Norway managed to limit the negative effects of the pandemic on cinema-going thanks to a strong offer of local films, James Bond’s No Time to Die, and busy fall period that partly compensated for a very slow start of the year.

“Cinemas opened fully in October and we got Bond!” stressed Guttorm Petterson, head of the Norwegian cinema association Film & Kino, underlying that both October and November sold more than 1 million admissions each, with October 2021 even exceeding the same period in 2019.

The reintroduction of restrictions in December due to the Omicron variant - lifted only February 1, 2022 - had further negative effects on cinema-going and forced a handful of blockbusters to wait until 2022 for a cinema launch, such as the Norwegian WW2 drama The Battle of Narvik and Spider-Man-No Way Home.

Although cinema attendance was almost halved compared to 2019, total admissions at 5.66 million still increased by 16.6% year on year, and box office gross by 17.8% to NOK 678.4 million, party thanks to James Bond’s No Time to Die and an attractive slate of local films.

Three films in particular - Cecilie Mosli’s family film The Wishes for Cinderella, John Andreas Andersen’s disaster movie The North Sea and Joachim Trier’s multi-awarded The Worst Person in the World, scored with local audiences and contributed to Norwegian films’ record 30.1% market share, second only to 2020’s exceptional 35.6% share during the first wave of Covid-19. Total admissions for Norwegian films were 1,705,901.

Trier’s biggest success in Norwegian cinemas, The Worst Person in the World is enjoying a boost since the announcement of its double Oscar nomination, and has now outscored The North Sea with 238,652 admissions against 226,693 for the Norwegian disaster film.

The top three Norwegian documentaries were:

  • Aksel (Euforia, 41,771 admissions), portrait of Olympian ski champion Aksel Lund Svindal,
  • Bergen, i all beskjedenhet (Aldeles, 32,390 admissions), portrait of the city of Bergen.
  • a-Ha-the Movie (Euforia, 19,336), about the iconic band.

To download the NORWEGIAN 2021 ADMISSION CHARTS: CLICK HERE.