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Saudi box office rose 9% to SAR920.8m ($246m) in 2025 as local films doubled

Full-year figures first released in March put the market back at its 2023 level, with 18.8 million tickets sold, and Saudi films more than doubled their gross to SAR122.6m ($32.7m).

By 4 min read
An older man in a red and white shemagh sits with a smiling boy on the ground in front of an old truck in the desert

A scene from Abdulaziz Alshlahei’s Hobal (2024), which opened in Saudi cinemas on 2 January 2025 and grossed SAR24.6m ($6.6m), one of three Saudi films in the year’s top six. Image from the Saudi Film Festival film page. Courtesy of the Saudi Film Festival

Saudi Arabia’s cinemas took SAR920.8m ($246m) in 2025, up 9% on 2024, according to full-year figures from the Saudi Film Commission. The commission first published the numbers in its Saudi Box Office Report 2025 on 30 March and repeated them in its second annual report on the Saudi film industry, presented on Wednesday 28 October at the opening of the Saudi Film Confex in Riyadh. Dollar figures here use the riyal’s fixed rate of SAR3.75 to $1.

Key facts

  • 2025 gross: SAR920.8m ($246m), up 9% from SAR845.6m ($225m) in 2024
  • Admissions: 18.8 million, up 7%; average ticket price SAR49 ($13), up 2%
  • Saudi films: 11 releases took SAR122.6m ($32.7m) from 2.8 million tickets, against SAR56.8m in 2024
  • Screens: 603 across 62 cinemas in 10 of the kingdom’s 13 regions
  • Biggest film of the year: F1, with SAR39.1m ($10.4m)

Back to the 2023 level

The 2025 total puts the market almost exactly where it was at its 2023 peak of SAR922.6m, after a fall in 2024. Admissions tell a slightly better story: the 18.8 million tickets sold are ahead of 17.7 million in 2023 and 17.5 million in 2024, according to the commission’s figures as reported by Argaam. In 2018, the year cinemas reopened after a ban of more than three decades, the country sold 600,000 tickets for SAR38.6m.

The number of films shown rose to 538, from 504 in 2024 and 437 in 2023. The screen count is lower than the 630 screens the commission recorded for 2024 in its first industry report, published in September 2025; the commission has not explained the difference.

Riyadh remains the centre of the market, with SAR434.4m ($116m) and 8 million tickets, close to half the national total. The Makkah region, which includes Jeddah, took SAR241.9m ($64.5m) and the Eastern Province SAR143.4m ($38.2m).

Brad Pitt in a white racing suit stands in front of a Formula One car beneath the F1 The Movie logo
Key art for F1 (2025), the biggest film at the Saudi box office in 2025. Courtesy of Apple Original Films / Warner Bros. Pictures

Local films more than double

The bigger change is in what audiences chose to watch. Eleven Saudi films grossed SAR122.6m between them and sold 2.8 million tickets, the commission said, more than twice the SAR56.8m local films took in 2024. By our calculation that is about 13% of the market, up from under 7%.

Three Saudi titles finished in the top six for the year, according to the chart from the March report published by Sollywood. F1 led with SAR39.1m, ahead of Lilo & Stitch (SAR36.8m). The heist comedy Alzarfa: Escape from Hanhounia Hell was third and the top local film, with SAR30.7m ($8.2m). Next came the Egyptian romance El Selm wel Teaban 2: Leab Eyal (“Snakes and Ladders 2: Child’s Play”) with SAR29.9m, the comedy sequel Shabab Al Bomb 2 (SAR27.2m) and Abdulaziz Alshlahei’s desert drama Hobal (SAR24.6m). The action comedy Esaaf was the fourth Saudi title, with SAR18.7m.

The commission’s new industry report, as described by Asharq and Arab News, also puts private-sector production spending on projects backed by its incentive programme at an estimated SAR1.3bn ($347m), with 71 film and television projects supported. The two outlets differ on whether that count covers the past year or the whole life of the programme, and the full report was not available online when we checked on 30 October. Its first report put local spending at more than SAR1.08bn across 64 supported projects.

The fourth edition of the Confex, organised by Benchmark, ran on 28 and 29 October at JAX Film Studios in Diriyah. Earlier this autumn the Red Sea Fund backed 30 projects, and Saudi titles have been travelling across the Gulf, including to Doha’s new festival. More is on our Saudi Arabia page, and other markets are covered on our box office page, including Egypt’s autumn run.

Our reading

A 9% rise after a down year is a recovery rather than a breakout. The total is level with 2023, and with tickets up 7% and the average price up 2%, most of the growth came from more admissions rather than higher prices. Annual takings have stayed between SAR845m and SAR923m since 2021, while the screen count has fallen from 630 to 603, so further growth will depend more on what is shown than on new capacity.

That is why the local share matters. A Hollywood release was still the year’s biggest film, but Saudi titles took three of the top six places and an Egyptian film took another. For distributors, local and regional films are now competing with studio releases at the top of the chart. For producers, the question is whether 11 Saudi releases a year can grow into a steady slate, which is what the commission’s production incentives are meant to support.

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