The cinema industry, having hoped for a full reset in 2025 after facing multiple challenges, is reflecting on a year of mixed results, with some successes offset by ongoing structural volatility and changing audience habits. While some titles and premium formats thrived, the industry remains cautious amid the cost-of-living crisis.
For the past five years, the cinema industry has repeated one simple mantra: Survive until 2025. The theory was that if the industry could hold on until then, it could reset and grow into the financial behemoth it once was.
Now, as we enter 2026, analysts and punters are reflecting on the year that was in film. From tent pole titles such asWait, why did it need a reset? Associate Professor Liam Burke, Swinburne’s cinema and media studies discipline leader, says the industry first encountered trouble when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It had just enjoyed a stellar 2019 with massive drawcards such as, which also closed productions, films couldn’t be promoted, and so on. So, there’s been a series of back-to-back calamities that have stalled and ceased productions,” Burke says.entirely. Meanwhile, streaming proliferated. Most people broke the habit of regularly attending the cinema during the pandemic, a habit Burke says never returned as films quickly went to streaming. Each time a crisis ended – be it the lockdowns, strikes or fires – the industry pointed to 2025 as the year of long-awaited stability that would allow the box office to finally catch its breath. The reality, however, was far more complicated.Chinese animation Ne Zha 2 secured itself as a cultural phenomenon this year, becoming the highest-grossing animated film in the world.Analysts predicted the North American box office would reach a post-COVID high of US$9.3 to $9.5 billion. This was later revised to US$S9 billion, which would bring the year just above 2024 and significantly behind pre-pandemic highs of US$10.5 to $11 billion.”While global box office results have been more consistent over the past 12 months, the industry remains structurally volatile,” says Matthew Deaner, chief executive of Screen Producers Australia., spending restraint has become embedded rather than temporary, and that uncertainty continues to influence what gets made, how it’s released, and how much risk companies are willing to take. So, 2025 showed improvement, but not a full reset.”Deaner says the year could best be described as feast or famine. When major event films landed, audiences turned out in force. But long stretches of weaker periods exposed a poor release pipeline, making cinema attendance seem like a series of spikes rather than a consistent habit.The spikes coincided with family films, anime and horrors, as well as original concepts with strong word-of-mouth such as Ryan Coogler’sto be seen on the big screen. Premium formats such as IMAX, 4DX and Dolby Atmos enjoyed a major boost, with IMAX delivering its best year on record with US$1.2 billion globally. Executive director of Cinema Association Australasia Cameron Mitchell says since December 2024, eight new IMAX locations have opened across Australia.Since the cinema is now more of a treat rather than a weekly routine, Burke says, people are craving unique experiences – and are willing to pay more for it – whether that’s seeingMarvel’s Thunderbolts may have been ok in a standard screening, but awesome in 4DX. However, a rather alarming lesson learned in 2025 was that popular IP and major stars no longer guarantee box office success. The once-reliable superhero genre faltered, with Marvel’s”Streaming has trained us not to go to the cinema for those types of stories and genres. We expect to see them at home.”in 2025. Mitchell says it’s now expected to have exceeded $975 million, marking a slight dip from original projections and an increase of only about 2.5 per cent compared to 2024 . That figure is also about 19.2 per cent down on the pre-COVID average, according to Comscore. ” creates a visibility problem for local films,” Deaner says. “Australian producers don’t have the buying power or marketing reach of US studios, so even strong local titles can struggle to secure screen space and audience attention, despite clear appetite for Australian stories.”While the industry had hoped for a stronger rebound in 2025, chief executive of Palace Cinemas Benjamin Zeccola says it’s still on track, especially for independent Australian institutions. Palace Cinemas, he notes, were up by 11 per cent year-on-year, partly thanks to the success of their film festivals, including the French and Italian festivals, which broke previous records with over 80,000 attendees. “Making movies isn’t like making toothpaste – you cannot just turn a tap on and off. A film comes from harnessing the creativity of hundreds of individual artists working together to tell a single story at a single moment, and capture that on film. That kind of momentum takes years to build.”Cinema has been and will remain a popular pastime for Australians, but the price of tickets cannot be ignored as the country continues to struggle through a cost-of-living crisis. According to Screen Australia, the average Australian ticket price rose 27 per cent between 2014 and 2024 . This increase appears to be steepening, as pricier premium formats such as IMAX become more popular. In fact, the average price of tickets increased by about 10 per cent year-on-year in the first weekend of 2026, per Comscore .”The key lesson from 2025 is that cinema needs balance,” he says. “Blockbusters matter, but so does volume, variety and consistency. Sustainable box office performance comes from giving audiences regular reasons to go to the movies, not just one or two moments a year.”Gower Street Analytics estimates the 2026 global box office will reach around $52 billion, a 5 per cent jump against current estimates for 2025. The line-up promises both popular franchises and original stories, fromA concern haunting the industry now is whether Netflix succeeds in buying Warner Bros, a deal that could threaten the length of theatrical distribution for certain major pictures. However, Burke says that the deal, if successful, would take a few years to finalise, particularly given the regulatory pushback it’ll likely receive.”The assumption is that digital natives want everything online. But recent research found that for under-14s who’ve grown up in the era of streaming and TikTok, there’s no novelty to watching something on Netflix or Disney+. The novelty for them is in-person experiences,” he says. “Communal experiences – that’s one thing that cinemas can offer that will outstrip anything you can have at home.” Must-see movies, interviews and all the latest from the world of film delivered to your inbox. Sign up for our
Cinema Industry Box Office Streaming COVID-19 Impact Film Production
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