Shanghai's summer box office reached 754 million yuan ($105.5 million), the highest among all Chinese cities.

Nationwide, summer box office sales totaled over 11.96 billion yuan, outperforming last summer’s revenue.

More than 100 films, spanning genres including history, animation, comedy, action and suspense, were released across the country, drawing a combined audience of 321 million.

Running from June 1 to Aug 31, the summer movie season is traditionally one of the most lucrative periods for cinemas.

The top-grossing film of the season was Dead to Rights, a drama about the 1937 Nanjing Massacre during World War II, which has earned 2.89 billion yuan since its release.

Drawing on verified historical photographs, the film tells the story of Nanjing residents who hide inside a photography studio and are forced to assist a Japanese military photographer. When they realize the negatives document atrocities, they secretly preserve them and smuggle the evidence to the outside world.

Other major summer hits included Nobody, a spinoff of the acclaimed animation series Yao-Chinese Folktales; The Shadow's Edge, a crime-action thriller starring Jackie Chan; The Lychee Road, a bittersweet Tang Dynasty (618-907) drama featuring comedian Da Peng; and Universal's Jurassic World Rebirth.

Source: Jiefang Daily