Australian cinemas cleared $100 million for a third straight month in June, the first time the box office has done that in three consecutive months on record, according to figures reported by Variety Australia on 3 July. Cinema admissions across the first half of 2026 were up 16 per cent on the same period last year.
The run carried into July. Over the weekend of 2 to 5 July, Pixar's Toy Story 5 held the national number one for a third weekend with $6.02 million, taking its Australian total to $27.91 million, on figures reported by Variety Australia and Rolling Stone Australia. Minions & Monsters was second on $3.94 million, and the documentary jackass: best and last opened in third on $1.29 million.
Supergirl, with Australian actor Milly Alcock in the lead, was fourth on $1.13 million for a $4.41 million total. The highest-grossing film in Australia for the year so far is Michael.
Guy Burbidge, managing director of Val Morgan Cinema, called the three-month run "a landmark achievement" that "proves just how strongly Aussies love watching movies at the cinema." Val Morgan sells cinema advertising, so the enthusiasm is partly commercial; the ticket figures behind it come from industry box-office tracking, not from any one company's promotion.
One number is worth noting under the record. The top 10 films took about 90 per cent of the weekend's box office, and the top 20 grossed $16.35 million between them. The recovery in cinema-going is real, and it is concentrated in a small number of studio titles, mostly sequels and established franchises, rather than spread across a wide slate.
The next test lands this week, with Disney's live-action Moana, starring Catherine Laga'aia with Dwayne Johnson as Maui, opening in Australian cinemas. A strong opening would extend the run into a fourth month; a soft one would show how much of the record has been riding on a handful of films.
