Box office Mamma Mia! grossed $144.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $562.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $706.4million, against a production budget of $52million. It became the highest grossing live-action musical of all time until it was surpassed by
Bill Condon's
Beauty and the Beast in 2017. It was also the highest-grossing movie directed by a woman until it was surpassed by
Patty Jenkins'
Wonder Woman in 2017. It is the third highest-grossing film of 2008 internationally (i.e. outside North America) with an international total of $458.4 million and the thirteenth highest gross of 2008 in North America (the US and Canada) with $144.1 million. The film made $9.6 million on its opening day in the United States and Canada, as well as $27.6 million on its opening weekend, ranking #2 at the box office, behind
The Dark Knight. At the time, it made
Mamma Mia! the record-holder for the highest grossing opening weekend for a movie based on a Broadway musical, surpassing
Hairsprays box office record in 2007 and later surpassed by
Into the Woods. In the United Kingdom,
Mamma Mia! grossed £69.2 million as of January 23, 2009; it is the
thirteenth highest-grossing film of all time at the UK box office. The film opened at number one in the UK, taking £6.6 million on 496 screens. It managed to hold on to the top spot for two weeks, narrowly keeping
Pixar's
WALL-E from reaching number one in its second week. When released on July 3, 2009, in Greece, the film grossed $1.6 million in its opening weekend, reaching number one at the Greek box office.
Critical response Mamma Mia! received mixed reviews upon release. The
review aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes repored that out of 183 critic reviews, 55% of them were positive, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The site's consensus states: "This jukebox musical is full of fluffy fun but rough singing voices and a
campy tone might not make you feel like 'You Can Dance' the whole 90 minutes."
Metacritic assigned the film a
weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
BBC Radio 5 Live's film critic
Mark Kermode admitted to enjoying the film, despite describing the experience as "the closest you get to see A-List actors doing drunken karaoke". Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian was more negative, giving it one star, and expressed a "need to vomit". Bob Chipman of
Escape to the Movies said it was "so base, so shallow and so hinged on meaningless spectacle, it's amazing it wasn't made for men".
The Daily Telegraph stated that it was enjoyable but poorly put together: "Finding the film a total shambles was sort of a shame, but I have a sneaking suspicion I'll go to see it again anyway." Angie Errigo of
Empire said it was "cute, clean, camp fun, full of sunshine and toe tappers." The casting of actors not known for their singing abilities led to some mixed reviews.
Variety stated that "some stars, especially the bouncy and rejuvenated Streep, seem better suited for musical comedy than others, including Brosnan and Skarsgård." Brosnan, especially, was savaged by many critics: his singing was compared to "a
water buffalo" (
New York Magazine), "a donkey braying" (
The Philadelphia Inquirer) and "a wounded raccoon" (
The Miami Herald), and Matt Brunson of
Creative Loafing Charlotte said he "looks physically pained choking out the lyrics, as if he's being subjected to a
prostate exam just outside of the camera's eye." In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of
The New York Times list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 183.
Accolades == Sequel ==