Film and high-end television production spend in the UK stood at £6.8bn in 2025, a 22% increase from 2024 and the third highest annual spend on record, according to the BFI’s Research and Statistics Unit.
Specifically, feature film production reached £2.8bn, an increase of 31% from 2024 and the highest on record. In total, 193 films went into production in the UK in 2025.
Major inward investment films included: Wuthering Heights, directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Margot Robbie; The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Harris Dickinson, Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn, and Barry Keoghan; and Avengers: Doomsday, directed by the Russo brothers and starring Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, and Robert Downey Jr.
Meanwhile, high-end TV production stood at £4bn, up 17% and the third-highest annual spend since tax relief was introduced in 2013.
Inward investment high-end television (HETV) productions that started principal photography in 2025 included: Slow Horses series 7 and 8; Vision Quest; Outlander: Blood of My Blood series 2; and Harry Potter series 1.
Domestic HETV productions that started filming in 2025 included: Blue Lights series 3; A Woman of Substance; Silent Witness series 29; and Prisoner.
In total, inward investment films and HETV jointly delivered £5.8bn, or 85% of total UK production spend.
UK domestic film production spending stood at £193m, 7% of the total spend on film, while UK domestic HETV production spend was £688m, 17% of total HETV production spend.
The 2025 box office was £996.8m, up 2% on 2024 but 21% behind pre-pandemic 2019 levels. UK cinema admissions totalled 123.5m in 2025, a 2% decrease in 2024, and 30% behind 2019 pre-pandemic levels.
A Minecraft Movie was the highest-earning release at the UK and Ireland box office of £56.9m.
The top five UK independent films at the UK and ROI box office in 2025 were The Roses (£10.3m), We Live In Time (£8.8m), The Salt Path (£8.1m), I Swear (£6.1m), and The Choral (£4.2m). The market share of UK independent films was 6.8%, compared with 6.9% in 2024.
Culture Minister Ian Murray said: “From Wicked and Hamnet to Bridgerton and Slow Horses – some of this year’s most successful films and high-end television were made in the UK. The creative brilliance of our independent film sector shone with films like Pillion and The Ballad of Wallis Island, and the tax measures we have introduced will only strengthen this part of the industry further in the years to come.”
The BFI Research and Statistics Unit’s last piece of research found that 66 films began shooting in the UK in the first half of 2025, with a total UK production spend of £1.1bn. Discover more here.
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