Nordic Admissions 2015 Part 2 - Iceland-Norway-Sweden

The biggest film of the year was the Norwegian disaster movie The Wave (Bølgen) that took the top of the charts with 832,649 admissions, ahead of James Bon: Spectre (688,450). Roar Uthaug’s audience pleaser also boosted local films’ market share that started at a record low the first six months (3.8%) and ended up at 20.5%, still 9.1% down from 2014.

The family film Valley of Knights: Mira’s Magical Christmas was the second local title to make it in the Top Ten all films.

Five Norwegian films were released in cinemas in 2015 and the best-selling title was Siblings are Forever: The Grand Journey (31,310 admissions).

Among non-national Nordic films, the Swedish film A Man Called Ove was the best-selling title of 2015 with 35,001 admissions, although it opened on December 25. A month later, the film had been watched by more than 111,000 Norwegians.

For Stine Helgeland, Executive Director Promotion and International Relations at the Norwegian Film Institute, 2016 ‘looks good’ with a potential increase in admissions and audience share, thanks to a ‘better spread of releases across the calendar year’.

Released on December 25, 2015, the stop motion animated Louis & Nola-The Big Cheese Race rapidly climbed to become the fifth best-selling Norwegian film of the year. A month later, the film had reached 410,000 tickets. 

TOP TEN NORWEGIAN FILMS 2015 (Source Film & Kino/Norwegian Film Institute figures as of 04.01.15)

Sweden: Ove, Holy Mess Put Weight on local share
Cinema attendance reached 17 million in 2015, up 4.6% from 2014, the third highest result in the last decade according to preliminary figures from the Swedish Film Institute. 

Swedish films however dropped by 17% to 3.4 million, one of the lowest levels in the last five years and the local market share lost nearly 5% compared to the two  previous years.

Johan Fröberg, Head of Analysis & Statistics at the Swedish Film Institute stressed that admissions to Swedish films were low for a large part of the year but thanks to the success of two late releases, A Holy Mess/En underbar jävla jul by Helena Bergström and A Man Called Ove by Hannes Holm, the market share ended up at same level as 2011.

The two heart-warming films were the only Swedish films at the Top Ten Sweden.
Bergström’s comedy was the best-selling Swedish film with nearly 600,000 admissions for SF Film in 2015.

The Nordisk Film release A Man Called Ove had a rocket start over Christmas, snagging the title of best Swedish opener in modern times. After four weeks on screens, the film broke the million admissions and looks like a serious competitor to The 100 Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared (1.5 million admissions).

Swedish documentaries had a very good year as two films locked in more than 100.000 admissions each, Ingrid Bergman, In Her Own Words (187,502 admissions, Non Stop Entertainment) and Nice People/Filip & Fredrik presenterar Trevlig folk (125,500, SF Film).

The most successful Nordic film was the Finnish adventure film Big Game (9,199 admissions), followed by A Second Chance by Susanne Bier (5,077), two titles under the Studio Scoop banner.

TOP TEN SWEDISH FILMS 2015 Source: Swedish Film Institute