Night at the Museum

• Ben Stiller as Lawrence "Larry" Daley, a night-shift security guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
• Carla Gugino as Rebecca Hutman, a museum docent.
• Dick Van Dyke as Cecil Fredericks, a veteran security guard.
• Mickey Rooney as Gus, a veteran security guard, who takes an instant disliking to Larry.
• Bill Cobbs as Reginald, a veteran security guard.
• Jake Cherry as Nicholas "Nick" Daley, Larry's son.
• Ricky Gervais as Dr. McPhee, the curator of the Museum of Natural History and Larry's boss.
• Kim Raver as Erica Daley, Larry's former wife and Nick's mother.
• Charlie Murphy as the taxi-driver.
• Paul Rudd as Don, Erica's fiancé.
• Anne Meara as Debbie

• Robin Williams as a wax model of Theodore Roosevelt, an exhibit who befriends Larry.
• Patrick Gallagher as a wax model of Attila the Hun, an exhibit who antagonizes Larry at first.
• Rami Malek as the mummy of Ahkmenrah, a pharaoh who is the owner of the tablet.
• Pierfrancesco Favino as a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus, an exhibit whose name Larry does not remember and mostly speaks Italian.
• Steve Coogan as Octavius, a miniature figure.
• Mizuo Peck as a polyurethane model of Sacagawea, an exhibit who Theodore Roosevelt takes a liking too.
• Owen Wilson as "Jedediah", a miniature cowboy figure (uncredited and only credited in the rest of the film series)
• Kerry van der Griend, Dan Rizzuto, Matthew Harrison, and Jody Racicot as the wax models of Neanderthals
• Martin Christopher as a wax model of Meriwether Lewis
• Martin Sims as a wax model of William Clark
• Randy Lee, Darryl Quon, Gerald Wong, and Paul Chih-Ping Cheng as the wax models of the Huns
• Brad Garrett as the voice of the Easter Island Head
• Crystal the Monkey as Dexter, a stuffed Capuchin monkey

Ben Stiller claimed that he watched Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible films to learn how to imitate his running technique, shown here as Stiller portraying his film character running from the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton (Rexy).[6]

• "Friday Night" - performed by McFly; not featured in American version of the film, but heard in some international cuts, used during the end credits. It can be heard on the American DVD on the Spanish dub.
• "September" - performed by Earth, Wind and Fire; used before the end credits where everyone in the museum is partying.
• "Weapon of Choice" - performed by Fatboy Slim; used in the scene where Larry returns to the museum for his second night and is preparing for the chaos.
• "Tonight" - performed by Keke Palmer featuring Cham; used for the end credits.
• "Eye of the Tiger" - performed by Ben Stiller; used in the scene where Larry is bored and messes around with the telephone at the front desk beatboxing the music.
• An instrumental version of "Mandy" by Barry Manilow is used when Larry is standing in the elevator, while escaping from Attila the Hun.
• "Ezekiel Saw Them Dry Bones" is the tune Larry whistles as he passes the empty T. rex exhibit on his first night.
• "Camptown Races" by Stephen Foster is sung by the townspeople of the American West miniature diorama. This is a period-correct song.

Alan Silvestri replaced John Ottman as score composer.[7] Silvestri's score was used for the teaser trailer of Horton Hears a Who!

Varèse Sarabande released a soundtrack album of the score on December 19, 2006.[8]

All tracks are written by Alan Silvestri.

At the end of its box office run, Night at the Museum earned a gross of $250.9 million in the US and Canada and $323.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $574.5 million.[4] It was the fifth highest-grossing film of 2006 and also the highest-grossing film worldwide of the trilogy.[10]

It was the highest-grossing film in its opening weekend, grossing $30.8 million plating in 3,686 theaters, with a $8,258 per-theater average. For the four-day Christmas holiday weekend, it took in $42.2 million.[4] The movie was also released in IMAX large screen format, often on site at museums of science or natural history such as the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.

In its second weekend, Night at the Museum expanded into 83 more theaters and took in approximately $36.7 million, out-grossing its opening weekend. It maintained the top position in its third week, with an additional $23.7 million.[11]

During its opening weekend of December 22, 2006, the film grossed a figure of estimated $5 million, with the highest debut coming from South Korea ($5.04 million).[12] The biggest market in the other territories were the UK, Japan, South Korea, and Germany, where it grossed $40.8 million, $30 million, $25.7 million, $22.9 million.[13]

As of October 2020, on Rotten Tomatoes the film had an approval rating of 43% based on 138 reviews and an average rating of 5.26/10. The site's critical consensus read, "Parents might call this either a spectacle-filled adventure or a shallow and vapid CG-fest, depending on whether they choose to embrace this on the same level as their kids".[14] As of October 2020, on Metacritic, the film had a score of 48 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[15] CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.[16]

Justin Chang of Variety magazine wrote: "This rambunctious, "Jumanji"-style extravaganza is a gallery of special effects in search of a story; rarely has so much production value yielded so little in terms of audience engagement."[17] James Berardinelli of Reelviews gave it 2 stars out of 4, and commented on Stiller's performance by stating "It might be fair to give Ben Stiller an 'A' for effort, but to call what he does in this movie 'acting' is a misnomer. He does a lot of running around, occasionally falling down or bumping into things."[18] One positive review by William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, gave it a B-, and stated that the film was "Out to impress and delight a family audience with the pageantry of human and natural history, and that's a surprisingly worthy ambition for a Hollywood comedy."[19]

Museum officials at the American Museum of Natural History have credited the film for increasing the number of visitors during the holiday season by almost 20%. According to a museum official, between December 22, 2006, and January 2, 2007, there were 50,000 more visitors than during the same period the prior year.[20]

The film was released on a 2-Disc DVD edition in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2007. It was released on 1-Disc and 2-Disc DVD editions and Blu-ray Disc format on April 24, 2007 elsewhere.

The film became the first non-Disney film to be reviewed by Ultimate Disney (now known as DVDizzy.com), due to the website dealing with other studios besides Disney.[21][22]

As of 6 December 2009, the film has sold 9,191,694 DVDs and grossed $153,566,058 in DVD sales.[23]