Nearly 90% of Russian films flopped at the box office in 2025

The KG PROGRESS Research Center has released data showing that 88% of Russian films produced with state funding turned out to be unprofitable. 

The Moscow Times reports on this.

Of the 41 films released in 2025, only five managed to recoup their production costs. This figure is 10% worse than the results from 2024, indicating a sharp decline in audience interest in domestic cinema. Despite the fact that the budgets for the biggest releases in Russia have grown to 1 billion rubles and more, most projects resulted in significant financial losses.

The most unprofitable project was the historical film “The Evil City,” which fell short by over 1.86 billion rubles of breaking even. Other high-profile flops included the sports dramas “Rodnina” and “First on Olympus,” the war film “Not on the Lists,” and the science fiction film “Kraken,” which received one of the largest state subsidies in the amount of 760 million rubles. While Russia attempts to use cinema as a tool for ideological influence, audiences are increasingly ignoring expensive propaganda and entertainment projects.

In 2025, the most profitable films were predominantly family fairy tales and adaptations of well-known franchises. The box office leader was the film “The Wizard of Oz: The Yellow Brick Road,” which earned nearly 1.4 billion rubles above its budget. Also making the list of successful films were “Dad’s Daughters. Mom Is Back,” “Finist: The First Bogatyr,” and the biographical drama “The Prophet: The Story of Alexander Pushkin.” However, the success of individual projects cannot compensate for the industry’s overall crisis, where state funding is spent on low-profit films that fail to resonate with audiences.

The European Union has officially warned the Venice Biennale’s leadership that it will suspend financial support if the Russian pavilion is represented at the 2026 exhibition.