---
title: "'Michael' becomes the highest-grossing biopic ever, passing 'Oppenheimer'"
description: "The Michael Jackson biopic 'Michael' has reached roughly $977 million worldwide, edging past Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' to become the top-grossing biographical film of all time — a milestone powered by Jackson's global fame, and shadowed by the allegations the film largely sets aside."
category: "Culture"
category_url: https://newsparlor.com/category/culture
author: "Marcus Reed"
published: 2026-06-28T17:11:00.000Z
updated: 2026-06-28T17:11:00.000Z
canonical: https://newsparlor.com/article/michael-jackson-biopic-highest-grossing-biopic
tags: ["box-office", "michael-jackson", "biopic", "film", "hollywood"]
---
# 'Michael' becomes the highest-grossing biopic ever, passing 'Oppenheimer'

The Michael Jackson biopic 'Michael' has reached roughly $977 million worldwide, edging past Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' to become the top-grossing biographical film of all time — a milestone powered by Jackson's global fame, and shadowed by the allegations the film largely sets aside.

A film about the King of Pop now sits atop the biopic box office. "Michael," the big-budget Michael Jackson biography, has grossed around $977 million worldwide, narrowly overtaking "Oppenheimer" to become the highest-grossing biographical film ever made, [Variety reported](https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/michael-box-office-record-surpasses-oppenheimer-1236797787/). All figures are studio and tracker estimates.

## The milestone

At roughly $977 million, "Michael" has nudged ahead of Christopher Nolan's 2023 hit "Oppenheimer," which finished its run at about $976 million — a record for a genre long dominated by historical and political dramas rather than music films. By that measure, "Michael" is now both the highest-grossing biopic overall and the highest-grossing music biopic, surpassing "Bohemian Rhapsody," the Queen film that took around $911 million.

## A famous subject, a global audience

The film was directed by Antoine Fuqua and stars Jaafar Jackson — Michael Jackson's nephew — in his screen debut as his uncle, with Colman Domingo and Nia Long among the cast. Distributed by Lionsgate in North America and Universal internationally, it leaned heavily on Jackson's worldwide following: a large majority of its gross came from outside the United States, a reminder of how the singer's music still resonates across borders nearly two decades after his death.

## The allegations the film steps around

The success is not without controversy. Jackson, who died in 2009, faced accusations of child sexual abuse during his life; he denied them and was acquitted at a criminal trial in 2005, but the allegations have continued to shadow his legacy, including in later documentaries. Reporting on "Michael" indicates the film largely avoids that history, focusing instead on his artistry and performances — a choice, made with the involvement of Jackson's estate, that critics say sanitizes a contested life. It is a tension common to authorized biopics, where the cooperation that grants access to music and image can also shape which parts of a story reach the screen.

## What it signals for Hollywood

Commercially, the result underscores how music biopics have become some of the most reliable draws in cinemas, trading on recognizable songs, spectacle and multi-generational fandom. For the studios involved, "Michael" is a major win — reportedly Lionsgate's biggest film ever. For the wider industry, its rise to the top of the biopic charts suggests more star-driven music movies are likely to follow, even as questions linger about how honestly such films reckon with the lives they portray.