“American Sniper” was not named Best Picture of the Year at the Oscars this year, but it is the best picture of 2014 at the domestic box office.
Clint Eastwood‘s Iraq War drama starring Bradley Cooper as real-life sniper Chris Kyle has beaten out “Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1” to become the highest-grossing domestica release of 2014.
Latest box office figures put “American Sniper” at $337.2 million, while Jennifer Lawrence‘s third adventure as young adult heroin Katniss Everdeen grossed a total of $336.9 million at home.
Internationally, however, “Hunger Games” is the victor with $751.9 million, in total. “American Sniper” just passed the $500 million mark worldwide, thanks to $163 million from foreign territories.
“American Sniper,” which won an Oscar for Best Sound Editing last month, has already surpassed “Saving Private Ryan” as the top domestic grossing war movie of all time.
“Who would expect a drama to have this kind of enormous success?” Jeff Goldstein, executive vice president and general sales manager for Warner Bros., said in a statement to the media. “It shows it doesn’t matter when a movie comes out if it’s extraordinary storytelling and hits the public in a very personal way.”