The riches were also unevenly spread in Hollywood. Eight of the top 15 performing films, including four of the top five, came from Walt Disney Studios, which includes the Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm brands. That astounding performance — Disney’s hits included “The Jungle Book,” “Moana,” “Zootopia” and “Doctor Strange” — resulted in roughly $2.7 billion in domestic ticket sales, or more than 25 percent of the market.

Second-place Warner Bros. took in about $1.87 billion at domestic theaters and had three films in the top 15. (They were “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” “Suicide Squad” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”) On the opposite end of the scale, Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures finished the year with less than $1 billion in domestic ticket sales apiece. (Each did spark some cultural heat, however. Sony had the much-discussed, women-led “Ghostbusters,” and Paramount delivered critical darlings like “Arrival” and the drama “Fences.”)

Among art film companies, the indie distributor Roadside Attractions had a particularly strong run. Successful releases like “Manchester by the Sea” and “Hello, My Name Is Doris” enabled Roadside to take in more than $70 million, the largest total in its 13-year history, and to have a better year than that of Fox Searchlight and the Weinstein Company.

“We zigged when studios zagged, especially in the first half of the year,” said Howard Cohen, one of Roadside Attractions’ founders. In March and May, “when major studios were not releasing upscale intelligent films,” Mr. Cohen said, Roadside was able to push its movies into 900 theaters, a relatively large number for the specialty market.

In recent weeks, prestige films have done well in general. Generating strong sampling over the weekend in a handful of theaters were entries like Pete Berg’s “Patriots Day” (CBS Films and Lionsgate) and “20th Century Women” (A24), a period comedic drama starring Annette Bening. Since its wide release on Christmas Day, “Fences,” an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a black family in 1950s Pittsburgh, has taken in about $32.7 million. That euphorically reviewed film, directed by Denzel Washington and starring Mr. Washington and Viola Davis, cost about $24 million to make.