In Nigeria, local films overtake Hollywood at the box office in the first half of 2026
Seven Nigerian titles above 100 million naira against three US productions, and the best quarterly attendance in six years: the Nigerian market reverses the ratio that in 2019 gave Hollywood 70% of box office revenue.
A story the morning edition did not cover: at 6.30 the section was following the last week of the Edinburgh Fringe. Here we look at a film market whose composition is changing.
In the first six months of 2026, films produced in Nigeria outperformed American films at the country’s box office. The threshold of 100 million naira, a standard benchmark for the local market, was crossed by seven Nigerian titles by mid-year and by only three Hollywood films (BusinessDay).
| Title | Revenue (naira) |
|---|---|
| “Call of My Life” (Nigeria) | 719 million |
| “Love and New Notes” (Nigeria) | 385.3 million |
| “The Return of Arinzo” (Nigeria) | 350 million |
| “Michael” (United States) | over 790 million |
The leading US title, “Michael”, remains the single highest-grossing film among those cited — over 790 million naira in Nigerian cinemas — but the depth of the local lineup has shifted the overall balance: seven titles above the threshold against three.
The comparison with previous years. 2025 had closed almost at parity: 49.4% of box office revenue to Nigerian films and 48.8% to American ones, according to the Nigeria Box Office Yearbook by distributor FilmOne Entertainment (GY Online NG). In 2019, Hollywood collected around 70% of the Nigerian market’s revenue. The reversal thus took place over seven years, and not because of a shrinking market: in the first quarter of 2026 Nigeria recorded its best attendance in six years, with 752,136 tickets sold.
The market’s physical structure. Screens rose from 288 in 2023 to 352 in 2024 and 369 in 2025, with a projection of 390 in 2026. The Anglophone West African market — Nigeria, Ghana and Liberia — closed 2025 with 15.6 billion naira in revenue, 2.79 million admissions, 248 new releases and 122 screens, according to FilmOne data released on January 6, 2026; Ghana and Liberia accounted for 7.2% of the total. Projections point to a Nigerian market growing toward 20 billion naira in 2026, with attendance expected at 2.95 million against 2.6 million in 2023 (Nairametrics).
Naz Onuzo, co-founder of production house Inkblot, noted in a public message that Nollywood’s attendance is now higher than in 2019, while sales of Hollywood films in the country have fallen by nearly two thirds: his is a partial view, given that he is a local producer, but it is consistent with the direction of the distributor’s data.
What we don’t know. The data come from the Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria and from distributor FilmOne Entertainment: these are market operators measuring the market in which they operate, not an independent public body. The figures concern cinemas exclusively, which in Nigeria cover a limited share of overall audiovisual consumption; the available material contains no data on online platforms, where Nollywood distributes a large part of its output. The projections for 2026 are the distributor’s estimates, not final figures.
← Archive · Front page · Past editorials · Report an error · Original article (in Italian)