Admissions and box office revenues of German films abroad more than doubled

German cinema abroad looks back on a highly successful year in 2025. Overall, German films generated nearly €250 million in box office revenues outside Germany and attracted more than 33 million viewers. Compared to 2024, this represents an increase of around 115 percent.

In 2025, a total of 594 German films — including majority and minority co-productions — were released in 87 countries worldwide. Of these, 297 titles (50 percent) were majority German productions originating from Germany. Compared to previous years, this represents a significant expansion both in the number of titles released and in international reach.

Building on the strong results already achieved by mid-2025, the international box office revenues of German films increased substantially over the full year. Compared with 2024, total revenues more than doubled, rising by approximately 115 percent.

Overall, German films generated €249.8 million in box office revenues outside Germany in 2025 and attracted more than 33 million admissions. Compared to 2024, this corresponds to an increase in revenues of around 115 percent (2024: €116 million) and a more than doubling of audience numbers (2024: 15.8 million admissions).

Among the most successful majority German productions of the year were MARIA, MANITOU´S CANOE, GRAND PRIX OF EUROPE, SEPTEMBER 5 and STITCH HEAD. Together, these five titles generated €49.9 million in international box office revenues and reached 6.64 million admissions.
In the category of minority German co-productions, REGRETTING YOU ranked as the most successful title of the year, achieving €70.4 million in revenues and 8.46 million admissions. It was followed by THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME, which earned €32.4 million and attracted 3.71 million admissions worldwide.

The 297 majority German productions generated a total of €94.9 million at international box offices and reached 13.1 million admissions outside Germany. This accounted for approximately 38 percent of the total international revenues of German films in 2025. By comparison, in 2024 majority German films achieved a box office revenue of €53,5 million and attracted a total of 7,08 million viewers. This confirms the successful international positioning of majority German productions in 2025.

As in 2024, Europe once again proved to be the most important market for majority German productions in 2025. Box office revenues in Europe amounted to €68.7 million, representing 72.4 percent of total revenues generated by majority German productions, with 8.7 million admissions. North America ranked second, with more than €13 million in revenues and over 1.6 million admissions, of which the United States alone contributed more than €11.2 million.

Find the full report HERE.

General Information:

Basis of data: This evaluation of international cinema figures was based on data from the ComScore database. ComScore presents international box office turnovers and audience numbers as reported by the respective distributors. Films and their respective statistics that are not reported to ComScore cannot be included in the evaluation. The data are based on those submitted to ComScore for the evaluation period 01.01.2025 to 31.12.2025.

Calculation of missing audience numbers: As some countries enter their box office turnovers but not their audience numbers, the latter have been calculated. The calculation of the number of admissions is based on the average ticket prices of the respective country published annually by the European Audiovisual Observatory. Data Calculated in this way are marked (*).

Definition of majority German films: The definition of majority German films was brought into line in 2019. Thus, films are referred to here in which the largest share of financing is German. In the evaluations prior to 2019, films whose financing consisted of at least 50% German shares were referred to as majority German. For this reason, a comparison of box office and audience figures between the period up to and including 2018 and the period from 2019 onwards can only be made for all films with German participation (majority and minority). As a basis for the assessment, the funding shares were taken from the BAFA notification (if available).

Contact:
Andrea Schiefer (Deputy Managing Director / Director Administration & Strategic Development)
Angela Sonntag (Head of Press & Public Relations)

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