The Australian-made thriller The Invisible Man, starring The Handmaid's Tale lead Elisabeth Moss, has become the world's top-grossing film since its debut over the weekend.

Written and directed by Melbourne-born, LA-based Leigh Whannell and filmed at Fox Studios in Sydney, the movie topped the weekend box office charts in Australia, the US and in many of the other 48 territories in which it opened last week.

The last Australian film to top the US weekend box office was Alex Proyas' Knowing, which was No.1 for one weekend in 2009.

George Miller's Happy Feet held top spot for five weekends in 2006, but neither of his Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) nor Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby (2013) quite managed to make it past No.2, despite being among the highest-grossing Australian films ever in the US. Crocodile Dundee's nine weekends at No.1 remains the record for an Australian movie at the North American box office.