Twelve French films scored over a million admissions in France in 2023

04/01/2024 - Three French feature films stand out in an annual top 10 dominated by US productions

Astérix & Obélix: The Middle Kingdom by Guillaume Canet

Cinema attendance in France regained even more strength in 2023, continuing its post-pandemic recovery by attracting 180,76 million viewers over this past year (amounting almost to an estimated € 2 billion in revenue), which is 18,9% higher than in 2022. However, things are not yet back to pre-Covid levels since the market is still in decline by 13,1% compared to the average for the 2017-2019 period.

To this general tendency, we can add a growing polarisation, already at work for several years but now harsher than ever: it’s either success, or crushing failure. There is no longer any real in-between: viewers now bring success to two or three films, while all the others underperform. This creates great difficulties for distributors without any major successes in a year (and also impacts their financial capacity to engage on new projects).

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This is a phenomenon that affects all types of films, including the so-called French cinema of the middle (films with reasonable budgets), European feature films (which distributors are currently buying with extreme caution and which imperatively require a very noticeable premiere in a big festival), but also many French comedies with a supposedly popular cast that nevertheless struggle in cinemas.

The elusive and unpredictable young audiences remain the centre of distributors’ reflections (and anxieties). Each approaches it with their own strategy (Pathé, for example, is betting on big, spectacular productions, but their big budgets are not without risk) while no one has yet found the magic formula in a sector that remains, no matter how much rationalising people might do, a prototype industry where the viewer’s volatile desires still escape the laws of marketing.

The 2023 box-office is dominated by two US productions (The Super Mario Bros. Movie with 7,35 million admissions, and Barbie with 5,84 million admissions). French blockbuster Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom [+see also:
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film profile] by Guillaume Canet arrives third with 4,62 million admissions.

In total, three French films figure in the annual Top 10 with the comedy Alibi.com 2 [+see also:
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film profile] by Philippe Lacheau (4,27 million admissions) in the 5th position, and The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan [+see also:
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film profile] by Martin Bourboulon (3,43 million) in the 7th position.

Nine other French productions scored over a million admissions in 2023: the comedy 3 jours max by Tarek Boudali (1,88 million admissions), The Three Musketeers: Milady by Martin Bourboulon (1,67 million), the animated film Ladybug & Cat Noir Awakening by Jeremy Zag (1,63 million), the Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall [+see also:
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interview: Justine Triet
film profile] by Justine Triet (1,3 million), Father & Soldier [+see also:
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film profile] by Mathieu Vadepied (1,18 million), All Your Faces [+see also:
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film profile] by Jeanne Herry (1,16 million), The Crime Is Mine [+see also:
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interview: François Ozon
film profile] by François Ozon (1,09 million), The Animal Kingdom [+see also:
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interview: Thomas Cailley
film profile] by Thomas Cailley (1,05 million admissions) and On The Wandering Path [+see also:
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film profile] by Denis Imbert (1,04 million).

20 French films recorded between 500,000 and 1 million admissions. Among them, we can mention Second Round [+see also:
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film profile] by Albert Dupontel (979,000 admissions), Sweet Little Things by Mélanie Auffret (925,000), A Difficult Year [+see also:
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interview: Olivier Nakache and Eric To…
film profile] by Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache (900,000, a relatively poor performance for two directors usually at the very top of the box office), The Braid by Laetitia Colombani (877,000), the animated films Argonauts by David Alaux (864,000) and The Jungle Bunch: World Tour by the trio Laurent Bru - Yannick Moulin - Benoît Somville (829,000), Abbé Pierre - A Century of Devotion [+see also:
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interview: Frédéric Tellier
film profile] by Frédéric Tellier (809,000), Bernadette [+see also:
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film profile] by Léa Domenach (802,000), Jeanne du Barry [+see also:
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film profile] by Maïwenn (761,000), Just the Two of Us [+see also:
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interview: Valérie Donzelli
film profile] by Valérie Donzelli (668,000), Consent [+see also:
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film profile] by Vanessa Filho (616,000 entrées – saved after a weak opening by an unpredictable TikTok phenomenon), A Real Job by Thomas Lilti (500,000) and The Sitting Duck [+see also:
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interview: Jean-Paul Salomé
film profile] by Jean-Paul Salomé (500,000).