Laura Carollo
Research expert covering cinema and film
Film industry in Europe - statistics & facts
Movies are back! The cinema industry in Europe is showing formidable robustness after almost four years since the start of the pandemic. In 2022, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) collectively accounted for little more than seven billion U.S. dollars at the world's box office revenue. In terms of tickets sold, two of the top 10 box office markets in 2022 were European economies, namely France and the United Kingdom. Sources reported that the overall European box office revenue reached a total of 6.6 billion euros. While that value is still under pre-pandemic levels, it has been increasing since 2022, marking an opportunity for tremendous growth following the coronavirus outbreak.
While movie production is returned back to normal almost four years since the beginning of the pandemic, moviegoers are more reluctant to go back to theater. As spending in digital video is booming in Europe, it is only a question of time to see if cinema will manage to attract potential viewers back to the theater.
The European box office
At the end of 2022, every European country reported a decrease in box office gross compared to 2019. Yet, the box office revenue rose for almost all countries in comparison to the previous year, some of them such as Turkey and Latvia recording an impressive growth of 374.4 percent and 267.5 percent respectively. However, the impact on local productions varied. While the number of tickets to domestic films sold in Russia continued a declining trend that preceded COVID-19 until 2021, that value rebounded in 2022. On the contrary, domestic films' share in total cinema attendance decreased significantly in Latvia between 2019 and 2022, decreasing to seven percent in the latter year. Meanwhile, Russia, Turkey, and France reached new heights, with domestic titles accounting for over 40% of their movie ticket sales.Moviemaking in Europe
However, the industry of moviemaking in Europe is very much on the mend. As of 2022, the number of Russian productions distributed abroad remained constant. Despite peaking in 2021 with a record-high 340 movies in 2021, France's feature film production returned to annual numbers recorded throughout the 2010s with a total of 287 movies produced in 2022. If the domestic feature films production in Spain dropped in 2022, it bounced back as soon as the following year and reached a new peak in 2022, thus proving the vitality of the regional industry.While movie production is returned back to normal almost four years since the beginning of the pandemic, moviegoers are more reluctant to go back to theater. As spending in digital video is booming in Europe, it is only a question of time to see if cinema will manage to attract potential viewers back to the theater.
