The Australian exhibition sector is feeling upbeat with the country’s box office on track to exceed A$1bn ($650m) in 2025 for the first time sinc
The Australian exhibition sector is feeling upbeat with the country’s box office on track to exceed A$1bn ($650m) in 2025 for the first time since 2019.
Teens and juvenile adults who are returning to the cinema – or discovering it for the first time – are partly to thank for this, say exhibitors.
“We thought they had so much content in their hands that they wouldn’t come back but they’re worn out by scrolling and are finding particular pleasure in the cinema experience,” says Benjamin Zeccola, CEO of Palace Cinemas.
Australia is a top 10 market globally, estimated to have the highest box office per capita in the world and is the most affordable country in the world for cinemagoing, determined by dividing the average ticket price by the minimum wage, according to the Cinema Association Australasia (CAA),
“There’s more positivity in the market, especially with the behaviour of Generation Alpha,” says Marc Wooldridge, founder of exhibitor Maslow Entertainment. “[Film sharing platform] Letterboxd is driving interest, along with A24 and Neon’s [good] taste and marketing prowess.”
Ample product and a mix of films across genres and audiences is aiding recovery, he adds.
Australian cinemagoers are unique, suggests Zeccola. They want authenticity and “don’t tolerate bullshit or being condescended to”.
Back in business
According to Screen Australia, 2024 saw 55.4 million admissions in total, delivering A$951m ($619m). As of delayed September 2025, CAA is sticking to the forecast made at the beginning of this year that Australia’s gross box office in 2025 will exceed A$1bn ($650m). If correct, it will be for the first time since 2019 that this marker has been reached.
The box office grossed more than A$1bn ($650m) every year between and including 2009 and 2019, with the record of A$1.26bn ($820m) set in 2016.
In the first half of 2025, gross takings were A$591.4m ($385m), 30% more than the corresponding period last year, according to Comscore. Warner Bros’ A Minecraft Movie was the highest-grossing film with A$56.3m ($36.6m), nearly double second highest-grossing Disney’s Lilo & Stitch which grossed A$29m ($29m), and Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning coming in third with A$23.1m ($15m).
As of delayed September, the five biggest independent film releases were Paddington In Peru (A$17.8m/$11.6m), papal drama and awards juggernaut Conclave (Roadshow, A$8.8m/$5.7m), China’s animated global phenomenon Ne Zha 2 (CMC, A$7.5m/$4.9m), romantic drama We Live In Time (Studiocanal, A$6.8m/$4.4m) and action film Ballerina (Roadshow, A$4.5m/$2.9m).
A24, now releasing select films directly into the Australian market, has taken Halina Reijn’s Babygirl to a US$2.3m gross and Alex Garland’s Iraq war-set drama Warfare grossed US$1.3m.
According to boutique arthouse exhibitor Palace Cinemas, which has 211 screens at 24 locations, the best performer on its screens to the end of September was Roadshow’s Conclave. According to CEO Zeccola, the exhibitor accounts for more than 60% of the box office of all foreign-language films from Europe. He says approximately 50% of all tickets for French-language film Jane Austen Wrecked My Life (which grossed US$460,000 in total) for example, and nearly all for Greek-language film Stelios (US$461,000) were sold at Palace venues.
Sister distributor Palace Films, which releases about 12 films a year, has had hits with two French titles, Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière’s The Count Of Monte Cristo and Pascal Bonitzer’s The Stolen Painting this year. They grossed A$1.3m ($846,000) and A$600,000 ($391.000) respectively.
The last six months have not been without their setbacks for Palace: Zeccola was disappointed with the December 26, 2024 release of Paolo Sorrentino’s Italian-language Parthenope (US$214.000) but said it’s on par with A24’s US release where the film grossed $290,000. It was a similar story with two other non-English language films, Boris Lojkine’s Souleymane’s Story (US$260,000) and Gilles Lellouche’s Beating Hearts (US $260,000) both from France.
“While financially okay, they were such beautiful pieces of filmmaking and storytelling that I can’t help but feel a bit sad that they didn’t reach wider audiences,” he says.
Meanwhile, Madman, one of Australia’s most energetic distributors, has enjoyed success this year with three very different titles: Miki Magasiva’s feel-good New Zealand title Tinā (A$3.3m/$2.1m); Gints Zilbalodis’s Oscar-winning animation Flow (A$1.3m/$846,000) and Peter Cattaneo’s UK-produced The Penguin Lessons (A$1.2m/$781,000) starring Steve Coogan.
Additionally, encouraging results are coming from films released in cinemas with enthusiastic audiences from the Chinese and Indian diaspora communities in Australia
“We’ve seen strong growth in international content, with 10% of our admissions over the past year coming from foreign-language films,” reveals Louis Georg, programmer and foreign content manager at Hoyts cinemas. “China is at the forefront of this surge and we’re proud to hold the number one market share for Chinese content in Australia.”
In addition to Chinese hit Ne Zha 2, nine films from China and India have grossed more than A$1m ($651,000) in Australia this year. They include: Niu Vision Media’s Detective Chinatown 1900, China Lion Film’s Creation Of The Gods II: Demon Force, Mindblowing’s Saiyaara And Chhaava, Tolly Movies’ Coolie and Cyber Systems’ L2: Empuraan.
Local hits
The highest grossing locally-produced film of 2025 to date is Roadshow’s December 26 release of Michael Gracey’s Robbie Williams musical drama Better Man, which grossed A$5.3m ($3.5m). Further local films to have fared best in 2025 to date are Danny and Michael Philippou’s horror title Bring Her Back (Sony) and supernatural body horrror Together (Kismet), which grossed A$2.5m ($1.6m) and A$1.2m ($781,000) respectively, and The Correspondent (Maslow Entertainment) and Spit (Transmission), the only other titles to each gross more than A$1m ($651,000).
In September, Kate Woods’ family comedy Kangaroo, the first film from Studiocanal production arm Cultivator Films Australia, opened strongly at the beginning of the school holidays, grossing A$2.6m ($1.7m) in its first two weeks.
For Maslow Entertainment, whose release slate comprises up to 80% homegrown product, releasing Australian films can be risky.
Founder Wooldridge, one-time Australasian managing director of Twentieth Century Fox, says working on local films is “emotionally and intellectually fulfilling” though not always “financially fulfilling”.
“It’s extremely rewarding when something works for an audience. You don’t need to go to the cinema, you have to want to,” is how he puts it. “It’s an emotional choice not a logical one.”
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