France’s box office declined in July with 14.8 million admissions (€108m), a 17.3% drop compared to the same month last year according to figures from the CNC.
Since January 1, the country has clocked 89.5 million admissions (€653m), down 13.6% on the same period in 2024. That is the lowest figure since 1999 (84.7 million admissions) excluding the pandemic period of 2020, 2021 and 2022.
US blockbusters dominated the charts in July with Jurassic World Rebirth (Universal) leading the charge with 2.4 million admissions since its July 4 release, followed by F1 (Warner Bros) on 1.6 million in July, and Superman (Warner Bros) with just over 1.2 million. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (Disney) had a soft 673,000 admissions since its July 23 release.
Family films rounded out the top titles over the month including The Smurfs (Paramount) with over one million admissions, How To Train Your Dragon (Universal) with 829,000, Elio (Disney) with 652,000, and Lilo & Stitch (Disney) still going strong after a May release with 629,000 admissions added to its five million total.
Quentin Dupieux’s The Piano Accident (Diaphana) was the only French film in the July top 10 with 336,000 tickets sold. A total of 60 new feature films were released in July, 37.1% of which were French titles and 36% were American.
Upcoming releases in August include The Bad Guys 2 (Universal), Freakier Friday (Disney), The Naked Gun (Paramount), local comedies including Edouard Pluvieux’s No Signal! (Pathe), and Cannes titles Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value (Memento Distribution) and Julia Ducournau’s Alpha (Diaphana).
More arthouse titles will start to roll out in the autumn ahead of awards season, including Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident (October 1), Hafsia Herzi’s The Little Sister (October 22) and Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague (October 8).
With under 90 million tickets sold since the start of the year, it could be tough for the box office to bounce back and top 2024’s 181.3 million admissions.