People go to the movies less. To be exact, 8% less than last year. The data was made public this Tuesday by the cinema billboard auditing company Comscore in a new annual attendance report in Spain. In 2025 there were 65 million spectators and the box office reached 453 million euros. In 2024, attendance was already down 5%.
The evolution of the box office has been irregular. The first semester closed positively with an increase of 3% compared to 2024, but the second semester has a provisional decrease of 16%, with October (-28%) and November (-31%) as the worst months.
Avatar: fire and ashreleased on December 19, has been the best premiere of 2025 in Spain, with 6.2 million euros in its first weekend, although the first place of the year accumulated as of December 29 goes to Lilo y Stitchalso from Disney and released seven months earlier. December 26 to 28 was the best weekend—the second for this film in theaters—with a gross of 9.9 million euros.
In national cinema, first place is occupied by the fifth installment of the saga Father there is only one, by Santiago Segura, followed by The captive y Sundays. The Spanish production closes the year with a market share of 19% (the same as in 2024), with a total of 12 million spectators and a box office of 78 million euros. Father there is only one 5 It is the only Spanish film that enters the list of the 10 most viewed in the country’s movie theaters. Specifically, the eighth.
The week with the highest attendance of the entire year was from May 30 to June 5, which registered a total of 2.08 million viewers. The day with the most attendance was July 2 with 554,244 attendees.
The report also provides spectator results by province: Madrid (21.5%), Barcelona (13.7%), Valencia (6.5%), Alicante (4.1%), Seville (3.7%), Málaga (3.7%), Murcia (3.5%), Vizcaya (2.5%), Balearic Islands (2.5%) and Cádiz (2.3%).
As for genres, the favorite in Spain has been action, followed by drama and animation.
They don’t go to the cinema, but they do watch movies at home
Last October the SGAE published a new statistical yearbook with figures for 2024, which showed that each Spaniard bought 1.5 tickets on average throughout the year. That represents the lowest attendance recorded in history, except in the first months of the pandemic. But people still watch movies, they just don’t do it from the seats of a movie theater anymore. 15% of the population sees them at home daily and 60.7% at least once a week, according to the Habits and Practices Survey of the Ministry of Culture published in September.
Culture also pointed to lack of time as the main reason for not going to the movies. The second obstacle is price, cited by one in four respondents. And who does go? More young people attend than older ones: from 15 to 54 years old, they attend more than the national average; from 55 onwards, much less. Other variables mentioned in the survey are studies, purchasing power or residence in larger populations. 11.6% say they do not go to movie theaters because they prefer to watch it on platforms.
The repercussions in the rooms are evident. In 2024, 39 disappeared, all independent, leaving Spain with a total of 3,569 establishments, the lowest number in the last 10 years.