On Tuesday, its first day of sales, it sold five million copies in the US, according to the Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney.

The animation is technically superb

The sale was even higher than that for the previous record holder, Walt Disney's The Lion King, which sold 4.5 million units on its opening day, the companies said.

The hit movie, which used the voices of stars including John Goodman and Billy Crystal, was created by computer animation specialists Pixar and released in 2001.

It told the story of a pair of monsters who harvest the screams of scared children to power their city.

Snippets

Walt Disney distributes and markets the film, which won four Oscars in 2002 and was nominated for best animated feature.

For the DVD release, Pixar also added a new short, Mike's New Car and snippets of "unused pieces" of the Monsters, Inc film.

The film also broke records on its cinema release.

It hit the top of the US box office charts and set a new record for an animated feature by selling $100m (£64m) of tickets in just nine days.

It went on to hit the top spot in the UK and Ireland in February 2002.