Disney takes the cake when it comes to Thanksgiving box office openings, having nabbed 9 spots out of the top 10 highest grossers during the 3-day holiday weekend over the past 30 years.


It’s that time of the year again, where families gather together to catch-up and be grateful for all the good things that they have received (as well as the things to come before the year is out). For movies, however, Thanksgiving is the gift that keeps on giving, as the five day holiday frame generally winds up ranking among the biggest box office frames for any particular year. As such, it’s not a surprise that most film studios aim to release their most crowd-pleasing films over the frame. However, there is one company that appears to have almost perfected the formula when it comes to rolling out Thanksgiving films year after year: Disney.


In a new report from IMDbPro, the essential resource for entertainment industry professionals rounded up the top 10 highest grossing Thanksgiving opening weekend movies in the last 10 years, 9 of which are from the House of Mouse. In fact, the top 8 are all Disney movies, with the 2013 smash hit Frozen taking the top spot (having raked in more than $67 million during its first three days). Meanwhile, the only film not from the huge entertainment company is New Line’s Four Christmases, which was released in 2008. For the complete list of Top 10 Thanksgiving openers in the last thirty years, read on below:

1.Frozen (Disney, 2013) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $67,391,326
2. Toy Story 2 (Disney, 1999) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $57,388,839
3. Moana (Disney, 2016) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $56,631,401
4. Tangled (Disney, 2010) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $48,767,052
5. The Good Dinosaur (Disney, 2015) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $39,155,217
6. Enchanted (Disney, 2007) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $34,440,317
7. 101 Dalmatians (Disney, 1996) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $33,504,025
8. A Bug’s Life (Disney, 1998) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $33,258,052
9. Four Christmases (New Line, 2008) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $31,069,826
10. Unbreakable (Disney, 2000) – Thanksgiving weekend gross: $30,330,771

This year, Disney is once again attempting to take the honor with the upcoming release of Coco. The latest animated film from Pixar offers a heartwarming story that has been earning great reviews from critics over the last several days. Given its roots in latino culture and traditions, the project has already been released in Mexico, where it has quickly become the country’s highest-grossing release of all-time.


In hindsight, despite the fact that Disney really does make sure that they have their yearly Thanksgiving project to take advantage of the huge amounts of people flocking into the theaters during the holiday, it only makes sense that they capitalize on that given that their brand has always catered to family-friendly films (perhaps save for Unbreakable), all year-round. It remains to be seen if they nab the top spot again this year with Coco, but based on current box office projections for the film, Disney has an excellent shot of doing just that.