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What are Mira Nair's most financially successful films and their box office grosses?
Executive summary
Mira Nair’s biggest commercially reported successes are Monsoon Wedding (roughly $30+ million worldwide, $13.9M U.S.) and Salaam Bombay! (about $7.4M worldwide), with Mississippi Masala and Queen of Katwe cited at around $7.3M and $10.4M respectively in available reporting [1] [2] [3]. Coverage in the provided sources is consistent on Monsoon Wedding as her top grosser but otherwise sparse or inconsistent for a complete ranked list [1] [2] [3].
1. Monsoon Wedding — Nair’s clear commercial peak
Multiple profiles identify Monsoon Wedding [4] as Mira Nair’s biggest box‑office success: made on a roughly $1.5 million budget and described as “a phenomenon” that grossed over $30 million worldwide, with a U.S. theatrical gross of $13.9 million — a North American record for an Indian film that stood for years [1] [2]. Those pieces present Monsoon Wedding as both a critical prize-winner and the director’s primary commercial breakthrough [1].
2. Salaam Bombay! — early international impact
Reporting credits Salaam Bombay! [5] as Nair’s breakthrough in the international festival and commercial circuit: made for a modest sum (reported ~$450,000 in one profile) and grossing an estimated $7.4 million worldwide, while earning major festival and Academy Award attention [1] [2]. Sources frame its financial returns as significant given its tiny budget and its role in launching Nair’s global career [1] [2].
3. Mississippi Masala and The Namesake — mid‑career performers
Profiles report Mississippi Masala [6] with a box office around $7.3 million and highlight its festival awards and profile-raising effect for Nair [1]. For The Namesake [7], the provided sources list the title among Nair’s notable films but do not give a confirmed box‑office figure in this dataset — available sources do not mention a gross for The Namesake in the material supplied [8] [9].
4. Queen of Katwe and other Hollywood‑backed projects
Queen of Katwe [10], a Disney project directed by Nair, is reported to have had a $15 million budget and to have grossed $10.4 million, which multiple outlets describe as below its production budget [3] [1]. The Reluctant Fundamentalist [11] is described in one source as a “box‑office bomb” that grossed $19.6 million against a $40 million budget — that reporting frames the film as an underperformer for its budget [3]. These sources show that Nair’s higher‑budget studio or international projects did not always translate into higher profit [3].
5. Why numbers vary and what’s missing
The sources provided include magazine profiles, aggregated summaries, and encyclopedia snippets that repeat many of the same figures [1] [2] [3]. However, they don’t offer a single, exhaustive ranked list of all of Nair’s films with consistent domestic, international, and worldwide breakdowns; Box Office Mojo entry redirects to IMDbPro and The Numbers has a profile page but its detailed numbers are not reproduced here [12] [13]. Therefore the totals above rely on the figures explicitly cited in the supplied reporting rather than on a full dataset [1] [2] [3].
6. Competing perspectives and implicit agendas in coverage
Profiles from outlets such as Fortune and The National place emphasis on Nair’s creative achievement and frame box office as a secondary metric to cultural influence, stressing the low budgets and outsized cultural returns of films like Salaam Bombay! and Monsoon Wedding [1] [14]. Other snippets (encyclopedic or finance‑oriented) highlight commercial shortfalls for some studio films, such as Queen of Katwe and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which could reflect an agenda of measuring success mainly by profit rather than by awards, cultural impact, or philanthropic use of proceeds [3] [1].
7. Bottom line and how to get a definitive ranking
Based on the provided reporting, Monsoon Wedding is Nair’s top box‑office performer (~$30M+ worldwide, $13.9M U.S.), followed by Salaam Bombay! (~$7.4M) and Mississippi Masala (~$7.3M); Queen of Katwe and The Reluctant Fundamentalist are cited with grosses that did not meet their reported budgets [1] [2] [3]. For a definitive, fully sourced ranking with up‑to‑date domestic/international/worlwide splits for every title, consult a complete box‑office database (Box Office Mojo/IMDbPro or The Numbers) or the original trade reporting — those detailed datasets are mentioned in the provided results but their tables are not included here [12] [13].