20 Highest-Grossing Movie Franchises Ranked Worst To Best

Worldwide box office: $3.7 billion.

Like all the animated series on this list, Despicable Me is deliriously good family fun, following a bonkers supervillain called Gru as he adopts three orphan girls, becomes a reluctant hero, and finds his humanity after years of striving to be the greatest villain in the world.

Created by writer Sergio Pablos, the first film was a surprise hit with audiences thanks to its stellar voice work, animation and gloriously bombastic, self-aware humour. It also had the added bonus of introducing the world to the gibberish-speaking Minions, who became the series' breakout stars and won themselves a spin-off series of their own.

Despite its enjoyment on a simple entertainment level, though, the Despicable Me franchise has its issues, including a slight over-indulgence in its increasingly heavy-handed family themes and repetitive storylines, which have become stale in spite of the dependable humour guiding things forward.

It's hard to judge these flaws too harshly, of course, since it's very much geared toward a younger audience, but even so the recycled storylines and themes let it down overall.