03/03/2025 - Homegrown films attracted 5.1 million visitors to Dutch cinemas, capturing a 17% market share

Dutch films had a strong showing in domestic theatres in 2024, drawing 5.1 million visits—making it “more successful than in the previous eight years,” according to the Dutch Association of Cinemas and Film Theatres (NVBF) and NVPI Film. This surge drove the market share of homegrown titles from 14% to 17%. The success of Dutch films helped cushion the impact of the anticipated decline in total cinema visits in 2024—a downturn expected after the 2023 Hollywood strikes. In 2024, cinema attendance in the Netherlands totalled 29.3 million visits, down 2.3 million from the previous year’s 31.6 million. However, the 7% decline was smaller than projected. It was initially forecast that cinema visits in 2024 would total around 28.5 million, reflecting an anticipated decrease of approximately 10% from the 2023 total of 31.6 million visits. Dutch films were expected to attract about 4.3 million visits, given a projected market share of 15%. The actual 2024 figures reveal that Dutch films enjoyed better performance in domestic theatres.

Speaking to Cineuropa, Managing Director of NVBF Gulian Nolthenius noted the presence of some “surprisingly big titles” in 2024. Among such titles were Cyriel Guds’ Loverboy: Emotions Out, Jelle de Jonge’s Memory Lane, as well as Mark Verkerk’s North Sea Untamed, which were “extremely successful.” Loverboy: Emotions Out attracted 376,754 visitors, while Memory Lane brought in 255,794, both ranking in the top five. North Sea Untamed drew 145,738 visitors—a “striking” figure for a documentary, as Nolthenius pointed out. Rounding out the top five were Pieter van Rijn’s Bon Bini: Bangkok Nights (321,808), Johan Nijenhuis’ Loving Bali (272,710), Martijn Koevoets’ The Great Snow Adventure (268,363). “Part of the reason for this success was the increased availability of space [in the programming] for these films, due to a decline in Hollywood titles following the strikes in 2023,” Nolthenius explained. However, he noted that with the supply from Hollywood “expected to pick up strongly in the second half of the year,” and no major Dutch titles anticipated (though, as Nolthenius remarked, surprises are always possible), it is “questionable” whether Dutch films will once again exceed five million visitors in 2025. The market share of Dutch films is also expected to drop in 2025 from 17% (as observed in 2024) to around 15 %—or possibly lower.

The standout titles mentioned earlier, Loverboy: Emotions Out, Memory Lane, and North Sea Untamed, attracted nearly 779,000 visitors in total in 2024. Notably, these titles fall outside the rom-com and family genres that have long been favoured by Dutch audiences. Loverboy: Emotions Out is a crime/drama, Memory Lane is a road movie, and North Sea Untamed is a documentary. Whether this signals a growing receptiveness among Dutch audiences to new genres remains to be seen. However, as Nolthenius noted, these examples suggest that producers and distributors can succeed in offering audiences new films and genres that capture their interest. Recent years have seen a rise in crime films (misdaadfilms) as well as other genres. Family films continue to draw strong demand, with audiences still steadily engaged (among the top 25 Dutch films of 2024, family and children’s films attracted over 1.5 million visitors). However, rom-coms, consistently popular with local audiences, have seen some erosion in their appeal. The overall figures for Dutch documentaries also looked promising, with a total of over 317,000 visitors for 32 titles and eight Crystal Film Awards presented (the Crystal Film is awarded to a Dutch documentary once it reaches 10,000 visitors; some titles in the 2024 line-up include André Kuipers’ Beyond: Ode to the Earth and Petr Lom’s I Am the River, the River Is Me [+see also:
film review
film profile], among others). However, as Dutch journalist Edo Dijksterhuis argued in Filmkrant, there was a disparity in cinema visits across the documentary titles, which may have distorted the overall picture of how well Dutch documentaries performed that year. For example, North Sea Untamed garnered 145,738 visits, while Loretta van der Horst’s The Border Crossed Us only 476. 

Though significant disparities certainly warrant attention, taking a deeper look at the success stories—and what Nolthenius referred to as “surprising” Dutch titles that resonated with local audiences—may be particularly useful in understanding how they were able to connect with the right audiences and achieve healthy attendance numbers. This is especially relevant for documentaries, which face even greater competition as they navigate smaller marketing budgets and are often programmed in daytime or afternoon slots. With 20 projects supported by the Netherlands Film Fund, making their way into the top 30 most visited Dutch films, it is also necessary to factor in the impact of the Fund’s initiatives (the Fund stated on its website that, in 2024, of the 523 titles released, 90 were Dutch, with 56 of those supported by the Fund). Last year, the Fund set out a range of measures to boost the international and domestic competitiveness of Dutch features, as detailed in its policy plan for 2025-2028. However, the results of these efforts will take time to show.