2023 was a year of consolidation for the Indonesian box office, as audiences returned to theatres and demonstrated some solid support for their national cinema. For their part, streaming platforms continued to produce original films. But they had less momentum than in previous years, although they still provided an outlet for different styles of local movies.
Only 87 Indonesian films were released in theatres in 2022, but in 2023 the number increased to 106. This was the first year since the pandemic in which more than 100 domestically produced films were released – 130 were released in 2019. Another encouraging statistic is the number of films that exceeded the one million admissions mark, which is considered the threshold for blockbuster status. Among the Indonesian films released in 2023, as many as 20 exceeded this threshold. By comparison, in 2019 there were 15 blockbuster successes with more than one million viewers.
But there were none of the sensational individual hits of 2022. In 2023, KKN di Desa Penari exceeded 10 million spectators, winning the title of biggest hit at the Indonesian box office for a national film, and two other films, Satan’s Slaves 2 and Miracle in Cell No. 7, achieved above five million viewers. If it had been released last year, 2023’s biggest hit would only have come fourth in the annual rankings.
This comparison is, however, in no way intended to diminish the success of Kimo Stamboel’s Sewu Dino (literally, A Thousand Days in Javanese) which, after its release in April 2023, was seen by almost 4.9 million viewers. Directed by one of the two Mo Brothers (the other is Timo Tjahjanto, and they made their debut together in 2008 directing the Dara segment of the episodic film Takut: Faces of Fear), Sewu Dino is a horror film which carries on the successful local trend of adapting social media posts which tell stories of ghosts or demons into films.
The same format is behind the second-biggest national success of 2023, Azhar Kinoi Lubis’s Di Ambang Kematian (lit. “On the brink of death”), another horror film inspired by an X (formerly Twitter) thread, which brought in more than three million viewers. The first non-horror film in the 2023 national top 10 is Air Mata di Ujung Sajadah (lit. “Tears on the Edge of the Prayer Mat”), a religiously inspired sentimental drama about a mother who discovers that the son she thought died at birth was instead given up for adoption. The film debut of television director Key Mangunsong, it also passed the three million viewers mark.
But seven out of 10 of the most viewed Indonesian films confirm the preference of audiences for horror, with the only competition coming from dramas with religious themes which are often based on literary successes. The most notable exception of 2023 was Sherina’s Adventure 2 (Petualangan Sherina 2) by Riri Riza, which reunited the characters from the original children’s film, and offered a nostalgic adventure for the whole family.
The number of films reaching theatres has increased, but the streaming platforms’ commitment to producing originals has fallen. In 2022, streamers made over 40 original titles, but in 2023 they made around 20. Yet the platforms still offer significant support to directors pursuing an auteurist approach. Directors who presented new productions on local platforms ranging from Amazon Prime to KlikFilm and Netflix in 2023 included Ifa Isfansyah, Robby Ertanto, Lucky Kuswandi, Angga Dwimas Sasongko and Teddy Soeriaatmadja, as well as more mainstream directors like Rizal Mantovani and Azhar Kinoi Lubis – significantly, though, not with horror films.
Berbalas Kejam, a thriller that Teddy Soeriaatmadja made for Amazon Prime, earned Reza Rahadian the Citra award for Best Actor at the Indonesian Film Festival, an event which also provided several surprises. After its success at the Toronto International Film Festival, and good results in theatres (around 580 thousand spectators), Wregas Bhanuteja’s Andragogy (Budi Pekerti) arrived at the ceremony with a record 17 nominations. Victory, however, with four trophies, including Best Film and Best Director, went to Jeremias Nyangoen’s debut Women from Rote Island (Perempuan Berkelamin Darah), which was presented as a world premiere at the Busan Film Festival in 2023 and released in theatres in Indonesia in February 2024 (attracting 31,000 spectators). Andragogy had to settle for the Best Actress award for Sha Ine Febriyanti and Best Supporting Actress for Prilly Latuconsina – a disappointing result for a film which had, for once, managed to unify critics and audiences.