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After watching the exceptional 2023 film Jatuh Cinta Seperti di Film-Film (Falling in Love Like in Movies), a witty and emotional meta-narrative that serves as a love letter to cinema, it instantly shot to the top of my favorite Indonesian movies list.
This award-winning movie, written and directed by Yandy Laurens, is a niche product in the current Indonesian film landscape. It’s not a conventional Indonesian romantic comedy, nor is it a horror flick or a Hollywood blockbuster.
But, some 650,000 viewers still saw it in theaters before Netflix picked it up and the online buzz suggests that it and other movies like it are drawing genuine viewership.
That made me wonder: Are Indonesian audiences indeed expanding their taste in films?
Beyond blockbusters
According to A. Nandra, the head of content marketing and distribution for CJ Cinemas Indonesia, the answer is yes.
CJ Cinemas owns CGV Indonesia and the film distribution company, CBI Pictures, which brought Parasite and Everything Everywhere All at Once, films which are outside the United States’ Motion Picture Association (MPA) umbrella, to local theaters.
“A large majority of Western and Hollywood movies come from studios within the MPA. Disney, Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures basically get a guaranteed pass to Indonesian screens,” he says.
Nandra’s job is to connect international filmmakers outside the MPA with Indonesian theaters. Based on CBI Pictures’ track record, the demand is growing.
In 2024, CBI Pictures brought in 69 movies, up from 2023’s 65, featuring titles from Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, aside from non-MPA movies from the US.
Their most notable recent effort with Falcon Pictures was to bring over Thailand’s How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, which raked in over 3.5 million admissions here.
“This shows how well Indonesian moviegoers are responding to more unique stories from different places,” he says.
Shifting preferences
A large part of Nandra’s team’s decision-making process is based on social media activity from fandoms or film communities.
For example, after asking him if the new upcoming Gundam movie was coming to Indonesian theaters, Nandra tells me that anime fandoms are a great example of how CBI Pictures tracks local demand attentively.
“We engage with online fandoms to gauge any hype surrounding a particular movie. We might think a movie is good, but our judgment might not align with the audience demand,” he adds.
Several factors seem to accelerate this shift.
Film blogger Taufiqur Rizal, known online as Cinetariz, believes that local moviegoers are more open to new cinematic experiences due to better accessibility and wider selection on streaming platforms like Netflix and Klik Film.
The team at Film Indo Source, a popular film-centric social media account, adds that the pandemic played a big part.
“It gave us time to explore a variety of films at home, and we think people [or at least our followers] resonated with the themes offered by independent cinema rooted in human connection,” they told me via email.
“That’s why more Indonesian cinephiles are opening up their horizons.”
Rizal also says the growing interest in film festivals helps introduce audiences to new experiences. The Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (JAFF), for example, had a record of over 24,000 visitors in 2024, up from 21,000 in 2023 and 16,000 in 2022.
“Because of how easy it is to learn about or read reviews on a movie, as long as the film itself is good, accessible and promoted properly, I’m sure our moviegoers will respond enthusiastically,” Rizal says.
Film Indo Source highlights the rising popularity of social movie cataloging platform Letterboxd, which enables users to explore new films from various countries.
“At the start of the pandemic, the platform only had around 1.8 million users, but now it's around 17 million.”
As long as the film itself is good, accessible and promoted properly, I'm sure our moviegoers will respond enthusiastically. - Taufiqour Rizal
At the box office
Does this mean Indonesian moviegoers are leaving behind mainstream flicks?
Well, not quite.
Horror movies still dominate, according to Bicara Box Office, with the top three highest-grossing movies last year belonging to that genre: Agak Laen (A Bit Different), Vina: Sebelum 7 Hari (Vina: Before 7 Days), and Kang Mak from Pee Mak.
Interestingly, though, the top four to seven films were also all Indonesian. The rest of the top 10 included How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, followed by the only two MPA movies on the list, which were Warner Brothers’ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and Disney’s Deadpool & Wolverine.
Compare this to 2019, when nine out of the top 10 highest-grossing movies in Indonesia were from MPA studios. Movies like Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, and Jumanji: The Next Level dominated theaters. The only local flick in the top 10 was Dilan 1991 (which was great).
You can see this changing trend over the years.
In 2019, 51 million of the total 152 million ticket sales were for local films. By 2023, as the industry recovered post-pandemic, total admissions decreased to 114.5 million while local movie viewership rose to 53.3 million.
Then in 2024, local films surged, attracting 80.21 million admissions out of a total of 125.89 million, an impressive 65 percent of all admissions.
When I asked Bicara Box Office why they think this shift is happening, they answered simply: “Genre-wise, our top grossers remain the same, but our movies are being made at an increasing standard of quality.”
Indonesian moviegoers have shifted their preferences, not overwhelmingly toward the niche, cinephile movies, but we are definitely watching fewer MPA blockbusters in favor of more local ones.
“Both local movies and nomination movies, our unofficial term for these Oscar-buzz films, are thriving,” Nandra says.
“Local movies more so. Nomination movies will always remain within the bubble of more enthusiast-type moviegoers. But that bubble itself is growing, and it's bigger than ever in Indonesia,” Nandra tells me.
Well, Yandy Laurens’ stellar follow-up to Falling in Love Like in Movies, the emotional family drama A Brother and 7 Siblings, just passed 1 million viewers.
As we head deeper into 2025, this trend is going strong, possibly setting new moviegoing records and truly bringing back cinema.
