In May – when some governments began to allow movie theaters to reopen – a comedy and a drama appealed to South Koreans, while a drama brought Hong Kong audiences together.
| # | Title | No. of Admissions | Box Office Revenues (€) | No. of Prints | No. of Countries | Total Admissions |
| 1 | La Belle Epoque | 5,351 | 337,927 | 496 | 5 | 842,808 |
| 2 | Tomboy | 28,575 | 188,284 | 361 | 1 | 250,798 |
| 3 | Les Misérables | 27,678 | 194,897 | 35 | 4 | 524,966 |
| 4 | A Good Doctor | 15,711 | 108,849 | 35 | 1 | 57,851 |
| 5 | Capital in the Twenty-First Century | 5,537 | 58,704 | 47 | 1 | 32,572 |
| 6 | Someone, Somewhere | 5,210 | 33,017 | 46 | 2 | 121,978 |
| 7 | Revenge | 4,818 | 30,116 | 144 | 2 | 288,105 |
| 8 | Remi, Nobody's Boy | 3,595 | 20,994 | 168 | 1 | 278,756 |
| 9 | The Best is Yet to Come | 2,462 | 16,954 | 30 | 1 | 148,606 |
| 10 | Queens of The Field | 1,484 | 8,590 | 57 | 1 | 8,424 |
| 11 | The Translators | 1,465 | 14,939 | 21 | 2 | 178,812 |
| 12 | The Specials | 1,390 | 11,020 | 49 | 3 | 858,394 |
| 13 | SamSam | 1,365 | 12,589 | 59 | 2 | 9,334 |
| 14 | Of Love and Lies | 1,176 | 6,951 | 85 | 1 | 34,892 |
| 15 | Spread Your Wings | 1,103 | 8,441 | 5 | 2 | 297,552 |
| 16 | Mia and the White Lion | 1,079 | 8,541 | 9 | 1 | 4,427,741 |
| 17 | #Iamhere | 1,073 | 5,567 | 48 | 2 | 14,608 |
| 18 | Portrait of a Lady on Fire | 772 | 6,847 | 10 | 3 | 1,380,918 |
| 19 | It Must Be Heaven | 756 | 5,945 | 9 | 2 | 162,718 |
| 20 | The Bears' Famous Invasion | 700 | 4,954 | 17 | 1 | 112,544 |
In May, French films accumulated 174,000 admissions abroad (€1.19 million in box office revenues) thanks to 65 different films, with majority productions contributing 93% of the total (163,000 tickets sold for €1.11 million at the box office). The monthly total admissions was 8 times higher than April, when a tally of 21,000 foreign spectators was recorded, but it remains well below that of May 2019, which verged on 3 million.
This increase was certainly supported by the progressive reopening of movie theaters across the 5 continents, but is particularly due to three major exploits.
La Belle Epoque was the French film most seen internationally in May, and the only one to cross the 50,000 spectator threshold. During the week of its launch, when it was shown on more than 460 screens, more than 30,000 South Koreans went to theaters to see it, which earned it second place in the local rankings. This is the second best debut for Nicolas Bedos outside national borders, after that in Italy (255,500 admissions and a total of €1.57 million) and on par with the Polish release (52,500 admissions and €218,500). At the beginning of June, the comedy was still among the four most popular titles among the South Korean public, for a total of 57,000 admissions and €359,000 at the box office. Since the beginning of November 2019, the film has attracted 854,000 cinemagoers in some 40 foreign markets (€5.8 million).
2nd place on the podium is occupied by a film from... 2011! Nine years after its French release, Tomboy was presented for the first time in South Korea, and, among the fourteen new titles released on May 14, it was the third most seen! The film occupied 5th place in the local classification, as was the case for Portrait of a Lady on Fire in January this year (147,500 admissions and €872,500 in total). The success of Céline Sciamma's latest film encouraged its distributor Green Narae Media Co., Ltd. to release Orphan in theaters, with Adèle Haenel among the cast (2,500 admissions and €14,500), and also Bluelabel Pictures to do the same with Tomboy, which was the first French release to date. One month later, Tomboy was still playing in South Korean cinemas and has racked up 30,000 admissions and €196,500 in earnings.
Les Misérables is the third sensation of May. Ladj Ly's film appealed to 10,000 Hong Kong moviegoers in its opening week, followed by 17,000 the next, and 16,000 the week after that! The drama took advantage of the lack of competition from big American blockbusters, the attractive prices offered by exhibitors to bring audiences back to the theaters, and the film climate that is in keeping with the events Hong Kong is currently experiencing, with the demonstrations that have been ongoing for several weeks now. Three weeks after its release, Les Misérables had tallied 43,000 spectators and €294,500 in box office revenues, and was still among the 4 most watched films. This success is particularly noteworthy because no French-language fiction French production has enjoyed such success in Hong Kong since 2012, the golden year crowned by the exploits of The Intouchables (120,000 admissions and €830,500) and The Artist (48,500 admissions and €335,500). Distributed in more than 40 foreign markets, to date Les Misérables has achieved a total of 541,000 admissions and €3.8 million in box office revenues outside France.
At the end of May, box-office receipts were collected from 18 territories. The first figures from Australia, Austria, Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, and Slovakia were added to those of South Korea, Sweden, and Taïwan, which have not experienced a phase of theater closures. The revival of cinema activity in shuttered markets is very similar and often faces the same difficulties: it only concerns certain regions and not the whole country; only some exhibitors have actually reopened their theaters; titles on offer mainly consist of releases of films that were in theaters at the time of closure and of hits (local and international) both recent and old, new releases are rare; strict safety and hygiene standards (reduction in theater capacity, disinfection of spaces, etc.) that exhibitors must imperatively adopt. All these factors prevent a homogenous restart of the profession and several weeks seem to be necessary before a certain balance can be restored. Nevertheless, learning that projectors are up and running again in a country is a hopeful sign, a beginning.
This report is based on results recorded on June 16, 2020. As the figures relating to film releases are continuously updated, the graphics generated automatically on our website will differ from the chart featured in this article..
