It's a Memorial Day weekend for the box office record books. Movie theaters across the country were jamming as "Lilo & Stitch" and Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" fueled the largest Memorial Day holiday in history - and established several other benchmarks in the process.

Last year, theater owners and industry professionals wrung their hands as Memorial Day box office performance tanked. This year could not be more different.

Movie fans flocked to see Disney’s Lilo and Stitch and the eighth instalment of Paramount’s Mission: Impossible franchise, giving Hollywood hope for a return to box office growth after years of disappointment.