'American Sniper' Is The Highest Grossing Domestic Movie Of 2014

From August 2014 until January 2015, Guardians of the Galaxy was the highest grossing domestic film of 2014. In November 2014, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 was released and by late January 2015, it overtook the Marvel film. Then, in December 2014, Warner Bros. opened American Sniper. The first few weekends were above average for limited release numbers but then it opened wide and grossed a staggering $93 million over three days. Since then Clint Eastwood's film has remained right near the top of the box office every single week. This weekend, it finally surpassed The Hunger Games, making American Sniper the highest grossing domestic film of 2014.

Box Office Mojo has the day by day breakdown of the American Sniper box office. After this weekend, American Sniper will have grossed just over $337 million. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, which was still in a few theaters last week as it came out on Blu-ray, was at $336.9 million.Sniper's success was a wake up call to Hollywood, which had all but given up on adult oriented R-rated fare at the studio level. The film proved if you make a quality movie with a good cast, success is possible, even with an R-rating. In the case of Sniper, however, the film also caught a cultural wave of patriotism and opened immediately following a slew of Oscar nominations. It was kind of a perfect storm of marketing, culture, timing and product that lead to the success. And like many other massive hits, it's not a formula that will be easily duplicated. It will copied, however.

So a few minor changes aside, here are the final, top ten highest grossing films of 2014: