The 15 highest-grossing rom-coms of all time

One of two Andy Tennant movies to break the richest 15, Sweet Home Alabama collected $127.2 million at the domestic box office. Following her turn as SoCal sorority girl Elle Woods in 2001’s sleeper hit Legally Blonde, proud Southerner Reese Witherspoon got back to her roots playing Melanie Carmichael, an Alabama girl who tries to hide, but eventually grows to embrace, her Deep South upbringing.

Eddie Murphy stars as Prince Akeem, royalty of the fictional African country Zamunda, who doesn’t want to go through with an arranged marriage and instead travels to America to find a woman who will love him for himself. The John Landis-directed movie made $128.1 million at the U.S. box office; data of its ticket sales in Zamunda is not available.

In addition to its impressive $132 million box office haul, David O. Russell’s relatively dramatic rom-com, which starred Bradley Cooper as a man struggling with bipolar disorder, picked up eight Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, and all four acting categories. Jennifer Lawrence, whose star was rapidly rising, took home the statuette for Best Actress.

Steve Martin and Queen Latifah starred, respectively, as a straitlaced lawyer and an escaped convict who are thrown together in Adam Shankman’s odd-couple rom-com. Bringing Down the House brought down the box office with a total domestic gross of $132.7 million.

Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt won Best Actor and Best Actress at the 1998 Academy Awards for their roles in James L. Brooks’ unconventional rom-com. The movie took home the gold at the box office, too, racking up $148.4 million in domestic receipts.

Judd Apatow’s sophomore directorial effort (after 2005’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin) was a breakout moment for its lead and Apatow’s longtime friend Seth Rogen, who starred as a slacker who gets an ambitious career woman (Katherine Heigl) pregnant after a one-night stand. Knocked Up collected $148.7 million at the box office and inspired 2012’s This Is 40.

Nine years after Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, and director Garry Marshall reteamed for Runaway Bride. With a domestic gross of $152.2 million, the trio’s second collaboration ranks just a few spots below their first on the list of top moneymaking rom-coms of all time.

The big-screen sequel to HBO’s groundbreaking sitcom attracted hordes of Carrie & co.’s stiletto-wearing fans, taking in $152.6 million at the box office. 2010’s Sex and the City 2 collected less than two-thirds of its predecessor’s earnings, with a $95.3 million domestic gross. Fans held out hope for a long time that the cosmo-sipping quartet would make it a trilogy, but don’t get Carried away: Sarah Jessica Parker herself has shut down that dream due to discord among the leading ladies. 

The Proposal was propelled to box-office success on the great appeal of and chemistry between its leads, Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock. Following the successes of her first two films, Step Up and 27 Dresses, director Anne Fletcher achieved her greatest box office victory to date, with receipts totaling $163.9 million.

Jon M. Chu’s sparkling adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s bestseller — about an Asian-American woman who goes to Singapore with her boyfriend and discovers that his family is outrageously, obscenely, unfathomably wealthy — made stars of Constance Wu and Henry Golding and made history for Asian-American representation in a Hollywood studio film. It also made crazy rich money at the domestic box office, taking in $174 million.

Whether it was the surprisingly sweet romance, the gross-out humor, or the irresistible charm of Cameron Diaz, there was something about There’s Something About Mary that brought in huge audiences in 1998. The Farrelly brothers’ sleeper hit racked up $176.4 million at the box office and shot Diaz and Ben Stiller to new levels of stardom.

Julia Roberts was only 22 when she starred as Vivian, a Hollywood hooker with a heart of gold, opposite Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. The now-iconic Pygmalion update didn’t just launch her to the top of the A-list — it also took in a total of $178.4 million at the U.S. box office. In other words: Big money. Big. Huge.

It should come as no surprise that the most bankable man in Hollywood starred in one of the rom-coms that made bank. Will Smith plays the smooth “date doctor” Hitch, whose practiced charm starts to fail him when he tries to woo Eva Mendes’ intelligent journalist. The Andy Tennant-directed movie collected $179.4 million.

Audiences apparently wanted to know what women want just as much as Mel Gibson’s chauvinistic ad exec, because they showed up to the Nancy Meyers rom-com in droves. The film took in $182.8 million at the domestic box office, easily earning back its $70 million budget.

The highest-grossing rom-com (and one of the highest-grossing independent films) of all time with a $241.4 million domestic gross, this big fat Greek sleeper hit was based on writer-star Nia Vardalos’ one-woman play and produced by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson on a $5 million budget. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, also written by Vardalos and starring the original cast, hit theaters in 2016 but didn’t match the first film’s box office performance, earning $59.6 million in the U.S.