UK and Irish cinema hits post-pandemic high as Minecraft tops box office film of 2025 | film

The UK and Irish box office recorded its best annual performance since the Covid pandemic, with Minecraft ending 2025 as the highest-grossing film of the year.

Figures released by box office analysts Comscore show box office receipts in the UK and Ireland totaled £1.07bn, up 1% on the £1.06bn total in 2024. At the same time, there was a slight decline in the amount of films released: 1,092 in 2025, compared to 1,124 in 2024.

The result is the highest total since 2019, which saw total receipts of £1.35bn, shortly before the cinema’s physical box office collapsed the following year, to £323.7m, with Covid restrictions hit hard. Cinema revenues rebounded to £595.5m in 2021, £980.7m in 2022, and only returned to over £1bn in 2023, for a total of £1.06bn.

The numbers of films released suggest that the production pipeline, which was damaged by the pandemic and subsequent film industry strikes in 2023, has recovered, and is in fact exceeding pre-pandemic levels; In 2019, 938 films were released. However, a strategy reset appears to be occurring, with 224 films in 2025 recorded as “saturated” releases (i.e. being shown in more than 250 venues at once), compared to 200 in 2024 and 188 in 2019. According to Comscore, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale had its widest opening in the UK in 2025, with over 750 theaters Cinema.

The highest-grossing film of 2025 in the UK and Ireland was the game adaptation Minecraft, whose viral impact, including the “chicken knight” scene, translated into box office supremacy, with a total of £56.88 million. The film also topped the 2025 North American box office, taking $423.9 million, but came in only fifth place at the worldwide box office with $958.3 million — behind the global leader, Chinese animation Ne Zha 2, which had revenues of $2.24 billion.

Among British productions, the fourth Bridget Jones film, subtitled Mad About the Boy, ended the year as the most successful at the box office in the UK and Ireland, with £46.4 million, far ahead of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale and 28 Years Later in second and third place, with £18.4 million and £15.6 million respectively.

The figures also revealed continued strength in ‘event cinema’ releases which grossed £44m (4.1% of total), which included 10 films which grossed more than £1m. Among these was the best ever performance of a theatrical production. The West End production Six the Musical took in £6.2m – although this is significantly lower than the record ‘event cinema’ gross of £12.3m for Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in 2023.

Phil Clapp, chief executive of the UK Film Association, said: “Although it has only seen a slight increase in box office year-on-year, 2025 undoubtedly represents another important step in the sector’s recovery following the challenges of recent years. There is great optimism that the coming months will see further significant progress.”