2025 records new footfall low in theatres: Dhurandhar rocks box office, but not enough housefull shows

Low cinema turnout

On paper, 2025 looks like a blockbuster year, with the box office clocking a record Rs 13,395 crore. But behind the headline number lies a worrying trend: cinema halls saw their weakest audience turnout in a decade.

Only 83.2 crore audiences watched movies in theatres last year, down from the pre-pandemic peak of 103 crore.

Slow rush

Except 2020 and 2021, the two years when theatres did not operate fully due to the pandemic impact, footfalls were above the 83 crore. In 2020 and 2021, footfalls dropped to 22.5 and 42.7 crore respectively, according to media consulting company Ormax data.

As cinemas recovered from the pandemic shock, footfalls showed signs of revival—rising to 89.2 crore in 2022, peaking at 94.3 crore in 2023 with releases like Shah Rukh Khan's Pathaan, Jawan and Sunny Deol-starrer Gardar 2 and settling at 88.3 crore in 2024.

Between 2015 to 2019, footfalls ranged between 90-100 crore.

A deeper dive into the footfall count of each language shows little to no recovery on this front.

While Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada film industries recorded higher box office in 2025 versus the previous year, the footfalls declined.

Telugu cinema continued to see a decline for the second consecutive year to 18.1 crore footfalls from 21.3 crore in 2024 and 24.2 crore in 2023 whereas footfalls for Malayalam films fell by 20 percent to 10 crore compared to the peak of 12.6 crore in 2024.

High ticket prices aid box office gold

On the other hand, the box office of Telugu films was marginally up at Rs 2,377 crore versus Rs 2,348 crore in 2024 and that of Malayalam films was the same as 2024. This underlined that the increase in Average Ticket Price (ATP), especially of tentpole films, was the driver for sustained box office collections for the overall India box office.

Average Ticket Price (ATP) recorded its sharpest growth in the last four years, rising by 20 percent, from Rs 134 to Rs 161.

ATP increase was driven by higher box office share of Hindi and International at 52 percent last year versus 47 percent in 2024, which are the high ATP languages. ATP for Hindi films was Rs 215, up from Rs 203 while ticket prices of international movies was Rs 267 versus Rs 245.

Additionally, ATP of South Indian films also increased to Rs 123 from Rs 101.

While ATP increased across all languages, the surge was especially pronounced in South Indian languages, with average ticket prices rising by over 20 percent, specifically driven by government approvals in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for higher ticket prices for tentpole Telugu films during premiere shows and opening weeks.

The South markets witnessed a trend of higher ticket prices for several big-ticket films, further impacting the overall India ATP.

The continued dependence of the box office on rising ATP in recent years is a concern especially with higher movie ticket prices being a bone of contention.

Last year, the Karnataka government had capped movie ticket prices at Rs 200 saying that this was done in the interest of the general public. However, the Karnataka High Court had stayed the rule capping movie ticket prices.

No recovery

Other-language films saw higher footfalls in 2025, albeit still lower than pre-pandemic (2019) levels.

Hindi cinema’s footfalls grew by 11 percent in 2025 at 25.6 crore driven by blockbusters like highest grossing film of the year Dhurandhar, Chhaava, and Saiyaara. Despite the growth, footfalls continue to be significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels of over 30 crore.

Kantara Chapter 1 drove footfalls for the Kannada film industry with a steep increase of 35 percent last year to 3.6 crore, but still less than half of 2022 level of 8 crore when movies like KGF Chapter 2 and Kantara were released. The peak footfalls Kannada film industry had recorded was in 2016 at 8.5 crore.

Footfalls in Tamil Cinema witnessed a sharp decline of more than 15 percent, with 2025 recording the lowest footfalls for the Tamil film industry since 2016, excluding the two pandemic-affected years (2020 and 2021).

Punjabi films also saw a steep decline of 64 percent in footfalls versus 2024, and fell short of the 1 crore mark for the first time in the last decade excluding the two pandemic-affected years.

On the bright side, Hollywood gained momentum at the India box office last year and even footfalls increased to 5.3 crore from 3.8 crore in 2024. However, footfalls were a lot lower than the 2019 peak level of 9.8 crore.

Standout performers

The standout performance last year was by Gujarati films that saw highest footfalls ever in the last decade at 1.8 crore in 2025.

Gujarati cinema witnessed a staggering 189 percent growth, from Rs 84 crore in 2024 to Rs 242 crore in 2025, driven by Laalo: Krishna Sada Sahaayate that became the highest-grossing Gujarati film of all-time- with collections to the tune of Rs 114 crore.

Dhurandhar, Kantara A Legend: Chapter-1 and Chhaava were the only films to surpass the Rs 500 crore mark at the India box office.

Saiyaara, Coolie and the animated film Mahavatar Narsimha were the other three films to gross above Rs 300 crore.