As part of our midway through the year report (previously: top fives from the team , favourite male performances , and mainstream box office hits) here's a look at the box office year thus far but getting very niche with queer cinema, documentaries, movies with rave reviews, and other specialty interests. We all know that superhero movies earn a lot of money at the box office so it's more fun to dig deeper. Figures here are actuals as of Sunday June 30th for films released in the first six months of the year. We'd love to know what you make of the following lists so don't be shy in the comments, please.

BOX OFFICE IN EIGHT NICHE CATEGORIES
🔺= the movie is still in a decent number of cinemas so its numbers will go up.

TOP GROSSING FILMS THAT NEVER WENT INTO WIDE RELEASE

The Mustang

01 No Manches Frida 2 (Pantelion) $9.2 March 15th (472 theaters at widest)
02 Apollo 11 (Neon) $8.9 March 1st (588 theaters at widest)
03 The Wandering Earth (CMC) $5.8 Feb 5th (129 theaters at widest)
04 Gully Boy (Viva Pictures) $5.5 Feb 14th (270 theaters at widest)
05 The Mustang (Focus) $5 March 15th (527 theaters at widest)
06 Amazing Grace (Neon) $4.4 April 5th (263 theaters at widest)...

07 Uri: Surgical Strike  (PackYourBag) $4.1 Jan 11th (132 theaters at widest)
08 🔺 Biggest Little Farm (Neon) $3.5 May 10th (285 theaters at widest)
09 Oscar Nominated Shorts (Shorts) $3.5 Feb 8th (415 theaters at widest)
10 Kalank (FIP) $2.7 May 9th (320 theaters at widest)

Runners Up: Bharat, Everybody Knows, Arctic, Total Dhamaal, 🔺 The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Badla, 🔺 Pavarotti, The White Crow, The Aftermath, Red Joan, Extreme Job, The Kid, and 🔺Echo in the Canyon. No other limited-release film grossed $1.5 million plus.

Focus should be proud of themselves for shepherding The Mustang into arthouse hit status and Sony Pictures Classics also did better than expected with films like Everybody Knows and The White Crow neither of which had particularly awesome reviews to work with in getting the word out. 

TOP GROSSING FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILMS

The Wandering Earth

01 No Manches Frida 2 (Pantelion / Spanish) $9.2 March 15th
02 The Wandering Earth (CMC / Mandarin) $5.8 Feb 5th
03 Gully Boy (Viva Pictures / Hindi) $5.5 Feb 14th
04 Uri: Surgical Strike  (PackYourBag / Hindi) $4.1 Jan 11th
05 Kalank (FIP/Hindi) $2.7 April 17th
06 Bharat (Viva/Hindi) $2.6 June 5th
07 Everybody Knows (Focus / Spanish) $2.6 Feb 8th
08 Total Dhamaal (FIP/Hindi) $2.1 Feb 22nd
09 Badla (Reliance/Hindi) $1.8 March 8th
10 Extreme Job (CJ/Korean) $1.5 Jan 25th

Runners up: Never Look Away, Los Domirriquenos 2,Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, Luka Chuppi, Perfect Strangers, Woman at War, Climax, Transit  and Student of the Year 2. No other foreign-language films grossed over $750k.

As per usual Bollywood pictures and Asian cinema were the biggest draws. It's a pity that Woman at War and Transit didn't break a million but it's a tough marketplace. Still, they did well and obviously benefitted from good reviews and word of mouth!

TOP GROSSING DOCUMENTARIES

Biggest Little Farm

01 Apollo 11 (Neon) $8.9 March 1st
02 Penguins (Disneynature) $7.6 April 17th
03 Amazing Grace (Neon) $4.4 April 5th
04 🔺 The Biggest Little Farm (Neon) $3.5 May 10th
05 Oscar Nominated Shorts (Shorts) $3.5 Feb 8th
06 🔺 Pavarotti (CBS Films) $1.8 June 7th
07 🔺 Echo in the Canyon (Greenwich) $1.4 May 24th
08 The Russian Five (Lucky Hat) $479k March 21st
09 CatVideoFest19 (Oscilloscope) $454k Feb 15th
10 Hail, Satan? (Magnolia) $424k April 17th

Runners Up: Ask Dr Ruth, The Spy Behind Home Plate, Meeting Gorbachev, Who Will Write Our History, The River and the Wall, Halston, A Tuba to Cuba, 🔺Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, and The Brink. No other documentary earned more than $100k

Music docs are still the safest bets to break out: see the Aretha Franklin, Echo in the Canyon, and Pavarotti successes and on a much smaller scale the Dr Ruth picture which did okay in theaters especially considering it went to streaming so immediately. 

