“Homo Argentum”, the first Argentine phenomenon in a long time
2025 has been another year of crisis for Argentine cinema: the crisis, as in so many areas, is already a state of complete normality for an industry that is faced with two different crises, that of local consumption and that of the industry at global level, and within this framework is looking for ingenious solutions so that there are not so many empty cinemas.
The decline was particularly evident during the winter holidays: According to the consulting company Ultracine, around 4,665,000 tickets were sold in July 2025; This figure was the lowest since 2009, excluding the years affected by the pandemic. Compared to 2024, ticket sales this holiday season fell by more than 20%.
Traditionally, July – the month of the winter holidays – is the highest-grossing month of the year in Argentine cinemas. The usual numbers in recent years have been around 8 to 9 million viewers. In 2025, these numbers were well below these historical highs. Of course, it is not just the impact of the decline in consumption in the country in the face of a new economic crisis: changing consumer habits (the move from the cinema to the living room during the pandemic and a generation that watches films and series on their cell phones) have also led to a sustained decline in ticket sales worldwide in recent years.
Given this, some cinemas are starting to opt for alternatives to the cinema, something that has been seen a lot this year in Argentina and in the city: series episodes, many concerts (several K-pop), animated films that are summaries of television series… They are all limited events, lasting only a short time and aimed at a specific niche, namely that of fans who queue for two nights to go to the cinema and then perhaps do not return to the cinemas.
The other refuge of cinemas was the “tanks” of Hollywood, which continue to operate: the adaptation of “Lilo & Stitch” exceeded four million admissions, while films like “A Minecraft Movie” or “Zootopia 2” (still showing) easily reached a million viewers.
However, its success and the theater crisis resulted in a panorama on the billboard with many schedules and cinemas for well-known Hollywood franchises and less space for other cinemas. It is a growing trend that has pushed national cinema off the billboard in particular, although this year there was one exception: the phenomenon “Homo Argentum”, the only Argentine film in the top 10 most viewed in the country this year, with almost two million tickets sold.
But despite this unique success, the overall record of commercial cinema in Argentina paints a discouraging picture: of the almost 300 local premieres registered in 2025, many went virtually unnoticed and failed to attract significant audiences.
There were award-winning proposals, as always for a cinema that, even today, despite all production expectations, demonstrates its diversity and creativity: But films like “The Currents”, “The Prince of Nanawa”, “Gatillero” and others had their premieres limited to a few independent cinemas in some parts of the country, the epicenter of which was in the federal capital. Even “Belén” could not achieve great size with the support of a production company like Amazon: year after year, at the height of the production crisis, the national cinema seems to be detaching itself from the general public and accepting its fate as a niche production. The exhibition in the country has always been a pending account of the INCAA, and undoubtedly it has a lot to do with the fact that the public has once again stopped going to the cinema to see local films.
About The Author
