Movie magic returns: 'Chhaava' boosts box office mopup 14% in 2025

India's box office collections rose 14% in the first half of 2025, with Chhaava leading as the highest-grossing film. Ormax Media expects a record-breaking year for domestic collections

With movie theatres struggling to attract audiences back to the silver screens, new scripts and franchise titles are doing the magic, as box office collections increased by 14 per cent year-on-year to ₹5,723 crore in the first half of the 2025 calendar year, according to a report.

 

With a steady flow of 17 films crossing the ₹100 crore-mark in the first six months, this year relied less on the big-ticket blockbusters, a report released by Ormax Media stated.

 

Historical movie Chaava, based on the life of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, is the highest-grossing film so far this year. The Vicky Kaushal-starrer movie minted ₹693 crore at the domestic box office followed by Telugu-language film Sankranthiki Vasthunam (₹222 crore). In June, the gross collection crossed ₹900 crore.

 

 

Aamir Khan and Genelia Deshmukh-starrer Sitaare Zameen Par, which was exclusively released in theatres on June 20, came at the third position in terms of gross domestic box office collection, with ₹201 crore. It featured Khan as a suspended basketball coach who serves community service by helping a team of players with disabilities. 

 

Housefull 5, a murder mystery comedy, which experimented with having two different endings minted ₹200 crore. Raid 2, starring Riteish Deshmukh as a corrupt politician and Ajay Devgan as an income tax officer, minted ₹199 crore at the box office.

 

Last year during the same period, 10 films had crossed the ₹100 crore mark. 

 

While the film industry struggled to fill seats in theatres, with only a few movie releases pulling crowds around the festive season last year, the report anticipates this year to break records in terms of domestic box office collection with an overall collection of ₹13,500 crore.

 

“Over the last two years, the January-June period has contributed 42 per cent to the annual box office. Applying that proportion, 2025 can be expected to close at ₹13,500 crore, which will make it the best year ever at the India box office,” the report said.

 

Some major movies expected to release this year are Kantara: Chapter 1, Avatar: Fire and Ash (third instalment in the Avatar series), War 2 (Yash Raj Films’ spy universe film), and Coolie (Tamil action thriller starring Rajnikanth), among others.

 

The year started strong with Pushpa 2: The Rule continuing its theatrical run in January, followed by Maddock Films-backed Chhaava in February and Raid 2 in May. 

 

However, the industry faced a challenging time around April-end and the start of May in northern and western regions near the border, where cinemas in select cities had to cancel night shows due to tensions between India and Pakistan. Adding to this, some major releases like Akshay Kumar-starrer Sky Force, and Sikander featuring Salman Khan failed to perform as expected at the box office.

 

In terms of linguistic contributions to the domestic box office, Hindi movies led with 40 per cent of the share in the January-June period, in line with last year. This was followed by Telugu and Tamil films at 20 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively. On the back of several high-profile releases, Hollywood’s contribution to the domestic box office returned to the double-digit share, having last crossed the 10 per cent-mark in 2022, the report added.