Four French films over a million and a sharp increase in attendance: the excellent start to 2026 for French cinema

In the wake of Marsupilami and Gourou, French cinema is in great shape in January and February, after a moribund year 2025.

And say that‘Avengers: Doomsday, Dune 3, Spider-Man 4, Toy Story 5 And Super Mario Galaxy haven’t even come out yet…

While waiting for American blockbusters to break the bank in French complexes, French cinema is holding its own at the start of 2026 in France. And he does it brilliantly.

The month of February confirmed the renewed energy in attendance observed already in January. With nearly 18 million admissions to theaters over the last 28 days (according to the CNC), no less than 33.80 million spectators went to the cinema during the first two months of the year! An increase of 20.2% compared to the same period in 2025. A very positive dynamic, comparable to the start of 2023, when Asterix and Obelix: the Middle Kingdom, Alibi.com 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or even Avatar: The Way of Water filled the sessions.

Yes, the figures for the start of 2026 give cause for optimism, after a complicated year 2025.

Marsupilami, Guru, Bojarski And Children of the Resistance to the million

Especially since French cinema takes the lion’s share. The first four places in the ranking of films for the month of February are occupied by French productions: Marsupilamireleased on February 4, Guru January 28, Children of the Resistance And LOL 2.0both released on February 11.

The French industry already has four “millionaires” with Marsupilami in the lead with nearly 5 million entries, followed by Guruwhich totals almost 2 million. The Bozharsky Affair And Children of the Resistance are just over a million. To this are added LOL 2.0currently at nearly 800,000 entries, and The Mage of the Kremlinwhich is close to 700,000 entries for the moment.

In total, French films have already accumulated almost 13 million admissions in two months. An impressive figure when we know that they totaled 60 million over the entire year 2025.

We will see in the coming weeks if The K’Dors by Jeremy Ferrari (March 11) or Rays and shadows by Xavier Giannoli (March 18) maintain this pace.

Note, however, that these good scores must be put into perspective in the light of theater attendance before Covid: over the first two months of 2017, 2018 and 2019, there were – on average – around 40 million admissions in France. That is 18.6% more than today…