Half of Americans Went to a Movie Theater During the Year, Study Finds

Mar 11, 2026 12:20pm PT Only Half of Americans Went to a Movie Theater in 2025, According to Study By Kennedy French Plus Icon Kennedy French Latest Art House Cinema Week to Debut Across New York City With 5,000 Free Tickets and Indie Theater Events – Film News in Brief 21 hours ago Netflix Shares First Look at Drama-Action Series ‘Man on Fire’ (TV News Roundup) 22 hours ago ‘One Piece’ Producers Tomorrow Studios to Adapt ‘Samurai Champloo’ With Creator Shinichirō Watanabe (EXCLUSIVE) 1 day ago See All With the Academy Awards approaching to celebrate the year’s best films, a new survey offered a reality check about moviegoing: Just over half of Americans say they set foot in a movie theater over the course of a year. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in the summer of 2025, 53% of U.S. adults said they had seen a movie in theaters in the prior 12 months. A small but notable 7% said they had never seen a movie in a theater at all. Related Stories Shekhar Kapur, Oliver Jackson-Cohen Among Attachments to Jump Street's Jewish Australian Screen Fund 2026 Slate; Inaugural Fellowship Launched (EXCLUSIVE) The findings reflected a domestic box office still fighting to regain its footing since the COVID-19 pandemic, when ticket sales collapsed 81% in 2020 due to theater closures. In 2025, moviegoers in the U.S. and Canada bought 769.2 million tickets, less than half of the all-time peak of roughly 1.6 billion tickets sold in 2002, according to data from Nash Information Services. Popular on Variety Box office revenue peaked at an inflation-adjusted $16.4 billion in 2002, and annual ticket revenue held relatively steady through the 2000s and 2010s before falling to under $3 billion in 2020 when theaters closed for months. Last year, U.S. theaters sold just over $9 billion worth of tickets, per media analytics firm Comscore. The number represents a recovery, but nowhere near a full one, as ticket sales have been lagging around 20% below pre-pandemic levels. The data also highlighted generational and economic divides in who was buying tickets. Two-thirds of adults ages 18 to 29 said they had attended a movie in theaters in the past year, in contrast to just 39% of those 65 and older. Income told a similar story, as upper-income Americans reported going to the movies at the highest rate, at 64%, compared with 57% of those in the middle-income bracket and 43% of lower-income adults. Attendance also varied by race and ethnicity, with Hispanic adults the most likely to report going at 59%, followed by white adults at 53% and Black adults at 49%. Gender, by contrast, was not a significant factor — the survey found near parity, with 53% of men and 54% of women saying they had gone to a movie theater in the past year. Political affiliation showed a slightly wider but still modest gap, with Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents reporting attending at a higher rate of 58%, compared with 50% of Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents. Jump to Comments ‘Tuner’ and ‘Power Ballad’ Lead 2026 Miami Film Festival; Adam Scott, Bob Odenkirk and More to Be Honored Barbra Streisand to Receive Cannes Honorary Palme d’Or Watch ‘Live With Kelly and Mark’ Parody ‘Song Sung Blue’ in Show Open for Post-Oscar Special (EXCLUSIVE) Oscars Producers Reveal ‘Fab Five’ Casting Tribute, Extended In Memoriam and Why Only Two Musical Performances AI Podcast Start-Up Rebel Audio Comes Out of Stealth Mode, Taps Mark Burnett as Adviser (EXCLUSIVE) Kylie Jenner ‘100% Wants to Do’ More Acting and Says ‘Of Course’ It’s Fun When Timothée Chalamet Says ‘I Love You’ During Awards Speeches JavaScript is required to load the comments. Loading comments...