James Bond and Spider-Man topped Malta's cinema box office in 2021

Cinemas in Malta and Gozo projected 358 film titles last year and registered 269,763 admissions, according to the National Office of Statistics.

The NSO said there were six cinema establishments, including two in Gozo, with 25 screens and a seating capacity of 1,633.

A total of 358 film titles and 21,297 screenings were exhibited, amounting to an average of 59 screenings per film. Just under two-thirds were fiction films and these attracted over four-fifths of total admissions.

Maltese productions, many of which belonged to the short films rather than the feature films category, had 11,938 admissions with a total gross box office of €87,176 in 439 screenings.

Foreign productions, which besides the traditional feature films also included also event cinema, had 257,825 admissions with a total gross box office of €1,881,087 in 20,858 screenings.

The most popular film titles were No Time to Die, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Fast & Furious 9” amounting to 11.9%, 9.3% and 5.2% of total admissions respectively.

In terms of age classification, 28.2% of films shown in cinemas were rated “15”, while 18.2% were rated as “12A”. Those rated “18” amounted to 4.2%. The running time of 59.8% of the films projected in 2021 fell within the 76 to 120 minutes bracket

 These were followed by screenings with a duration of up to 60 minutes, amounting to 20.6%.

The ‘Live/Encore’ type of screenings, including operas, ballets, and theatre, had the longest-running time with an average of 140 minutes.

Documentaries were the shortest with an average running time of 69 minutes.

Last year, cinemas employed an average of 77 people, 79.2% of whom were on a part-time basis.