France’s box office continues to suffer through the start of summer with ticket sales dropping by 23% year on year to a total of 10.9 million admissions (€79.2m*), down from 14.1 million admissions (€105.1m) in 2024, according to estimates from the CNC.
Despite high hopes the box office would kick back into gear starting with the summer months after May saw ticket sales fall by nearly 25% compared to the same month last year, June’s box office results failed to deliver.
Fifty-three new releases opened in France in June including 31 French films and just four US films. The market share of French films was 40%, and American films 32%.
The top performers for the month were mostly US family titles led Disney’s Lilo & Stitch with 1.7 million admissions and a total of 4.4 million since its May 21 release and Universal’s How To Train Your Dragon coming in just behind with 1.6 million admissions since its June 11 release.
Disney’s Elio, released on June 18, was also among the top five titles of the month with 455,000 admissions since its June 18 release.
Warner Bros’s F1 managed to sneak up to the third spot, clocking 1 million admissions after just one week in cinemas followed by Paramount’s Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning that added a further 844,000 ticket sales to its 2.3 million total from a May 21 release.
Further top 10 films included (Metropolitan Filmexport’s Ballerina, Sony’s 28 Days Later and Warner Bros.’s Final Destination Bloodlines
A handful of French films have performed solidly including Studiocanal’s Colours Of Time, directed by Cedric Klapisch, that was the top French film of the month with 400,000 more tickets sold in June for a total of 780,000 admissions since its May 22 release.
Next was Fabienne Godet’s Guess Who Is Calling? (Tandem) that also made it to the top 10 with 214,000 admissions.
Pathé’s Cannes titles 13 Days, 13 Nights – In the Hell of Kabul and Amelie Bonnin’s festival opener Leave One Day also clocked strong ticket sales.
Last year’s stronger results in June were due mostly to the success of Disney’s Inside Out 2, the continued run of local breakout blockbuster A Little Something Extra (Pan Distribution) and The Count of Monte-Cristo (Pathé), plus record attendance for the annual Fete du Cinema scheme when tickets cost just €5.
This year, the same event’s first two days have already seen admissions drop from 2024 by 32%.
It has been a rocky first half of the year for the country’s distribution sector. Over the first six months, 75.3 million admissions were recorded, down 12.2% on the same period in 2024. However, the total tally for the full year from July of 2024 through June of 2025 remains stable with just a 2.2% dip from the year before.
The industry is now hoping the next half of the year will turn things around for the struggling sector.
Promising July releases include Superman (Warner Bros.), Jurassic World Rebirth (Universal), The Smurfs (Paramount), and The Fantastic Four: First Steps (Disney).
Upcoming arthouse titles with festival buz include Eddington (Metropolitan), Sorry, Baby (Wild Bunch) and The Ugly Stepsister (ESC Films).
*All Euro figures based on an average ticket price of €7.30.