Funke Akindele with husband, JJC Skillz

The task of a movie director is to direct the actors and other staff members to convey the desired theme behind a script, basically bringing it to life. This is why their role in film production is critical to how it is embraced by the viewers.

Although attending theater or film school might be very helpful, becoming a filmmaker in practice is not an easy undertaking. Nollytrailers believes the trick is to just get started producing movies with whatever tools you have. Some of the most well-known directors in this era started like this. Greats like Walt Disney, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Katherine Howe, David Fincher, Guillermo Del Toro, Stanley Kubrick, John Cassavetes, Wim Wenders, Akira Kurosawa, Orson Welles, and Martin Scorsese evolved from turning meager ideation into enchanting viewership experiences.

For many aspiring actors, directors, photographers, designers, make-up artists, editors, costume designers, set designers, authors, screenplay writers, and other artists, the film industry is a dream worth throwing their entire existence to. Making a movie is laborious and expensive in terms of the concept and budget. The duration of the process ranges from months to years, usually because good filmmakers are literally meticulous ‘dream weavers’ – they are skilled in projecting fantasies as reality and creating an entire culture and cult-like community out of their act.

Nollywood’s rapid expansion in the last two decades has seen the rise and rise of great filmmakers, who are creating captivating work pieces that attract billions of naira in screening revenues every year. From the legendary Ejiro brothers, Jeta Amata, and Tunde Kelani to Kunle Afolayan, Kemi Adetiba, Omoni Oboli, Niyi Akinmolayan, Ishaya Bako, and densely-followed Funke Akindele and others, Nigeria’s filmmakers have continued to produce money-spinning films stealing attention from Hollywood blockbusters across the African continent with the biggest spend coming from the huge Nigerian market (see our analytical article on Africa’s box office here).

Nollytrailers.com highlights the top-performing filmmakers and how much their works have commanded in revenue. The ‘I need to know’ teenage actor turned filmmaker and producer, Funke Akindele led the pack (by weighted average performance and combined volume) with two of her works, Omo Ghetto: The Saga and Your Excellency, in the top 11, grossing a combined revenue of 822million naira in two years. Niyi Akinmolayan follows, with four of his works grossing combined revenue of about N1.2bilion in the last 6years.

See below a list of the 100 top-grossing Nigerian movies ever to be shown in Nigerian theaters, the producers and the filmmakers behind them. This gross sum does not include earnings from special screenings, DVD sales, online streaming, or theatre showings outside of West Africa’s English-speaking region. Since their box office totals were not adjusted for inflation, movies released before 2008 are also not included on this list.

Nollytrailers Highest Grossing Nollywood Filmmakers of All Times

References
Top 20 Films Report 9th-15th April 2021″. Nigeria: CEAN. Retrieved 10 August 2021.
Top 20 films 27th December 2019 2nd January 2020″.
Top 20 Films Report 12th 18th November 2021″.
Top 20 Films Report 17th 19th June 2022″.