It's official. Last year was not only the biggest year at movie box offices in Australia, it was also the best year for local films.
Final figures released by the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia (MPDAA) show a total box office of $1,226,315,433, beating the previous record in 2010 by over $120 million. 
Australian films took $88 million of this total, beating the 2001 record of $63.4 million. This represents 7.18 per cent box office share. Adjusted for inflation, it is the best Australian result in 14 years.
There were two Australian films in the top twenty: Mad Max: Fury Road, at number 13 with $21.7 million, and The Dressmaker, at number 17 with $18.4 million. The Dressmaker is still in cinemas, and looks set to top $20 million. Oddball, The Water Diviner, Paper Planes and Last Cab To Darwin all performed strongly in 2015.
Number one overall was Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with a 2015 box office of 62.78 million after only two weeks in release. It is now the second-highest grossing film of all time in Australia.
Jurassic World ($52.94m), Fast and Furious 7 ($43.34m), Avengers: The Age of Ultron ($40.11m) and Spectre (34.58 m) made up the top five
The top ten films of 2015 grossed $382,358,705, compared with $264,396,535 the previous year. 
Screen Australia CEO Graeme Mason said that the 7.18 per cent box office share for Australian films in a year of blockbusters was "outstanding and should embolden local filmmakers. The popularity of family films is particularly notable, pointing to a new generation of cinema-goers having early exposure to Australian content."