This week’s box office tells two stories. In France, a schoolboy comedy and a three-hour Victor Hugo epic are fighting over the top spot. Across the Atlantic, a DC horror film and a documentary are doing the same. And on Wednesday, Paris cinemas got their most serious line-up of the autumn, led by two films that both played in competition at Cannes in May.
Here is what opened on 28 October, the film we would see first, and the numbers behind the week.
New films this week: Moulin, Hope and a Phantom at the Opéra
The big French release is Moulin, directed by László Nemes, the Hungarian filmmaker who won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2015 with Son of Saul. Gilles Lellouche plays Jean Moulin, the Resistance leader arrested at Caluire in June 1943 and interrogated by Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo chief in Lyon. Lars Eidinger plays Barbie, and Louise Bourgoin joins the cast. The film runs 2h14.
From South Korea comes Hope, Na Hong-jin’s long-awaited return. Hwang Jung-min plays a police officer in an isolated village cut off from the outside world while something unseen tears through it. Zo In-sung and Jung Ho-yeon co-star, and Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander lend their performances to the creatures through motion capture, Sortir à Paris reports. At 2h37, it is the longest ride of the week.
The rest of the slate is eclectic:
- Le Fantôme de l’Opéra by Alexandre Castagnetti, with Deva Cassel, Julien De Saint-Jean and Romain Duris: Gaston Leroux’s tale, retold around a young dancer of the Paris Opera.
- Sanguine by Marion Le Corroller, with Mara Taquin and Karin Viard: a young A&E intern whose patients’ strange symptoms start to appear on her own body.
- Le Mystère Lucy Lost by Olivier Clert: a hand-drawn animated adventure about a girl with extraordinary gifts on a remote island.
- Documentaries Papa où t’es ?, a search for a father that leads to Senegal, and Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning, for those who prefer their cinema loud.
Our pick: Moulin
Our heart goes to Moulin. Nemes is not making a classroom biopic. He narrows the story to the final days of one man and to a duel of nerves between prisoner and captor. TheWrap, reviewing it at Cannes, called it immersive and claustrophobic: a prison film as much as a war film. L’Éclaireur Fnac praises Lellouche for a restrained performance, far from his usual roles, and the dusty, film-noir light of the images. The same review finds the opening section, about reuniting the Secret Army, less gripping.
Parisians seem curious. According to first-show figures for Paris relayed by Freakin’ Geek, Moulin led Wednesday’s opening sessions with 1,895 admissions in 27 theatres, ahead of Hope (1,277) and Le Fantôme de l’Opéra (635). Early days, but a promising start.
If you followed our coverage of last year’s Cannes Film Festival, this is the moment when the Croisette’s competition finally reaches the neighbourhood cinema.
Box office this week: France and the US
France (21–27 October). Ducobu et le Fantôme de Saint-Potache stays at number one with 461,518 admissions, bringing its total to 972,938 after three weeks, AlloCiné reports. Fred Cavayé’s Les Misérables, with Vincent Lindon, Tahar Rahim and Camille Cottin, follows with 428,273 tickets in its second week (909,095 in total). Both are now racing to one million. The best new entry is Guillaume Canet’s Karma, with Marion Cotillard, at 362,971 admissions. Further down, Mochy (251,035), the animated L’Île des souvenirs (241,559) and Shaun the Sheep‘s Halloween adventure (200,088) kept families busy. Clayface opened eighth with 172,367 tickets, while Heart of the Beast passed 1.55 million admissions in its fifth week.
United States (23–25 October). DC Studios’ Clayface, an R-rated body-horror film starring Tom Rhys Harries, opened at number one with $24 million, according to AP and Rotten Tomatoes, for a reported $44 million budget. A24’s You Can See Everything, the Elizabeth Holmes documentary by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, took $19.5 million as it went wide, reaching $45.1 million in total and already ranking among the highest-grossing documentaries ever. Laika’s stop-motion fantasy Wildwood debuted third with close to $12 million, ahead of Street Fighter ($8.6 million, down 72% in its second weekend) and Wicker, the Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård fable, at nearly $6 million.
Our advice for the weekend: Moulin for the emotion, Hope for the adrenaline, and a café crème afterwards to talk it all over.
Sources
- AlloCiné — releases of 28 October — 25 October 2026
- Ozzak — French releases of 28 October — 26 October 2026
- Sortir à Paris — Hope review — updated 27 October 2026
- UGC — Moulin — 17 October 2026
- L’Éclaireur Fnac — Moulin review — 28 October 2026
- TheWrap — Moulin Cannes review — 17 May 2026
- Little White Lies — Moulin first look — 18 May 2026
- AlloCiné — French box office, 21–27 October — 28 October 2026
- Freakin’ Geek — releases and box office of 28 October — 28 October 2026
- Ciné-Directors — French box office, week 43 — October 2026
- Associated Press (via NY1) — US weekend box office — 25 October 2026
- Rotten Tomatoes — Weekend box office — 26 October 2026
- Festival de Cannes — Karma — 2026
Cover photo: Photo: Guillaume Didelet — Unsplash
