney's 'Toy Story' is Thanksgiving's big moneymaker. The animated film could propel the five days to a record $152 million in ticket sales. - Los Angeles TimesWho Framed Roger Rabbit - Museum of the Moving ImageSummer Blockbuster Movies from the 80s:'Coming to America,' 'Aliens,' 'Top Gun' and More|Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences1982 and the Fate of Filmgoing|The New YorkerMichael Ocelot: A World of Animated Images - Google Books (pgs.3-10)Summer Blockbuster Movies from the 90s:'Ghost,' 'Speed,' 'The Mummy' and More|Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesThe American Blockbuster: Movies That Defined Their Generations – Google Books (sections 2-5)
21st century While Hollywood has long been aware of the value of sequels to successful movies, and of series based on popular characters such as James Bond, the twenty-first century saw studios invest increasingly in franchises. The eight-part Harry Potter film series, starting with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), as well as the superhero trilogies X-Men (2000–2006) and Spider-Man (2002–2007) were further demonstrations of the power of the comic book movie. In 2008 Iron Man became the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or MCU) while a decade later, Black Panther (2018) was the first Marvel entry to be nominated for the prestigious Academy Award for Best Picture. , there are 43 movies in the MCU, with a combined global box office of $31 billion, and the franchise inspired other cinematic universes including the DC Extended Universe, the MonsterVerse and the Wizarding World, with mixed box office results. Other successful franchises of the era included Fast & Furious (starting 2001), Shrek (starting 2001), Ice Age (starting 2002), Pirates of the Caribbean (starting 2003), The Dark Knight trilogy (2005–2012) and Transformers (starting 2007).Don't Blame Barbie and Ken for Killing the Movies - And Don't Blame IP - IPWatchdog.comA Cultural Evolution of 'Shrek', from Blockbuster Hit to Historic Meme - VICE
Another notable trend was the rise of two-part blockbusters, particularly in book adaptations and to end movie series. This trend started with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010) and Part 2 (2011), and was followed by The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011) and Part 2 (2012), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014) and Part 2 (2015), It Chapter One (2017) and Chapter Two (2019), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Endgame (2019), and Dune: Part One (2021) and Part Two (2024).
Notable animated blockbusters from the 2000s to the 2010s include many entries from Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and Illumination alongside their sequels: Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Up (2009), Despicable Me (2010), Frozen (2013), Moana and Zootopia (each from 2016) and Inside Out (2015).30 Highest-Grossing Animated Movies of All Time - TheWrapThe Superhero Book: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Comic-Book Icons and Hollywood Heroes – Google Books (pg.18)
The rise of streaming media and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema significantly changed the film landscape in the 2020s, with analysts disagreeing about whether decreased cinema attendance would make Hollywood more reliant on blockbusters or would instead favor smaller films. Expected blockbusters such as Onward, Tenet (each from 2020) and No Time to Die (postponed to 2021) had cinema releases that were curtailed, postponed, or replaced entirely with direct-to-streaming releases. Major releases were increasingly booked with shorter runs, rather than follow established tentpole windows.
The following decade, Hollywood saw blockbusters such as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023),Weekend Animated Box-Office Battle: It's Sony's 'Spider-Verse' versus Pixar's 'Elemental'|Animation Magazine Oppenheimer (2023), Sinners (2025), Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022),10 Biggest Summer Blockbuster Movies of The 2020s So Far - ScreenRant Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021),'Spider-Man: No Way Home' Beats 'Avatar' To Become Third-Highest-Grossing Movie At Domestic Box Office' Avatar: The Way of Water (2022),'Avatar 2' Topping Massive $2.3 Billion Global Box Office The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),Billion-Dollar 'Super Mario Bros.' Blockbuster Power Jumps to Digital May 16|Animation Magazine Inside Out 2 (2024),The Real Reasons Inside Out 2 Was a Hit|TIME Zootopia 2 (2025),'Zootopia 2' to premiere on Disney+ March 11 – UPI.com The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026),The Box Office Bounces Back: Gen Z, Surprise Hits and More Have Hollywood Banking on a $10 Billion Year – Variety The Odyssey (2026)‘Odyssey’ Translator Emily Wilson Is Starting Over After Calling Christopher Nolan’s Blockbuster Film ‘Abysmal’ – Smithsonian Magazine and Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Barbie (2023)'Barbie' Becomes Top-Grossing Movie of 2023 Domestically, Global to Soon Follow - The Hollywood Reporter alongside several older franchises that were successfully resurrected like Top Gun: Maverick (2022),'Top Gun: Maverick' Cruises To No. 2 In Deadline's 2022 Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament - Deadline'Top Gun: Maverick' Passes 'The Avengers' as Ninth-Highest Grossing Domestic Release in History - Variety and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024).'Beetlejuice 2' Is Going From Nostalgic Success to Blockbuster Hit - The Wrap
Criticism