Best film industries in the world

February 27, 2023

By David Hancock (Omdia), Jeff Slee and Sacha Wunsch-Vincent (WIPO)^[1]

Only the future of immersive cinema and the funding of mid-budgets films, in 2023 and onwards, will tell if pre-pandemic levels will ever be attained again.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on global film production, leading to a dramatic fall in the number of films produced, declining to 5,438 in 2020, down by 40% from a record 9,098 films in 2019, underlining the continuing widespread interest in long-form content.

That said: Our new film data – produced by Omdia in collaboration with the Global Innovation Index – shows strong film production growth in 2021^[2] – increasing by 40% - to total of 7,589 films, not yet reaching pre-pandemic levels but a significant bounce back.

Highlights

The 2020 COVID-19 film production crunch was mainly driven by a major fall in production in India (-51%), China (-37%), the USA (-45%), Japan (-27%) and Argentina (-67%) – all sorted by the decline in films produced.
The 2021 film production recovery is mainly driven by India (+642 films), the USA (+496), Argentina (+149), and Mexico (+148). China (‑85) is one of the few major film production locations which has not been able to recover from the pandemic crunch; Malaysia (-20), Australia (-20) and Japan (-16) equally see falls.
In 2021, India – and its famous Bollywood - top the list with over 1,800 films, or around 24% of the total unscaled value, gaining an extra 2% of the global share – making it the uncontested global champion in terms of number of films produced. The USA –with its famous Hollywood - is second, with around half of the Indian total, capturing 12% of all feature film productions. China is third, with a global share of 7%, and Japan is fourth, with 6%.

In terms of middle- and low-income economies Mexico, Argentina, the Russian Federation, Brazil, Iran, Indonesia and the Philippines, by order of number of films produced, make the list of top 20 film producing economies worldwide in 2021.

In Africa, South Africa leads with a global unscaled rank of 29 (31 films), Egypt sits next at rank 33 (25 films), and Tunisia has seen a quadrupling of the number of its films from last year, sitting at rank 42 globally (15 films).
Adjusting film production for population size, Iceland leads, followed by Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland and Slovenia.
As cinema sustained its recovery in 2022, global film production levels are on the way back. Unprecedented demand for studio space, the rise of virtual production, and the entry of streamers into the theatrical sector all affirm that the interest in feature film is strong going forward. Overall, movie production in the last decade is almost double that of the 1980s and 1990s, driven by several factors, such as lower costs of production enabled by new technologies, the global growth in modern premium movie theatre screens.
Going forward, the immersion inherent in the premium cinema experience looks to be attractive to audiences around the globe. The creative and technological prowess that created Avatar: Way of the Water, and the resulting box office returns, confirm this positive outlook.

Some Oscar 2021, 2022 and 2023 Nominee Selections - International Feature Films

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan): An aspiring singer living with his grandmother in the capital of Bhutan dreams of getting a visa to move to Australia.

Argentina, 1985 (Argentina): A team of lawyers takes on Argentina's dictatorship during the 1980s in a battle against odds and a race against time.

EO (Poland): Follows a donkey who encounters on his journeys good and bad people, experiences joy and pain, exploring a vision of modern Europe through his eyes.

The Man Who Sold His Skin (Tunisia): His own body turned into a living work of art and promptly exhibited in a museum, Sam, a Syrian refugee, will soon realize to have sold away more than just his skin.

Source: Oscars.org and IMDB film database.

Background

The Global Innovation Index includes a pillar on creative outputs, with three sub-pillars: Intangible assets, Creative goods and services and Online creativity. The number of national feature films indicator is available within the Creative goods and services sub-pillar. This data is made available thanks to the collaboration between Omdia and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Omdia is a technology research and advisory group, based in over 25 research locations and covering more than 200 markets, helping to connect the dots across the technology ecosystem. Omdia maintains a range of databases in the film, TV and media sectors, including film production, theatrical distribution and cinema exhibition.

You can check individual GII country profiles, for example: France, or India.

For more information, visit the GII webpage and Omdia’s film production database (subscription required).