The independent box office has seen receipts rebound to heightened growth in 2025. The previous year had seen takings dip, amid the impacts of falling consumer spending power – but according to Indy Film Library’s latest analysis, the last 12 months have seen the indy segment outpace the wider market, with growth of more than 40%.
Like so many industries depending on footfall, leisure and entertainment markets took a beating in the lockdown period of the Covid-19 pandemic. After five years, global box office receipts are still struggling to recover.
There were a number of major hits in the last 12 months, which meant that the annual box office revenues recovered from shrinkage of 3% in 2024, and bettered its 2023 takings. The latest numbers from Gower Street Analytics found box office revenues hit $34 billion in 2025 – however, the 4% growth still leaves the film industry around $9 billion shy of the record figures posted prior to the pandemic.
This has led to a notable shift in tone from Hollywood in the last year. Despite multiple billion-dollar hits closing out the year – including Zootopia 2, Avatar: Fire and Ash, and Lilo & Stitch – raking in huge sums of money for Hollywood, there has been increasing talk around whether theatrical runs are still worth bothering with. While Warner Bros. Discovery’s current ownership seems determined to push ahead with a deal to auction off it’s ‘flagging’ IPs (it raked in $500 million just by re-releasing Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets and The Batman) to the streaming creeps at Netflix, Leonardo DiCaprio has publicly wondered if people still have “the appetite for movie theatres”, and compared them to “jazz bars”.
Given that wage stagnation and inflation of household bills haven’t seen a second annual decline in box office revenues, it seems clear that audiences do still have an appetite for cinematic experiences – and they can still be extremely profitable. What may be leading the industry’s biggest businesses to suddenly consider trashing the theatrical food-chain, is which films people are spending their money on.
Independent feature films had a huge year at the box office. Examining the latest data from Box Office Mojo, the 10 highest grossing indies of 2025 drew in revenues of close to $1.9 billion – a record before, or after the pandemic. Considering 2024 saw the top 10 independent productions tumble by 18%, 2025’s 41% growth is the strongest in four years.
This was partially buoyed by strong growth from international markets. Japanese animation Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle grossed more than $700 million globally, for example. Meanwhile, US productions Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and One Battle After Another both surpassed $200 million – something no independent film managed in 2024 – on the back of strong international showings.
On the basis of those figure, independent box office revenues in the independent box office out-performed the wider industry by a significant margin. But with the studio system owning significant stakes in cinema chains – at least in the United States – it might not be surprising that Hollywood is ramping up its attempts to take the ball home now.
Last year, we already noted that in the US, a growing number of cities no longer have a multiplex cinema. For example, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (population 569,000), there is reportedly no cinema for 20 miles. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Illinois (population 1.2 million), there are just two theatres with a combined total of 18 screens. Moving ahead, if one of the largest studios is sold off to a streaming service with a vested interest in keeping audiences in front of a screen at home, it would surely not be a surprise to see that process accelerate.
Whether that is enough to stop the resurgence of indy films is another matter, however. Even with the limited screen-time they currently have access to in the US, they are bringing in huge audiences elsewhere – in markets where cinemas will not disappear at the same rate. Perhaps this will see a divorce between US and international film markets – with only a few outlying US box office behemoths like Avatar being reserved for theatrical release, while the rest of the world moves on – allowing for more inventive, local films to win screen-space and audiences everywhere else. This has been the case in France for some time, and that example may chart a path forward for other nations looking to revive their own cinematic traditions.
How big is the independent film market?
Estimating the exact size of the independent film market still remains an impossible task. The size and scope of the segment, alongside debates around what constitutes an ‘independent’ production – and a lack of data for short films and festival performance – mean Indy Film Library’s own attempts are constrained to reported box office figures for feature films which gain a theatrical release. However, if the performance of the 10 most successful independent films is taken as an indicator of the popularity of indy films more broadly, it seems that after a blip in 2024, the segment has returned to the trend of the prior five years; proportionally outperforming the studio system by a distance.
To that end, Indy Film Library believes that the portion of the global box office accounted for by indy movies was at its highest level since it began analysing the industry. In 2024, with estimated independent box office receipts of around $6 billion, they counted for 18.5% of the wider box office takings. But in 2025, an explosive rebound saw that rise to $8.5 billion – or more than a quarter of overall revenues.
Whether this trend continues deep into 2026 remains to be seen, with geopolitical and economic uncertainties potentially decreasing audience spending power in the coming year. At the same time, that could compound the trend of cinema closures heading into Europe, and in particular the UK – stifling the potential growth of the indy box office.
However, it may increasingly be the case that some cinemas keep prioritising independent features, as a means of differentiating themselves from the remaining multiplexes, and of curating an alternative experience to the increasingly samey streaming content that most viewers are seemingly growing jaded with. Arguably that has already been bearing fruit in 2025 – and could still see the indy box office continue to defy the wider malaise of the market.
Beyond the economics, 2025 was also an excellent year for independent art in terms of quality. A list of the 10 most popular indy films on IFL’s platform in the last 12 months can be found here.