fluctuations
Perhaps even the most optimistic person could not imagine that the Vietnamese film market in 2025 would have such remarkable fluctuations.
By 2022, Vietnamese films were still suffering heavy losses. As of the first 9 months of 2022, there were about 20 Vietnamese films released in theaters, mainly at a loss, only "Em va Trinh" earned hundreds of billions in revenue, the rest had many films with dismal to unbelievable revenue, only a few hundred million VND.
In 2024, with the formula, "Tran Thanh, Ly Hai and the rest", the film "Mai" with a revenue of 550 billion VND, " Lat mat 7" reached 482 billion VND - the total revenue of the two films accounted for more than half of the revenue of all Vietnamese films released in theaters in 2024 (ie 1,900 billion VND).
In that context, when the cultural industry is discussing plans to develop the film industry, considering cinema as a spearhead industry of the cultural industry - not many people are optimistic.
Experts predict that it will be difficult to break the two extremes of Tran Thanh and Ly Hai. The revenue of Vietnamese films must depend on these two "tycoons".
2025 has come in an unexpected way. As of the first 9 months of the year, Vietnamese films have had 12 works with revenue of over 100 billion VND, Vietnamese films' revenue according to Box Office is now more than 3,000 billion VND, expected to reach 4,000 billion VND by the end of the year (while in 2024 it was 1,900 billion VND, in 2023 it was 1,563 billion VND).
The top box office no longer has Tran Thanh and Ly Hai. The film holding the "record of all records" is "Red Rain" of the People's Army Cinema with nearly 714 billion VND. The director being chosen by box office history is female director Dang Thai Huyen.
Flip Side 8 by director Ly Hai with a revenue of 231 billion VND is currently behind many names such as The Four Guardians (332 billion VND), Detective Kien (248 billion VND), House of Ancestors (242 billion VND)...
Currently, with the ability to "sweep" the box office, "The War in the Air" of the People's Public Security Cinema is predicted to be able to reach the revenue target of 300 billion VND, close to "The Four Guardians" by Tran Thanh, surpassing Ly Hai.
In 2025, witnessing the spectacular coronation of state-owned film studios, the People's Army Cinema and the People's Public Security Cinema, when releasing their "blockbusters", received a storm of compliments for their scripts, investments, and production direction. They created a new "power" at the box office.
In particular, "Red Rain" of the People's Army Cinema has broken records - it seemed like it would take a long time to break records - of Tran Thanh's film.
Expectations
Critic Le Hong Lam assessed that the Vietnamese film market in 2025 will have unpredictable reversals. Just a few years ago, there were still "smergeous" opinions about the quality of Vietnamese films, but by 2025, it has shown how "Vietnamese people watching Vietnamese films" became a trend.
Domestic films are being supported by audiences more than ever.
On August 28, audiences flocked to the cinema to watch the final screenings of "Red Rain" to help the film continue to reap a boost in revenue of more than 4 billion VND/day even though the film has been in theaters for more than a month.
On film forums, many audiences expressed that they have gone to see Red Rain dozens of times, along with friends and family.
Since the beginning of the year, Vietnamese films have repeatedly "defeated" foreign blockbusters at the box office. Currently, The Death in the Air is completely overwhelming the work that actor Leonardo DiCaprio is highly appreciated for - Battle After War.
The improvement of Vietnamese films in terms of script, production, and acting from "The Geography", to "Red Rain", "The War in the Air" ... is attracting audiences to the cinema to support Vietnamese films. The brightest actors, film scripts with new themes... are dragging Vietnamese audiences into exciting topics and forums of debate about Vietnamese films.
Although there are still disaster films, although the gap between quality films and bad films is still very long, experts still hope that Vietnamese films will go further, have a more interesting " steering wheel" in 2026.
The film industry is still the spearhead industry of the cultural industry until 2030, with a vision to 2045.
