Last month, official figures published by the BFI’s Research and Statistics Unit showed that film and high-end TV production (HETV) spend amounted to £6.8 billion (approximately €7.848 billion) for 2025, an impressive 22% increase on the previous year. The third-highest annual spend on record, this overall number is composed of £4 billion (€4.62 billion) for high-end TV, with film production reaching £2.8 billion (€3.23 billion), the latter seeing a 31% increase on 2024 and amounting to the highest-ever in a year for that category.

Still, the majority of this imposing figure came from inward investment, or money invested by companies from foreign countries. Inward-investment films and HETV delivered £5.8 billion (€6.7 billion), 85% of total UK production spend; some UK co-productions contributing to this total were the just-released Wuthering Heights [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] by Emerald Fennell and Sam Mendes’ anticipated The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event. Indeed, the UK’s production facilities have long been a reliable standby for the Hollywood studios, and now platforms like Netflix and Apple TV, with Avengers: Doomsday and Alejandro G Iñárritu’s Digger, with Tom Cruise, are also adding to the number. By comparison, UK domestic film production spend reached just £193 million (€222.8 million), a 4% increase on the previous year. Georgia Oakley’s new version of Sense and Sensibility and Shane Meadows’ Chork are among the high-profile flicks from that batch set to premiere later this year.

Amongst the HETV making up the larger proportion of the overall spend, the most notable commencing production in 2025 were Apple TV’s Slow Horses seasons 7 and 8, and HBO’s episodic reboot of Harry Potter. The BFI also reported lower box-office takings for 2025 than those provided at the year’s beginning by Comscore (see the news), with a total of £996.8 million (€1.15 billion), up just 2% on 2024, and worryingly down 21% from 2019’s pre-pandemic £1.3 billion (€1.5 billion). The highest-grossing releases in the UK and Republic of Ireland for 2025 were the family-appealing titles A Minecraft Movie and Wicked: For Good, with the top-performing UK independent film being Jay Roach’s The Roses, scripted by Tony McNamara (Poor Things [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Suzy Bemba
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UK Culture Minister Ian Murray said: “From Wicked and Hamnet [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], and the tax measures we have introduced will only strengthen this part of the industry further in the years to come.”

BFI chief executive Ben Roberts remarked, “Today’s figures demonstrate that the UK’s film and TV industries continue to drive a huge amount of investment into the UK economy and create jobs. We attract some of the most ambitious projects and leading international names to make work in the UK, while our creativity remains one of our greatest exports. […] We continue to be focused on working closely with industry and government to further advocate for investment in skills, infrastructure, creativity and innovation across the UK so that we can remain attractive to international productions and strengthen our independent sector.”

Further information, including a full run-down of the statistics, can be found from the BFI here.