‘Michael’ Pulls Further Ahead of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as Top-Grossing Music Biopic Worldwide: See the Top 25

The Michael Jackson biopic Michael has pulled further ahead of the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody as the top-grossing musician biopic of all time. As of Sunday (June 21), Michael has grossed $959.6 million. Bohemian Rhapsody has grossed $911 million.

Michael is probably just a week away from becoming the top-grossing biopic (not just the top-grossing musician biopic) of all time: Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s 2023 biopic of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who helped develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II, has grossed $975.8 million worldwide.

According to Box Office Mojo figures, international ticket sales account for 61.7% of Michael’s worldwide boxoffice total to date. (The remainder is from the U.S. and Canada.) By way of comparison, international ticket sales accounted for 76.2% of Bohemian Rhapsody’s worldwide boxoffice total.

Jackson has a long history of ranking No. 1 on lists, dating back to The Jackson 5 landing their first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with “I Want You Back” in January 1970.

Jackson and Mercury have much in common. Both rose to fame in groups, The Jackson 5 and Queen, respectively. Both are widely seen as two of the greatest showmen of all time. And both died years before their time. Mercury died in 1991 at age 45 of complications from AIDS. Jackson died in 2009 at age 50 of cardiac arrest caused by acute propofol intoxication.

The two superstars crossed paths in the early 1980s, when Jackson attended Queen concerts in Los Angeles. They occasionally met for dinner and even recorded three demo tracks together that went unfinished.

Another common bond: There were successful theatrical productions based on both artists’ music. The Queen musical, We Will Rock You, opened on London’s West End in 2002. MJ: The Musical has been a fixture on Broadway since Dec. 6, 2021.

Also: Graham King, who co-produced Michael with longtime Jackson associates John Branca and John McClain (who died on May 26 at age 71), also co-produced Bohemian Rhapsody and a third music biopic on Billboard’s list of music biopics, Jersey Boys, the story of the Four Seasons.

Here is that list – the highest-grossing biopics of musicians in terms of worldwide box office. We didn’t include a few high-grossing films about real-life music personalities because the subjects are not well-known music stars in their own right. These include The Sound of Music (which tells the story of Maria von Trapp and the Trapp Family Singers); Green Book (which deals with a road trip taken by pianist and composer Don Shirley); Florence Foster Jenkins (about an heiress and hopelessly untalented soprano by that name); and Music of the Heart (about violinist and music educator Roberta Guaspari). Meryl Streep starred in the latter two films.

Here are the 25 biopics of music stars with the highest worldwide grosses.