The French box office recorded a 19.7% jump in admissions to 90.1m in the first six months of 2026, compared to the same period in 2025, according to CNC figures.
This equates to around €666m in box office revenue, based on an average ticket price of €7.40.
June clocked in at around 13million admissions (€96.5m), up 14.6% compared to the same period last year. While the month started slowly, the strong offer of both local blockbusters and Hollywood titles, combined with a heatwave across the country that drove audiences to air-conditioned cinemas, and an extra boost from the annual FNCF event La Fête de Cinéma, where tickets cost just €5, provided powerful momentum to finish the month strong.
While 2025 suffered mostly from a lack of local titles drawing massive crowds, this year, French family-friendly film Marsupilami (Pathe) continues to top the annual box office to date with more than 6.1 million admissions.
Studiocanal titles Guru and Children Of The Resistance, Gaumont’s Just An Illusion and the first instalment of Pathe’s two-part wartime thriller De Gaulle: Resistance are also among the top 10 films of the year alongside US titles including Universal’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Michael, and Disney’s The Devil Wears Prada 2, Toy Story 5 and Hoppers.
The market share of French films is estimated at 42.5% for the first six months of the year, with US films accounting for 47.5% of releases.
June story
Toy Story 5 dominated June with more than 2 million tickets sold since its mid-month June 17 release.
In a rare twist, Pathe’s De Gaulle: Resistance has taken an atypical path to box office glory, starting off under expectations with just 388,000 tickets sold in its first week in cinemas and a light 230,000 more in week two, then slowly regaining momentum in week with a 17% bump in admissions then rebounding by a staggering 71% in week four for a total of 1.4 million since its June 3 release,
It is expected to continue to draw crowds through the summer, bolstered by strong word-of-mouth and more digitally oriented marketing campaigns targeting younger audiences. The second film in the two-part epic saga De Gaulle: Liberte was released on June 26 and has sold some 400,000 tickets in its first five days in cinemas.
Animation is faring well in France with Minions & Monsters (Universal) wooing just under a million (970,000) cinemagoers since its June 24 release and French indie adult animation Jim Queen (The Jokers) managing an impressive 170,000 admissions since June 17.
Horror also spooked audiences into seats with Kane Parsons’ global breakout Backrooms (Metropolitan Filmexport) now at more than 860,000 admissions since June 17 and fellow fright phenomenon Curry Barker’s Obsession (Le Pacte) still riding high since its May 13 release with 1.2 million admissions and a rare 51% jump in ticket sales in its seventh week in cinemas.
La Fête du Cinema, held this year from June 28 through July 1, drew more than 3.7 million moviegoers for its 41stedition, 23% more than last year’s event and the second- best result in the last decade after a record-setting 2024. It was also the second-best month of June since 2013 (13.81 million), just slightly trailing 2024 (14.14 million).
The July release schedule is packed with mostly Hollywood franchises, including Supergirl (Warner Bros), Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Sony), the live-action Moana (Disney), and The Odyssey (Universal).
Local and arthouse titles with promise include French theatre comedy Comedie Francaise (Zinc), Cannes-premiering animation In Waves (Diaphana), horror Evil Dead Burn (Metropolitan Filmexport), Stephane Demoustier’s La Chaleur (Memento) and Valeska Grisebach’s Cannes jury prize-winning The Dreamed Adventure (Haut et Court).
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