Home Entertainment Best Year Ever: Barbie Is Crowned Number One As The UK’S Biggest Titles Of 2023 Are Revealed
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Carl Roberts 
After a brilliant year of home entertainment, Barbie emerges victorious as 2023’s biggest title. See the listings here.
Today, the first set of figures to be released in 2024 by the British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) and Official Charts Company (OCC) crown BARBIE the queen of 2023 home entertainment, with 700k sales across Disc and Digital EST and VOD. (Official Charts Company (OCC) measures individual content purchases on disc and digital, to rent, buy or own in the UK, unlike multi-content SVoD services.)
The value of the UK Home Entertainment Category rose to £4.9bn in 2023 inclusive of all Streaming Video on Demand (SVoD), DIGITAL, DISC sales, and rental (Premium Electronic Sell Through (PEST), Electronic Sell Through (EST), Premium Video on Demand (PVoD). Video on Demand (VOD ), DVD, BLU-RAY, 4K UHD, BOXSET), up 10.6% Year on Year (YoY), following a 14.3% rise YoY in 2022.
The rise was driven by the ongoing surge in consumer uptake of subscription services, with over 56 million subscriptions in 2023, a 5.4% YoY rise.
BARBIE
BARBIE was the UK’s biggest visual entertainment title across Theatrical and Home Entertainment, with a performance of £95.5m at the UK Box Office, as well as a value of over £9.5m across transactional Home Entertainment in 2023, through Premium EST (PEST) and Premium VOD (PVoD) releases in September 2023, and physical release in October 2023.
This amounted to a collective consumer spend of just over £200 per minute on Greta Gerwig’s BARBIE across the year, across all visual formats, demonstrating the resonance of content across channels with savvy audiences as release windows continue to evolve.
JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4
KEANU REEVES and JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4 topped the 2023 rental charts, with 306k sales on VoD, to add to its 388k sales across Disc and EST. The JOHN WICK lifetime franchise transactional sales (excluding VoD) are now 2.5m units in the UK, with a Home Entertainment value of £21m (excluding VOD).
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER was the highest performing EST and DISC title, with digital and physical ownership transactions at 560k units across the year, following a £52m performance at the UK Box Office, before its transactional and Disney+ premiere in June 2023.
OPPENHEIMER
Christopher Nolan’s critically acclaimed OPPENHEIMER was the biggest title across both disc formats in the UK in 2023, with a value of £1.1m on Blu-ray and £673k on DVD.
MATILDA THE MUSICAL
Roald Dahl’s MATILDA THE MUSICAL was the fifth highest-selling title of 2023, following its successful cinema release over Christmas 2022.
THE TOP FIVE CHRISTMAS FILMS OF 2023
The top five Home Entertainment titles of 2023 clearly demonstrate the breadth and variety available to consumers to rent and own in the UK, with 70m total transactions across the year. The final week of 2023 saw EST sales of over 900k units, with a value of £5.9m, up 34% YoY.
This included 5 Christmas films in the top ten: LOVE ACTUALLY, ELF, THE POLAR EXPRESS, VIOLENT NIGHT, and NATIONAL LAMPOONS CHRISTMAS VACATION, demonstrating that audiences continue to want to own their favourite films, be they digitally or physically.
BLACK ADAM
BLACK ADAM was the biggest title on DVD, demonstrating the resonance and value of big family titles on the most affordable new release physical format, with 80k units sold.
PVOD
54 titles were released on Premium Video on Demand (PVOD) and/or Premium EST, one more than 2022, as audiences grow accustomed to the new shape of release windows.
TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR scored the second biggest PVoD week one sales of 2023 (following BARBIE) with £428k on Premium Video on Demand (PVoD) only, following its release on December 13th, building on the £12.2m Box Office performance across six weeks in 2023.
CHILDREN’S ENTERTAINMENT
Universal Pictures Chris Pratt animated movie SUPER MARIO BROS. was the biggest kids title on Home Entertainment in the UK in 2023, with 648k transactional sales across Home Entertainment, and was the third biggest selling title of the year.
The success of the SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE alongside BARBIE, and most recently WONKA, which has amassed £45m at the UK Box Office to date over Christmas 2023, further demonstrates the love of known characters for audiences, when told in new and exciting ways.
GAME OF THRONES: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON
GAME OF THRONES: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON Season One ruled the TV charts for the second year running, snatching the number one spot despite its release at the end of 2022, and prior to the release of season two on Netflix in the UK in the summer 2024.
The strong appetite for audiences for ownership of SVoD premier shows is clear, as the rest of the top five TV titles include THE LAST OF US Season One at number 2, STAR TREK – STRANGE NEW WORLDS Season One at number 3, and THE WALKING DEAD, COMPLETE 11th Season at Number 5, with DOCTOR WHO – 60th ANNIVERSARY SPECIALS at number four.
LIZ BALES
Liz Bales, Chief Executive, BASE said:
“It’s genuinely wonderful to see the volume of units purchased and the range of titles in 2023’s top five UK buy, rent and own Home Entertainment chart, as it perfectly demonstrates the convenience and breadth of this part of the Home Entertainment offering, and how much consumers value that.
Audiences can control when and where they watch the films, TV shows and special interest programming they love, in a completely complimentary way to the SVoD services they invest in, which is shown in those fantastic final week figures of 2023: Home Entertainment titles were bought, downloaded and rented nearly one million times across digital and physical in that week alone, in addition to the multiple SVoD and linear TV options.
