After the double "low pressure" of the Qingming Festival and the May Day holiday, the popularity of theaters finally recovered during this year's Dragon Boat Festival. According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, as of 21:00 on June 2, the box office of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2025 was 459 million yuan, an increase of more than 20% year-on-year compared with the box office of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2024. 1.138 million screenings attracted more than 11.73 million people to the cinema. In the end, "Mission Impossible 8: Final Reckoning" won 190 million yuan (228 million yuan in total) during the period with its outstanding performance, winning the 2025 Dragon Boat Festival box office champion. The two animated films "Doraemon: Nobita's Painting Adventure" and "Children of Time" ranked second and third on the box office list with 67.822 million and 63.461 million respectively.
Dragon Boat Festival Box Office Chart
Double festivals work together
This year, the "double festival linkage" of Dragon Boat Festival and Children's Day has given rise to a strong demand for parent-child movie watching, and many excellent animations have concentrated on seizing the market. On Children's Day, the box office exceeded 200 million yuan, an increase of 6.4% over the box office on Children's Day in 2024. This is also the first time in 84 days since March 8, 2025 that the single-day box office has exceeded 200 million yuan.
After 83 days, the single-day box office exceeded 200 million again
"Doraemon: Nobita's Painting Adventure" continues the series' consistent fantasy adventure style, awakening the childhood memories of adult audiences through classic characters. It also takes "artistic creation" as the theme, conveys the values of courage to explore and teamwork, and successfully achieves word-of-mouth fission among parent-child groups.
The film received an extremely high score of 9.6 on the Tao Piaopiao platform, breaking the historical record of the series. The Maoyan score was also as high as 9.3. It was a great success in both box office and word of mouth, becoming the first choice for parent-child viewing during the Dragon Boat Festival.
Doraemon: Nobita's Adventures in Painting movie poster
Although the original domestic animation "Children of Time" does not have a popular IP, this healing story about separation and release contains both fantastic imaginations about controlling time and the romantic courage to defy fate for love. The original story has both novel settings and emotional impact, and the unique Shanghai retro modern painting style also adds a fantasy and romantic color to the story, making it one of the top three domestic films in the Dragon Boat Festival.
The Child of Time movie poster
Disney's reboot of the classic IP, Lilo & Stitch, uses cutting-edge real-time rendering CG technology to create a stunning visual experience. In the story, through Lilo and Stitch's new adventure, it incorporates the realistic issues of contemporary adolescent growth difficulties and the reconstruction of family relationships, and resonates with audiences of all ages with its warm and humorous narrative style.
Lilo and Stitch
The three animations each showed their strengths and together formed the "three horses" driving the growth of the Dragon Boat Festival box office. The viewing needs of family audiences were fully released, and the proportion of multiple moviegoers increased significantly, contributing more than 400 million yuan in box office revenue to the period, accounting for 35% of the total box office.
Tom Cruise fights hard to justify the film
The success of Mission: Impossible 8 has proven to the world in this era what kind of movies audiences are willing to pay for. During the three-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, the box office of a single film accounted for more than half of the total box office revenue.
"Mission Impossible 8: Final Reckoning" has exceeded 200 million yuan in box office in mainland China
In a market environment where Hollywood blockbusters have collectively "failed", "Mission Impossible 8" broke the box office deadlock with its hardcore action scenes and difficult live-action techniques, and proved with a single-day box office of over 200 million that audiences do not dislike watching movies, but rather reject stereotyped assembly-line works.
Since the first Mission: Impossible was released in 1996, in the past 30 years, Tom Cruise has gradually transformed from an idol to a stunt superstar. He always insists on real shooting, constantly challenges the limits of human beings, and brings audiences one shocking action scene after another. In Mission: Impossible 8, he has brought this desperate spirit to the extreme. At an altitude of 2,400 meters, he used his actual actions to prove to the audience that the dream of film is worth everything.
Tom Cruise goes to the sky and the sea in the movie
Stills from Mission: Impossible 8
The audience will not let down the creators' good intentions. A highly praised short review on Douban said, "No one will make a movie like this for us again. I was still in shock when I walked out of the theater, and I couldn't help but applaud him when the lights were turned off."
In this culminating farewell chapter, fans of the Mission: Impossible series can see textbook-level Easter eggs that connect the vast world view and the long journey. New audiences can also see, in the thrilling adventure, that old-school filmmakers do their best to fight for the great dignity of movies in this age of rampant AI.
At present, "Mission Impossible 8" has surpassed "Minecraft: The Movie" to top the 2025 imported film box office list.
A good start for the summer season
The gender ratio of the audience in this year's Dragon Boat Festival is the most balanced since the Dragon Boat Festival in 2019, with a male-female ratio of nearly 50-50. Mission: Impossible 8: Final Reckoning has a male audience ratio of nearly 60%, which is outstanding. The top six box office hits during this period include four animated films, Doraemon: Nobita's Painting Adventure, The Child of Time, Lilo & Stitch, and Nezha: The Devil Boy Conquers the Dragon Boat Festival, with female audiences accounting for more than 60%. In addition, due to the influence of Children's Day, this year's Dragon Boat Festival also has the highest proportion of multi-person viewing since the Dragon Boat Festival in 2016, with a prominent proportion of family audiences.
Dragon Boat Festival Box Office Chart
In terms of cities, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Suzhou and Nanjing ranked in the top ten box office during the period, among which Shanghai's box office share rose to 7.5% (5.5% during the Dragon Boat Festival last year), mainly due to the outstanding performance of "Mission: Impossible 8: Reckoning" in Shanghai, which contributed more than 60% of the box office during the Dragon Boat Festival in Shanghai. In terms of regions, first-tier cities, East China and Southwest China have significantly improved compared with last year's Dragon Boat Festival.
The good performance of the Dragon Boat Festival box office not only injected confidence into the film market, but also made a good start for the upcoming summer season. After experiencing the coldness of some previous seasons, the success of the Dragon Boat Festival proves that as long as there is high-quality content, the audience is still willing to go to the cinema. In the upcoming summer season, many blockbuster films are ready to go, including Hollywood blockbusters "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Jurassic World: Resurgence", and the domestic film "Lychees in Chang'an", which are expected to continue the popularity of the Dragon Boat Festival and promote further recovery of the film market.
