“The French continue to return to theaters,” observes the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC). After three years marked by the Covid pandemic, cinema attendance stands at 181 million admissions in 2023, an increase of 18.9% compared to the previous year, according to figures from the CNC published Tuesday.
If the year which has just ended represents a rebound compared to the 152 million admissions in 2022, the results remain lower than the years 2017 to 2019, which were “among the best years in fifty years for French cinema” (207.9 million).
The market share of French films remains at 40%
In 2023, the top 5 films give pride of place to American blockbusters (“Super Mario Bros”, “Barbie”, “Oppenheimer”…) but sees two French productions exceed 4 million admissions, with “Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom” and “Alibi.com 2”. “Super Mario Bros, the movie”, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, was the biggest success of the year in France, with 7.15 million admissions since its release on April 5. The market share of French films remains at 40%, compared to 41.3% for American films. “We are one of the countries with the highest market share for local cinema, far ahead of the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Italy,” underlines the CNC.
“What really worked were the films that had very clear narrative propositions,” said Eric Marti, specialist at Comscore, an audience analysis company, on Friday. With “The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan”, “Tirailleurs” (with Omar Sy) or even the Palme d’Or “Anatomy of a Fall” in the most viewed French films of 2023, the past year is “enjoying since the diversity of French successes shows that all audiences have returned to cinemas,” he adds.