Do people in Iran go to the cinema?

The third wave of the survey measuring the status of cultural goods consumption in Iran, focused on people's attendance at cinema and theater, was published in 1398 (2019/20). Its organizer was the Research Institute for Culture, Art and Communication. In this survey it was found that 22/3 percent of Iranians go to the cinema, of whom 27 percent watch a film in the cinema once a year, 27/9 percent twice a year, and 45/1 percent more than twice a year. 77/7 percent of respondents to this survey also do not go to the cinema.

In this survey, 15,606 people aged 15 and over from 31 provinces took part. According to the responses, education level, occupational status, economic standing, and age have an important effect on people's attendance at the cinema. Family films and social films are the two popular categories of cinema audiences in this survey.

Germans go to the cinema five times as often as Iranians. Based on global standards, there should be one cinema hall for every ten thousand people. At present there are 631 cinema halls in Iran; that is, there is one cinema hall for every 135 thousand people, which is 5/13 times the global standards index. The number of cinema halls in Germany is 7 times that of Iran.

Iranian cinema in 1398 (2019/20) earned more than 300 billion in revenue. Based on officials' plans, the target in 1399 (2020/21) was 500 billion tomans in sales. Newly established cinemas, numerous screenings, and increased film production were among the programs that were paving the way for achieving this. But the arrival of the coronavirus in Iran disrupted all of these plans. In that year only 159 thousand and 200 people went to the cinema, which generated sales of less than 2 billion and 400 million tomans for Iranian cinema.