Swedish films had a low 15.1% market share in 2016 despite rising admissions and A Man Called Ove’s strong results.

General admissions in 2016 reached 17.7 million, up 4% from 2015 and 9% from 2014, according to preliminary figures from the Swedish Film Institute. 2016 was also the second strongest year after 2012 in the last decade.

The top selling film of the year was Hannes Holm’s Academy-award nominated A Man Called Ove that sold more than 1.2 million tickets in 2016 and more than 1.7 million in total.

However total admissions for Swedish films reached a mere 2.7 million, 21% less than in 2015 and 34% less than in 2014. The Swedish films’ market share dropped to 15.1%, the lowest level since 1990-91.

Two Swedish films (out of 45 Swedish premieres) accounted for 58% of Swedish admissions: A Man Called Ove and The 101 Year Old Man who Skipped out on the Bill and Disappeared, which was the second most popular Swedish film of the year with 283,124 admissions, despite its end of year release (December 25).

Only three other Swedish films passed 100,000 admissions: the comedy Morran & Tobias-The Movie, Helena Bergström’s A Holy Mess (top selling Swedish film of 2015 that sold a total of 718,051 admissions between 2015-2016) and the animated film Bamse and the Witch’s Daughter.

The documentary Becoming Zlatan was the 7th most popular Swedish film of 2016 with 82,982 admissions. 

The most popular Nordic film of 2016 was the Finnish animated film The Angry Birds Movie with 186,636 admissions.

Asked to comment on last year’s cinema attendance, Johan Fröberg, Head of Statistics at the Swedish Film Institute said: “In terms of trends I would say that based on two consecutive years with total admissions close to 18 million, the interest for cinema-going is still strong in Sweden. To talk about a weakening interest in Swedish film from cinema-goers would be wrong, especially with recent years’ successes like A Man called Ove and A Holy Mess­ – but getting the audience’s attention is a challenge.”

However, looking ahead Fröberg is optimistic. “We are really looking forward to 2017, especially with the fall line-up that looks promising with titles like Lisa Langseth’s Euphoria starring Alicia Vikander, Janus Metz’ Borg/McEnroe, Gabriella Pichler’s Invasion! and Ruben Östlund’s The Square. And hopefully the critically-acclaimed Sami Blood by Amanda Kernel and The Nile Hilton Incident by Tarik Saleh will attract the audiences they deserve during the spring.”