Cinema admissions in the five major European markets show a slight decrease in 2024 (-1.2%).
by Elisabetta Brunella

The first available data on cinema-going in 2024 shows us a situation of both positives and negatives. As always, not all countries have yet reported the number of spectators who attended their theatres. However, we do have provisional figures from the five European territories that account for over 60 percent of the market monitored regularly by MEDIA Salles, namely the European Union and nine other countries, including the United Kingdom, Turkey, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

The “big five” countries – France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and Italy – recorded about 538.7 million spectators in 2024, down about 7.5 million compared to 2023 (-1.2%).
Among the factors influencing this trend is the slowdown of U.S. productions due to industry strikes.
In other times, in an industry like cinema, which is heavily influenced by product availability, this would indicate a hiccup or even stability of the market, albeit with marked differences between territories.

Alongside countries that are gaining spectators – such as France, which added nearly one million admissions to its good result in 2023 and the United Kingdom, where an increase of 2.3% is expected according to current estimates - there is a market like Italy, which saw a decrease of about 1% (according to Cinetel data), while Spain is projected to decline by about 5%, and Germany loses 5.8% of spectators.

During this period, in which operators have long awaited a recovery following the pandemic phase, these results pushed back the achievement of the attendance levels recorded in 2019.
By the end of 2023, on average, the five major markets still needed to recover 23.3% of spectators. Now, with the average decrease recorded in 2024, the gap compared to the pre-pandemic year has risen to 24.2%.

Analysing individual countries however, notable differences emerge: while France is missing 15 spectators out of 100, Germany needs to recover 24, and Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain need about 30.
From smaller markets, signals are coming that – though varying in degree – confirm concerns regarding the timeline for recovery.

Denmark shows a decrease of 2.7%, whilst Republic of Serbia of 3.5%.
Poland, after an exceptional 2023, estimates a decline of over 20% for 2024 and a difference from 2019 exceeding 38%.
Turkey has grown by almost 6%, but it is also true that it still needs to regain 44% of its audience. The same is more or less true for Cyprus, where attendance in 2024 has dropped by over 16% and the difference from 2019 has risen to 40%.

Positive notes come from Latvia, which shows an increase of 3.1%, mainly thanks to the success of the domestic production “Flow”, and Bulgaria, which matched the good results of 2023, and remains the territory closest to pre-pandemic attendance levels. It has recovered 89% of its spectators.
According to estimates, the Slovak Republic market, which is growing in 2024, is also missing fewer than two spectators out of ten.

A sign of optimism also comes from the performance in the last part of 2024, which in the United Kingdom and Spain, as well as in other countries, has seen an increase in theatre attendance. This trend appears to be confirmed in the early days of the new year, as indicated by available data for Italy.

The films of 2024

If “Inside out” is the film that most frequently tops the charts for ticket sales, there are also strong – if not exceptional – performances from national films.

This is the case in France, where “Un p’tit truc en plus” and “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo” ranked first and second respectively, and French cinema reached an extraordinary 44.4%.
In Spain, “Padre no hay más que uno 4” reached the seventh place, while in Italy, even without a box office champion like “C'è ancora domani”/”There’s still tomorrow” a decent group of titles enabled national productions to capture 25.7% of attendance.

In Germany, two national titles – “Die Schule der magischen Tiere 3” and “Chantal im Märchenland” – appear in the top ten, while the market share of the 21 local films in the top 100 reached 18.5%.
In Slovak Republic data that has not finished reporting shows that national films have doubled the number of movie-goers from 2023, accounting for around 30% of the total.

In conclusion, the available data shows that that the situation regarding cinema-going in Europe is rather multi-faceted, with some markets, that is to say -few- finishing 2024 with signs of growth (in addition to the ones already mentioned there are the Slovak Republic, Greece and Ireland) and others which is to say -the larger amount- with signs of decline (Czech Republic, Hungary, Portugal, the Nordics, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Croatia and Estonia). But the main takeaway regarding the evaluation of the prospects of the silver screen in each territory of the Old Continent is the data showing how many admissions are required to match the level of 2019. And hopefully improve it!

This is an updated version of the article printed in the Berlinale special issue of Cinema & Video Int'l, the MEDIA Salles media partner.