Ten national films drew in more than one million French viewers in 2024

by Fabien Lemercier

02/01/2025 - French movies dominated the box office last year, with an enormous market share and two features topping the overall rankings

Ten national films drew in more than one million French viewers in 2024

A Little Something Extra by Artus, which ended up in pole position in the box-office rankings, with 10.8 million admissions

Despite the start of the year being impacted by the dearth of US films on release (following the Hollywood strikes) and by a summer period made all the more complicated by the Olympic Games in Paris, attendance levels in French theatres in 2024 confirmed (with a total of 181.3 million tickets sold) the persistent allure of the cinema among the country’s general public, flying in the face of the gravediggers who had been a tad too hasty to bury the film industry in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a reminder, French theatres racked up 65.3 million admissions during the 2020 world health crisis before gradually recovering (rising to 95.5 million in 2021, 152.1 million in 2022 and 180.4 million in 2023). And it was the success of French productions, which has proven unequalled in Europe, with a 44.4% market share, that enabled 2024 attendance levels to stay on course.

Nevertheless, the period was still tense among distributors and exhibitors when it came to ensuring access to theatres and to films. Some slippages on the authorised volume of exceptionally organised event-film releases (such as that for the documentary Kaizen) and ever-enlarging preview-screening campaigns (thus leading to a massive number of screens being occupied) have been causing more intense infighting. And that’s not to mention a polarisation that has become even more acute between huge success stories attracting the vast majority of audiences and dismal failures that have proven particularly painful (especially in the arthouse film sector).

French films dominated the 2024 box office in France: in pole position in the rankings is the unexpected phenomenon A Little Something Extra by Artus, with 10.8 million admissions, closely followed by The Count of Monte-Cristo [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre De La Patellière (9.34 million viewers). Beating Hearts [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Gilles Lellouche came in in fifth place, with 4.76 million tickets sold.

Seven other French productions drew in over one million viewers in 2024: the biopic Monsieur Aznavour [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir (2 million admissions), the comedies Oh La La by Julien Hervé (1.95 million) and Maison de retraite 2 by Claude Zidi Jr (1.56 million), The Marching Band [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emmanuel Courcol
film profile] by Emmanuel Courcol (1.6 million), Cat and Dog by Reem Kherici (1.14 million), Emilia Pérez [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Jacques Audiard (1.07 million) and Autumn and the Black Jaguar by Gilles de Maistre (1 million).

Among the other French flicks that performed strongly, we could mention An Ordinary Case [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Daniel Auteuil (688,000 admissions), When Fall Is Coming [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by François Ozon (674,000), Souleymane’s Story [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Boris Lojkine
film profile] by Boris Lojkine (514,000), The Second Act [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Daaaaaali! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Quentin Dupieux (491,000 and 482,000 tickets sold, respectively), The Most Precious of Cargoes by Michel Hazanavicius (461,000), Love Boat by Bruno Podalydès (427,000), Ni chaînes ni maîtres by Simon Moutaïrou (420,000) and Boléro [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Anne Fontaine (414,000).