The French box office jumps by almost 20% in the first half of 2026

The Fête du Cinéma worked particularly well this year, boosting theater attendance, which returned to its excellent level of 2023.

French cinemas are full again this year.

In the first half of 2026, attendance increased by almost 20%, thanks to a balance between French successes and major Hollywood productions.

According to CNC estimates, the French box office recorded more than 90 million admissions during the first six months of the year, an increase of 19.7% compared to the same period last year (75 million). Theaters thus return to 2023 levels (91 million in the first half) but still remain below pre-Covid performance (104 million on average over the 2017-2019 period).

Revenues reached around 680 million euros, confirming the very good recovery of the market after several more complicated years.

The end of the semester proved to be particularly dynamic. More than 5 million tickets were sold during the last week of June, while the Fête du Cinéma was running at full capacity with around 3.7 million entries recorded during the operation.

In June, theater attendance reached 13.04 million admissions, up 14.6% compared to June 2025, the second best June since 2013 (13.81 million), and just behind that of 2024 (14.14 million).

One of the major lessons of this first semester is the perfect balance between French and American productions. French films represent 42.5% of admissions, also up compared to last year.

Unlike certain years dominated by a handful of behemoths, nearly twenty films have already exceeded one million admissions, including eight French productions.

At the top of the provisional ranking is Marsupilamidistributed by Pathé, which already exceeds 6.1 million spectators. The Top 10 is also made up of French hits Guru, Children of the Resistance, Just an illusion And The Battle of De Gaulle: Resistance. Facing them, Hollywood places five films: Super Mario Galaxy, Michael, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Toy Story 5 and Jumpers.

We also note some horrific phenomena which boosted ticket sales, such as Obsessionwhich is approaching 1.4 million admissions since its release in May, while Backroomsdistributed by Metropolitan FilmExport, has already reached the milestone of one million spectators in just a few weeks of operation.