French audiences showed their love for local films in February with ticket sales jumping 25.4% from the same month last year to 17.9 million admissions.

February is typically a strong month for the French box office, coinciding with school holidays, but this year’s tally was the best for the month since 2019. It continues the country’s 2026 rebound from a disappointing 2025 at the local box office, following a 15% jump in ticket sales in January to 16 million admissions.

The first two months of the year clocked 33.8 million admissions, up 20.2% compared to the same period in 2025.

Philippe Lacheau’s creature feature Marsupilami (Pathe) led the charge with 4.1 million admissions since its February 4 release. The live action film based on a well-known comic book character boasts a crowd-pleasing cast, including Jamel Debbouze, and Lacheau is behind French box office hits Babysitting and Alibi.com, and their hit sequels.

Yann Gozlan’s thriller about a manipulative life coach Guru (Studiocanal). gathered more than 1 million admissions over the month, with a total of 1.8 million since its January 28 opening.

Studiocanal also scored with Christophe Barratier’s World War II-set family drama Children Of The Resistance, which drew 757,000 admissions since opening on February 11.

Released on the same day, Lisa Azuelos’ family comedy sequel LOL 2.0: Anne’s Golden Hour (Apollo Films), starring Sophie Marceau, followed with some 670,000 admissions.

Rounding out the top five was the only non-French title, Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme (Metropolitan Filmexport), with a solid nearly 450,000 admissions in its first week in cinemas.

Sony’s animated action comedy Goat sold 417,000 tickets, and Emerald Fennel’s literary adaptation, Wuthering Heights (Warner Bros.), garnered 408,000 tickets after two weeks in cinemas.

The rest of the top 10 titles were 2025 titles that continue to attract audiences, including Avatar: Fire & Ash (Disney) with 336,000 more tickets added to its 8.8 million total tally, The Housemaid (Metropolitan Filmexport) with 333,000 more admissions and a 4.4 million total, and Zootopia 2 (Disney) with an added 314,000 to its 8.6 million total.

Several more local titles managed strong performances in February, including Gaumont’s local basketball comedy The American Dream, Jean-Paul Salome’s January release The Money Maker (Le Pacte), Valerie Donzelli’s Venice title At Work (Diaphana) and Vincent Munier’s Cesar-winning Whispers In The Woods (Haut et Court).

Solid arthouse releases included Hasan Hadi’s The President’s Cake (Tandem) and Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice (ARP Selection).

March typically sees less impressive numbers compared to February, but this year’s box office hopefuls include Scream 7, local comedy Family Price and Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, which all opened on February 25.

Further March openers will include Alter Ego, starring Cesar winner Laurent Lafitte, local comedies Les K D’Or and Police Flash 80, and Remi Bezancon’s Hitchcock homage detective comedy Murder In the Building starring Gilles Lellouche and Laetitia Casta.

Disney’s buzzy Pixar animation, Jumpers (also known as Hoppers), opens on March 4.

Ticket sales over the running year (March 2025-February 2026) are still down by 10% compared to the year before, but such strong momentum at the start of the year has brought renewed optimism to the French distribution industry after ticket sales were down every single month of 2025 other than January and December, when they were up by less than 1%.

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