Disney’s The Roses was the highest-grossing UK independent film at the 2025 UK-Ireland box office, with £10.3m, according to official statistics published today by the British Film Institute (BFI).
This is behind 2024’s number one, Studiocanal’s Back To Black, which grossed £12.3m.
The Roses is directed by US filmmaker Jay Roach, and stars Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch. It shot in the UK and was produced by Colman’s South Of The River Pictures and Cumberbatch’s SunnyMarch, with US company Delirious Media, for Disney’s Searchlight Pictures.
The BFI defines an independent film as produced without creative or financial input from the major US studio companies of Fox Entertainment Group, NBC Universal, Paramount Motion Pictures Group, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group and Warner Bros Entertainment.
The BFI said there is flexibility with productions that come from studio subsidiaries, taking into account the film’s budget level, the filmmaker and the independent production companies which have propelled the project.
Top 20
2025’s next highest UK independent performers were Studiocanal’s We Live In Time (£8.8m), Black Bear’s The Salt Path (£8.1m), Studiocanal’s I Swear (£6.1m) and Sony’s The Choral (£4.2m).
In 2025, 10 UK independent films earned more than £2m at the UK-Ireland box office, a slight increase from nine in 2024. In 2019, all 20 of the top UK independent releases earned £2m or more.
Only two films in the top 20 were directed by women, Marianne Elliott’sThe Salt Path and Gurinder Chadha’s Christmas Karma.
The market share (share of gross box office) of UK independent films in 2025 was 6.8%, slightly down on 6.9% in 2024, but up on 3.8% from 2023.
Total revenue of the top 20 UK independent films in 2025 was £61.9m, a 90% market share of the year’s box office for all UK independent Comscore-reported film releases.
In 2024, the top 20 UK independent films earned £63.9m (a 93% share of the box office for UK independent releases), and in 2019, the top 20 UK independent films grossed £144.6m for an 83% share.
| Title (origin) | Distributor | Box office | |
| 1 | The Roses (UK-US) |
Disney | £10.3m |
| 2 | We Live In Time (UK) | Studiocanal | £8.8m |
| 3 | The Salt Path (UK) | Black Bear | £8.1m |
| 4 | I Swear (UK) |
Studiocanal | £6.1m |
| 5 | The Choral (UK-US) | Studiocanal | £4.2m |
| 6 | The Brutalist (UK-US-Hun) | Universal | £3.8m |
| 7 | The Penguin Lessons (UK-Sp-Ire) | Lionsgate | £3.3m |
| 8 | Marching Powder (UK) | True Brit | £3.1m |
| 9 | The Ballad Of Wallis Island (UK) | Universal | £2.6m |
| 10 | Warfare (UK-US) | A24 | £2.2m |
| 11 | Fackham Hall (UK) | EFD | £1.4m |
| 12 | Christmas Karma (UK-US-India-Kenya) | True Brit | £1.3m |
| 13 | Becoming Led Zeppelin (UK-US) | Sony | £1.1m |
| 14 | Pillion (UK) | Picturehouse/Warner Bros | £1.1m |
| 15 | Mr Burton (UK) | Icon | £1.1m |
| 16 | Hard Truths (UK-Sp) | Studiocanal | £900,000 |
| 17 | Last Breath (UK-US) | EFD | £800,000 |
| 18 | Chal Mera Putt 4 (UK-India) | Rhythm Boyz | £700,000 |
| 19 | Housefull 5 (UK-India) | Bakrania Media | £600,000 |
| 20 | Love Guru (UK-Pakistan) | House of Advertising | £400,000 |
Admissions dip
Admissions – which relates to the number of tickets sold in UK cinemas only during the January to December reporting period for all films on release, including event cinema releases – were 123.5 million, 2% lower than in 2024 (126.5 million) and 30% lower than in 2019 (176.1 million).
Overall, the UK-Ireland box office for films released in 2025, excluding event cinema, was £1.01bn, on a par with 2024, and 21% down on 2019. There were 961 releases in 2025, down from 997 in 2024, and way up from the 764 of 2019.
The highest-grossing release of 2025 in the UK-Ireland was Warner Bros’ A Minecraft Movie with £56.9m, followed by Universal’s Wicked: For Good with £47m.
Box office data excludes Netflix cinema releases, which are not reported to Comscore. Seventeen Netflix-produced films – including K-Pop Demon Hunters, The Thursday Murder Club and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery – had a limited UK or Ireland theatrical release in 2025, down from 26 in 2024.
Seventeen of 2025’s top 20 films were sequels, parts of pre-existing franchises, remakes, or films based on video game intellectual property, compared to 15 in 2024. The three releases outside this group were Lionsgate’s The Housemaid (£22.6m), Warner Bros’ F1: The Movie (£22.4m) and Warner Bros’ Sinners (£16.4m).
Revenue of the top 20 releases in 2025 was £557.5m, or 55% of the total UK-Ireland box office. For 2024, the top 20 revenue was £604.9m (a 60% share of total box office), and for 2019 it was £753m (a 59% share).
The BFI includes box office revenues up until January 18 2026 in its calculations.
No comments yet