In a market reenergised after Covid and attendance twice the 2021 level, four Danish films - A Fortunate Man, Rose, Fathers & Mothers and All for 4- were among the 10 biggest hits of 2022.
After a slow start and cinema halls closed the first two weeks due to Covid restrictions, moviegoers in Denmark resumed one of their favourite leisure activities.
Total attendance ended up at 10.3 million in 2022, up 49% from 2021, although 20% down from pre-pandemic times, according to the Danish Film Institute, based on provisional figures from FAFID.
In box office terms, the cinema market saw a 52% jump from 2021 to DKK 994.67 million, still 16% beneath 2019 earnings.
Danish films kept a solid 30% share of the market from over 3 million ticket sales, “a level on par with a typical year,” according to Claus Ladegaard, CEO at the Danish Film Institute. Admissions for local fare were up 7% from 2021, and only 10.8% down from 2019.
Top Gun: Maverick was the biggest audience-puller with 791,000 admissions, and Avatar 2: The Way of Water managed to rank second with 481,000 admissions after only 17 days on screens.
But the Danish biopic A Lucky Man (Bamse) about Denmark’s beloved singer/songwriter Flemming "Bamse" Jørgensen sold nearly as many tickets - 480,000, for a 3rd place. The film was released by Nordisk Film, alongside the other three local titles in the Top 10: Niels Arden Oplev’s drama Rose starring Sophie Gråbøl, Paprika Steen’s comedy Fathers & Mothers and the last instalment in Rasmus Heuide’s comedy series All for 4.
Two films about WW2 and sequels to earlier box office hits, ranked among the top 10 Danish films of the year: The Bereaved by Anne-Grethe Bjarup Riis, and Out of the Darkness by Anders Refn.
Non-national Nordic films that scored with Danish cinemagoers were Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World (102,954 admissions, Camera Film), Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness (99,956 admissions, SF Studios) and The Emigrants (9,955 admissions, SF Studios).
The most successful Danish docs on screens were Andreas Koefoed’s The Lost Leonardo (6,849 admissions, SF Studios), Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Oscar-nominated Flee (2,480 admissions, Reel Pictures) and The World is Out of Focus by Iben Haahr Andersen (1,874, Camera Film).
“In 2022, we have seen some artistic and noteworthy films that have garnered international attention,” noted Ladegaard. “This artistic nerve is crucial for our film industry to continue innovating and evolving. However, the funding for Danish films is currently challenged by the decline in revenue from home entertainment, which is a problem that needs to be addressed urgently,” he observed.
Looking at 2023, cinema attendance had a very strong start largely thanks to Avatar 2: The Way of Water which passed 770,000 admissions and dominated the B.O. charts in January.
No less than 18 new Danish films across various genres, are due to premiere the first six months of 2023, such as the comedy drama The Land of Short Sentences by Hella Joof, the Göteborg Dragon Award winning period drama Unruly by Malou Reymann, the relationship drama Copenhagen Doesn’t Exist (Rotterdam and Göteborg competition entry) by Martin Skovbjerg, the animated film for small kids Rose & the Stone Troll by Karla Nor Holmbäck, the suspense thriller Superposition by Karoline Lyngbye, and the period drama The Kiss by Bille August.
To download the DANISH 2022 ADMISSION CHARTS: CLICK HERE.