All Of The Hunger Games Movies Ranked By Box Office

Few things caught on in Hollywood during the 2010s quite like the YA movie adaptation. Much of that had to do with the phenomenon of the "Harry Potter" films and the wildly unexpected success of "Twilight" in 2008. But it was in the aftermath of that success that Lionsgate truly hit the jackpot with "The Hunger Games" in 2012. Based on Suzanne Collins' popular book series of the same name, the films take place in a dystopian future where the haves make the have-nots face off in a deadly competition annually from one of 12 Districts of Panem.

While the books themselves were certainly successful, director Gary Ross' "The Hunger Games" was a breakout box office success story that paved the way not only for this franchise to flourish in the years that followed, but for a slew of other YA series to spring up in the hopes of chasing similar success. Few experienced success on such a large scale; the tale of Katniss Everdeen still largely reigns supreme in this category.

But which "Hunger Games" movie was the biggest hit at the box office? Have the movies continued to be successful? We're going to take a closer look at the numbers, both in terms of raw dollars and adjusting for inflation, to get a full picture of how this franchise has performed over the years. Let's get into it.

First, we're going to look at how "The Hunger Games" movies performed during their theatrical runs, going over their respective grosses, unadjusted for inflation. As a note, I looked at various databases available, including Box Office Mojo and The Numbers, and went with the highest reported gross for each film. The number listed below is the worldwide gross, which includes both domestic and international ticket sales.

1. "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" – $865 million worldwide

2. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1" – $766.5 million worldwide

3. "The Hunger Games" – $694.3 million worldwide

4. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2" – $653.4 million worldwide

5. "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" – $349 million worldwide

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," widely viewed as the best film in the series, came out on top here. It was the second movie in the franchise, indicating that a lot of people caught on after the first film was released. It also suggests a lot of people watched the first one at home and then decided to see the sequel in theaters. It's also interesting that "Mockingjay – Part 2" made quite a bit less than "Mockingjay – Part 1," but we'll touch on that more in a moment.

Now we're going to look at all of the movies once again and look at how the box office changes when we account for inflation. To do that, I used the U.S. Inflation Calculator and entered the original gross for each "Hunger Games" film, marking the year it came out, and calculating what that would translate to in 2024. It's important to point out that inflation changes all of the time, and these numbers will change with time. This is just a snapshot of the here and now, one that can offer a window into how numbers themselves can be misleading without more context. With that said, here are the movies and how they stack up accounting for inflation.

1. "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" (2013) – $1.17 billion worldwide

2. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1" (2014) – $1.02 billion worldwide

3. "The Hunger Games" – (2012) $954.5 million worldwide

4. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2" – (2015) $870.2 million worldwide

5. "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" – (2023) $361.5 million worldwide

Interestingly, even when accounting for inflation, the order of the films doesn't change. "Catching Fire" is still the highest-grossing entry, and 2023's "Hunger Games" prequel "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" is the lowest-grossing entry. It's also worth noting that both "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay – Part 1" would have joined the very exclusive $1 billion club had they been released today. Or, at the very least, they would have in today's dollars. Things were different in the early 2000s, and that's important to take into account when looking at these numbers.

Before trying to break down what these numbers can tell us about "The Hunger Games" as a franchise, commercially speaking, it's also important to look at what each one cost to produce. Box office is all relative, as a more expensive movie needs to make more to break even. So, we'll also quickly break down below the budget for each film, both in raw dollars and adjusted for inflation.

• "The Hunger Games" (2012) – $78 million unadjusted / $107 million adjusted

• "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" (2013) – $130 million unadjusted / $176 million adjusted

• "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1" (2014) – $125 million unadjusted / $166 million adjusted

• "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2" (2015) – $160 million unadjusted / $213 million adjusted

• "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" – $100 million unadjusted / $103 million adjusted

One of the first things that stands out is that, generally speaking, "The Hunger Games" movies got more expensive as they went along. By the end of the original series, the budgets had ballooned and the returns were dwindling. This is often the case with long-running franchises. It's not even that the scale of the productions get larger, but the cast generally wants to be paid more. This ends up eating into eventual profits. At some point, even if a movie sells a lot of tickets, it may be prohibitively expensive to keep the enterprise going. That's certainly what happened with "Fast & Furious" on "Fast X," for example.

It's also important to note that inflation doesn't account for the whole picture. In 2012 when the first of these movies debuted, streaming was in its early days and DVD wasn't nearly as dead as it is now. There was less competition for eyeballs. This was also long before the pandemic upended the industry as we know it. At the same time, Lionsgate adjusted for the pandemic era by budgeting "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" accordingly, allowing it to be a success relative to its budget, even if it is by far the lowest-grossing entry overall.

It's also worth looking at what happened with "Mockingjay – Part 1" and "Mockingjay – Part 2." Even though "Part 1" saw a drop-off compared to "Catching Fire," it was still a gigantic hit. However, the response to that film, which was middling compared to prior entries, clearly impacted "Part 2." In the years since, studios have largely avoided billing films as two parters. "Mission: Impossible 8" was retitled to "The Final Reckoning" instead of "Dead Reckoning Part 2," for example.

Moving forward, whatever lies ahead for "The Hunger Games" needs to cater to the loyal audience that remains, rather than the huge global audience that once existed. This franchise's biggest days are likely behind it, but that doesn't mean there isn't money to be made, using the template laid out by "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." Overall, this has been a consistent moneymaker, and one most studios would kill to have.

"The Hunger Games" movies are available on VOD, or you can buy them on Blu-ray/DVD via Amazon.