When we look back at 2023, and the resurgence of HMV in particular, which opened 24 new stores in the UK, and with 38 stores in total, we can see that servicing the fans, and the appetite for physical releases on the UK high street, as well as an incredibly healthy EST and rental market, is incredibly important.”
BASE
The British Association for Screen Entertainment has represented the UK Visual Home Entertainment category for over 40 years. The primary objective of BASE is to champion the growth of screen entertainment across disc and digital while maintaining a business environment with the fewest regulatory burdens.
Our members are represented within the £4.9 billion Home Entertainment market alongside Affiliate and Associate members from a host of critical industry stakeholders.
OFFICIAL VIDEO CHARTS OF 2023
(Top five charts for each video format and genre, not including box sets)
OFFICIAL VIDEO CHARTS (All Digital; Blu-ray and DVD, EST, TVOD Jan-Sept)
1 BARBIE
2 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
3 THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE
4 AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
5 ROALD DAHL’S MATILDA THE MUSICAL
OFFICIAL VIDEO CHARTS (All Digital Retail; Blu-ray and DVD, EST)
1 AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
2 THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE
3 BARBIE
4 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
5 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
OFFICIAL VIDEO CHARTS (All Blu-ray & DVD)
1 OPPENHEIMER
2 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
3 BLACK ADAM
4 AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
5 TOP GUN: MAVERICK
OFFICIAL DVD CHART
1 BLACK ADAM
2 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
3 ELVIS
4 OPPENHEIMER
5 TOP GUN: MAVERICK
OFFICIAL BLU-RAY CHART
1 OPPENHEIMER
2 AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
3 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
4 BLACK ADAM
5 MISSON: IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING PT 1
OFFICIAL FILM DOWNLOAD CHART: EST 2023
1 AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
2 THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE
3 BARBIE
4 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
5 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
OFFICIAL FILM DOWNLOAD CHART: DIGITAL RENTAL 2023 (51 weeks, not including WK. 52)
1 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
2 BARBIE
3 BLACK ADAM
4 NO HARD FEELINGS
5 PLANE
OFFICIAL FILM ON VIDEO CHART 2023
1 AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER
2 BARBIE
3 JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 4
4 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
5 OPPENHEIMER
OFFICIAL CHILDREN’S VIDEO CHART 2023
1 THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE
2 PUSS IN BOOTS – THE LAST WISH
3 THE POLAR EXPRESS
4 SING 2
5 ELEMENTAL
OFFICIAL TV ON VIDEO CHART 2023
1 HOUSE OF THE DRAGON – SEASON 1
2 THE LAST OF US – SEASON 1
3 STAR TREK – STRANGE NEW WORLDS – SEASON 1
4 DOCTOR WHO – 60TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIALS
5 THE WALKING DEAD – THE COMPLETE 11TH SEASON
OFFICIAL MUSIC ON VIDEO CHART 2023
1 MOONAGE DAYDREAM
2 GET BACK
3 DANCE CRAZE – BEST OF BRITISH SKA
4 THE BLUE SAPPHIRE TOUR
5 THIS IS US
OFFICIAL SPORTS AND FITNESS VIDEO CHART 2023
1 WWE – ROYAL RUMBLE 2023
2 WWE – WRESTLEMANIA 39
3 WWE – SUMMERSLAM 2023
4 WWE – CLASMONEY IN THE BANK 2023
5 WWE – SURVIVOR SERIES WARGAMES 2022
OFFICIAL SPECIAL INTEREST VIDEO CHART 2023
1 KEVIN BRIDGES – THE OVERDUE CATCH-UP
2 MICKY FLANAGAN – AN’ ANOTHER FING LIVE
3 SARAH MILLICAN – BOBBY DAZZLER
4 LEE EVANS – ROADRUNNER – LIVE AT THE 02
5 RHOD GILBERT – THE BOOK OF JOHN
OFFICIAL CATALOGUE VIDEO CHART 2023 ON DISC
1 ELVIS
2 TOP GUN: MAVERICK
3 JURASSIC WORLD – DOMINION
4 HOUSE OF THE DRAGON – SEASON 1
5 FANTASTIC BEASTS – SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE
HIGH-VALUE BOXSETS 2023– DISC AND DIGITAL EST (ASP greater than £30)
1 DOCTOR WHO – THE COLLECTION – SEASON 9
2 DOCTOR WHO – THE COLLECTION – SEASON 20
3 ONLY FOOLS & HORSES – COMPLETE SERIES
4 GAME OF THRONES – COMPLETE SERIES
5 HAPPY VALLEY – THE COMPLETE SERIES 1-3
Anyone wishing to buy any of the titles featured in The Official Film Chart can do so via FindAnyFilm.com. All videos and information have been supplied by Find Any Film and used under authorization. All Official Chart data © Official Charts Company
Introducing Carl! As the News Editor at Future of the Force, Carl has been an invaluable member of our team since early 2016. His expertise and dedication have made him an integral part of our editorial staff. Beyond his professional role, Carl is a fervent supporter of Liverpool F.C. and an avid follower of pop culture. He has a deep passion for Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the iconic movie franchises Star Wars and Star Trek.
He can be found either at his neighborhood cinema, enjoying the latest releases on the big screen, or at home streaming the newest blockbuster movies.
