Tickets sold at box offices in the U.S. & Canada1980-2023

Throughout 2023, movie theaters in the United States and Canada managed to sell around 831 million tickets, which is a bit more than the 2022 figure of about 700 million tickets and a significant increase compared to the 2021 total of 444 million tickets. However, despite the growth, the 2023 figure still falls short of the nearly 1.23 billion movie tickets sold in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world.

Cinema's slow recovery after the coronavirus

The pandemic also impacted on cinemas' finances. The revenue at the so-called North American box office – consisting of Canada and The U.S. – stood just below nine billion dollars in 2023. That value remained well under the figure recorded in 2019. The box office revenue in Canada alone struggled even more, adding up to 600 million Canadian dollars in 2023, barely more than half the value reported four years earlier.

Newer audiences and how to attract them

The coronavirus outbreak has not changed the fact that teenagers watched the highest number of movies per year in the U.S. The 12-17 age group watched, on average, 2.5 feature films at a movie theater in 2021, or five times more than moviegoers aged 60 and above. According to a mid-2021 survey, variety in titles is what most motivated GenZers to attend movie theaters. This suggests that diversity may still be the spice of life – at least on the big screen.