The French box office edged up by 0.5% year-on-year in 2024 hitting 181.2M admissions for an overall gross of roughly $1.36B, according to figures released by France’s National Cinema Centre (CNC).
The body said that while the overall admissions figure for 2024 remained some 12.8% below pre-pandemic levels, the results were encouraging.
It noted that the pre-pandemic gap had closed in the last eight months to 2.7%, and that the numbers were better than the U.S. and other comparable markets in Europe, such as the UK, which it said had seen a 1% drop in receipts, and Spain, where there had been a 7% year-on-year fall.
The body said the biggest cause for celebration was the performance of local movies, which accounted for 44% of admissions, in comparison to 36.7% for U.S. films.
This is the highest market share for French films since 2008 when Dany Boon hit Welcome To The Sticks and Asterix At The Olympic Games, propelled local movies to a 45.5% share.
The top performing French films were surprise breakout title (10M entries), The Count Of Monte Cristo (9.1M), Beating Hearts (4.7M), Monsieur Aznavour (2M), Ooh La La! (1.9M), Open Season (1.9M) and The Marching Band (1.5M).
The best performing U.S. picture was Vice-Versa 2, which drew 8.26M spectators, for a rough gross of $62M.
Local arthouse fare also did well with awards season frontrunner and Cannes Jury Prize winner Emilia Pérez drawing 1M spectators, while François Ozon’s When Fall Is Coming sold more than 600K tickets.
Other top achieving local indie titles included Cannes titles Souleymane’s Story and opening film The Second Act – which drew around 500,000 spectators each – and low budget breakouts Golo & Ritchie and rural drama Vingt-Deux, with more than 400,000 entries each.
“Comparing these results with all those of comparable countries is the best proof of the artistic and industrial excellence of our model of cultural exception,” said acting CNC president Olivier Henrard.
“It is the diversity and uniqueness of our works – spanning historical dramas, generational stories, musical films, social comedies, documentaries and animated films – that explains the rebound in overall attendance and an unrivaled market share for our national films in the world.”
Top Ten Films At French Box Office In 2024 (figs running up to 29/12/2024)
Title/Admissions
A Little Something Extra, 10.31M (Fr)
The Count Of Monte Cristo, 9.13M (Fr)
Vice-Versa 2, 8.26M (U.S.)
Moana 2, 6.43M (U.S)
Beating Hearts, 4.73M (Fr)
Despicable Me 4, 4.32M (U.S.)
Dune: Part 2, 4.13M (U.S.)
Deadpool & Wolverine, 3.69M (U.S.)
Gladiator II, 2.87M (U.S.)
The Planet of the Apes: The New Kingdom, 2.50M (U.S.)