TOP GROSSING FILMS DIRECTED BY A WOMAN
(apologies if we missed someone) 

Little

01 Captain Marvel $426.8 (Disney/Marvel) co-directed by Anna Boden. March 8th
02 Little $40.6 (Universal) directed by Tina Gordon. April 12th
03 🔺 Booksmart $21.3 (United Artists) directed by Olivia Wilde. May 24th
04 Miss Bala $15 (Sony)directed by Catherine Hardwicke. Feb 1st
05 Poms $13.6 (STC) directed by Zara Hayes. May 10th
06 🔺 Late Night $13 (Amazon) directed by Nisha Ganatra. June 7th
07 After $12.1 (Aviron) directed by Jenny Cage. April 12th
08 Gully Boy (Viva Pictures / Hindi) $5.5 directed by Zoya Akhtar. Feb 14th
09 The Sun is Also a Star (Warner Bros) $4.9 directed by Ry Russo-Young. May 17th
10 High Life (A24) $1.2 directed by Claire Denis. April 5th

Runners up: Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (FIP/Hindi) directed by Shelly Chopra Dhar, The Souvenir (A24) directed by Joanna Hogg, Birds of Passage (Sony Picture Classics) co-directed by Cristina Gallego, Wild Nights with Emily (Greenwich) directed by Madeleine Olnek. Unless we missed something no other female directed films earned over $500k in the first half of the year.

The big story here, if you ask us, is the great great reviews for Olivia Wilde's directorial debut Booksmart, even if it didn't become a become a mainstream hit. She's really got the goods as a director. And also Claire Denis had her second consecutive arthouse hit with High Life (last year's Let the Sunshine In also did very well in a really leggy arthouse run). 
 

TOP GROSSING FILMS DIRECTED BY A PERSON OF COLOR
(apologies if we missed someone)

Glass

01 Us $175 directed by Jordan Peele. March 22nd
02 Glass $111 directed by M Night Shyamalan. Jan 18th
03 Alita Battle Angel $85.7 (Fox) directed by Robert Rodriguez. Feb 14th
04 Tyler Perry's A Madea Family Funeral $73.2 directed by Tyler Perry. March 1st
05 🔺 Men in Black International $65.1 (Sony/Columbia) directed by F Gary Gray. June 14th
06  Little $40.6 directed by Tina Gordon. April 12th
07 The Intruder $35.2 directed by Deon Taylor. May 3rd
08 Dragon Ball Super: Broly (FUNimation) $30.7 directed by Tatsuya Nagamine. Jan 16th
09 🔺 Shaft (Warner Bros) $18.8 directed by Tim Story. June 14th
10 🔺 Late Night (Amazon) $13 directed by Nisha Ganatra. June 7th

Runners up: The Wandering Earth directed by Frant Gwo, Gully Boy directed by Zoya Akhtar, Uri: Surgical Strike (PackYourBag) directed by Aditya Dhar. Kalank (FIP) directed by Abishek Varman, Everybody Knows (SPC) directed by Asgar Farhadi, El Chicano (Briarcliff) directed by Ben Hernandez-Bray, and Total Dhamaal, directed by Indra Kumar. Unless we missed something no other film directed by a person of color made over $2 million in the year's first half.

The big story here is definitely Jordan Peele proving that Get Out was no fluke scoring nearly identical big box office both at home ($175ish) and abroad ($79ish) for his sophomore outing. Tina Gordon and Deon Taylor, both relatively new feature directors had their biggest films yet with Little and The Intruder respectively. Unfortunately F Gary Gray (coming off of two consecutive smash hits with The Fate of the Furious and Straight Outta Compton) stumbled with the worst grosses in the Men in Black franchise's history. 

TOP GROSSING FILMS DIRECTED BY A MEMBER OF THE LGBT COMMUNITY
(apologies if we missed someone)

Ma

01 How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Universal) $160.7 directed by Dean DeBlois
Feb 22nd
02 What Men Want (Paramount) $54.4 directed by Adam Shankman. Feb 8th
03 🔺 Ma (Universal) $44.7 directed by Tate Taylor. May 31st
04 Giant Little Ones (Vertical) $181k directed by Keith Behrman. March 1st
05 Halston (The Orchard) $130k directed by Frédéric Tcheng. June 2nd
06 Papi Chulo (BlueFox) $57k directed by John Butler. June 7th
07 Sorry Angel (Strand) $26k directed by Christophe Honoré. Feb 15th
08 The Gospel of Eureka (Kino Lorber) $20k  directed by Donal Mosher & Michael Palmieri. Feb 8th
09 Knife + Heart (Altered Innocence) $17k directed by Yann Gonzalez. March 15th
10 Killer Unicorn (Indican) $24k directed by Jose Alvarez. June 14th