Julia Stoll
Research expert covering TV and video media
Film industry in the United Kingdom - statistics & facts
Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the robustness of the UK cinema industry is expected to defy the odds throughout the 2020s. The United Kingdom indeed remains one of the most dynamic cinema markets and filmmaking players worldwide. In 2023, the UK/Ireland region was the leading European market in terms of box office revenue, garnering a total of 1.36 billion dollars. On a regional level, the UK maintained a solid third place in movie ticket sales. On top of that, the UK is increasingly becoming a location of choice for many foreign studios, who are delighted to take advantage of the financial benefits offered by local tax reliefs - even earning the nickname 鈥淏rollywood鈥.
An international filmmaking player
From regional productions such as Harry Potter and Doctor Who, to international hits belonging to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars franchises, many international studios opt to shoot in the UK. Pinewood Studios, one of the oldest and biggest studios, is known for housing the productions of many large-scale projects such as 鈥淒eadpool & Wolverine鈥. The superhero film was one of the highest-grossing movies of 2024 in the UK that were shot there. Another example is 鈥淲icked鈥, which was mostly shot in London at the Sky Studios Elstree studio. A variety of reasons, among which the financial incentives to shoot overseas, the several worker strikes, or more recently the L.A. wildfires, led to the shrinking number of shoot days spent on movie production in Los Angeles. While Hollywood is shying away from shooting domestically, European studios are facing increasing demand. The UK has become a shooting location of choice, as spending on feature movie production in the country is largely attributed to foreign investments, thus proving foreign studios鈥 interest in filming in the UK.An industry on the mend
As a result of the growing demand, the number of film video production companies has indeed exponentially increased and has reached an all-time high value in 2022. Even though box office revenues have yet to reach pre-pandemic levels, they are on par with revenues grossed in the first half of the 2010s. In 2024, box office gross of films made in or co-produced by the United Kingdom accounted for 20.8 percent of the global box office revenue, although it has yet to reach the peak it saw in 2019.A brighter future ahead
While the industry has yet to fully bounce back, it already shows signs of recovery. Viewers are indeed eager to go back to the theater, as cinemas across the UK are seeing an uptick in ticket sales. Forecasts indicate that the UK will rank third overall in terms of filmed entertainment revenue by 2026, only surpassed by the U.S. and China. Moreover, the market is expected to grow by almost 45 percent overall between 2022 and 2027.
