China's box office receipts this year made 55.9 billion yuan ($8 billion) as of Sunday – surpassing the entirety of China’s 2017 receipts, Chinese film news and ticketing portal Mtime.com reported, citing data from the official China Movie Data Information Network.

According to box-office tracker Maoyan, the top three movies this year each raked in over 3 billion yuan ($432 million):

    • With 3.7 billion yuan, "Operation Red Sea," a patriotic action film about the Chinese in Africa;

    • With 3.4 billion yuan, “Detective Chinatown 2,” a New York-set crime flick;

    • And with 3.1 billion yuan, "Dying to Survive," the critically-acclaimed dark comedy about cancer patients forced to smuggle cheaper cancer drugs from India.

Earlier this year, for the first time, China's film market overtook the U.S. as the largest movie market by quarterly box office revenue in the first quarter, raking in 20 billion yuan ($3.14 billion).