Struggling to find Vietnamese films worth hundreds of billions of dong.

TPO - Although the second quarter hasn't ended yet, the Vietnamese film market is heating up in the second half of the year with a series of projects ranging from horror and psychological thrillers to comedies and action films simultaneously finalizing their release dates. While foreign films are dominating the box office, the number of domestic films achieving promising revenue is increasingly rare, and the race at the end of the year is predicted to be fiercer than ever.

Doraemon is unstoppable.

This past weekend, the box office witnessed a rare phenomenon: the top 5 highest-grossing films were completely devoid of Vietnamese movies.

In the weekend box office rankings, audiences had a wide range of choices, from Japanese animation, Thai family dramas, Indonesian horror, Korean horror to American science fiction . This was a rare period when the domestic market was dominated by foreign films.

Leading the pack is Doraemon: Nobita and the Castle Under the Sea - the 45th film in the robotic cat franchise. Over the weekend of May 22-24, the film grossed over 51.5 billion VND, selling approximately 527,000 tickets across nearly 14,000 screenings, accounting for over 71% of the total weekend box office revenue.

Just a few days after its release, the film's cumulative revenue exceeded 116 billion VND, becoming the first foreign film to reach the 100 billion VND mark in Vietnam this year.

The appeal of Doraemon is actually not surprising. For many years, the period from the latter half of May to the beginning of June has been the brand's domain in Vietnam, thanks to the advantage of summer vacation, International Children's Day, and a stable family audience. With the current growth momentum, the June 1st holiday will play a decisive role in Doraemon's goal of reaching the 200 billion VND milestone.

Unlike 2025, when four Vietnamese animated films were released, the market has yet to see any domestic animation projects announce release dates.

This gap reflects the reality that no one has yet jumped into Vietnamese animation and science fiction. Vietnamese films have grossed over 100 billion VND in many genres such as comedy, drama, romance, horror, thriller, action, war, and biography, but sci-fi and animation remain a gray area.

Second place goes to Goodbye Gohan , a Thai film with a healing theme, telling the story of a human and a loyal dog. This past weekend, the film grossed approximately 7.8 billion VND with over 82,000 tickets sold across about 2,500 screenings. The film has achieved a total revenue of approximately 34.2 billion VND, becoming an unexpected phenomenon in the Asian family film genre in Vietnamese cinemas.

Doraemon remains unrivaled in Vietnamese theaters.

The Indonesian film " The Village of the Dead " grossed nearly 3 billion VND over the weekend with more than 37,500 tickets sold. The South Korean film "Ghost: The Man-Eating Lake" earned approximately 2.8 billion VND over the weekend, bringing its total revenue to over 17.6 billion VND. The science fiction film "Star Wars: Mandalorian" closed out the top 5 with around 1.7 billion VND.

Conversely, Vietnamese cinema has just experienced a highly polarized April 30th film season. Phi Phong: Blood Demon of the Sacred Forest became the biggest phenomenon, surpassing 200 billion VND in revenue, joining the group of the highest-grossing horror films in Vietnamese box office history. Five-toed Pig reached approximately 124 billion VND, showing that folk horror remains a genre with strong appeal to audiences.

Not all projects were lucky. The film "Underworld Beauty Salon" grossed approximately 12.6 billion VND after several weeks, while the romantic film "Once Upon a Time We Loved" only earned nearly 2 billion VND. The low sales of these two recent Vietnamese films reflect the harshness of the market after the holiday.

For the remainder of the year, many foreign films are predicted to continue dominating the Vietnamese box office.

Besides Doraemon, major franchises like Conan , Minions , Spider-Man , and Avengers 5 are considered likely to approach or surpass the 100 billion VND mark. 2026 marks a comeback for Marvel Studios as the MCU returns with two major projects after a period of decline, hoping to regain its appeal in the Vietnamese market after years of cooling down.

A flurry of films are being released in theaters.

While foreign films continue to dominate, the Vietnamese film market in the second half of the year is starting to fill up its release schedule.

Although the second quarter hasn't ended yet, many producers have already announced release dates. Starting in July, "The Soul-Capturing Demon" kicked off the race with a release date of July 17th. In August came "The Red Thread" (August 14th) and "Summer Vacation, Fear of Retirement" (August 21st). The National Day on September 2nd saw the release of "The Guardian Spirit Warrior ," while "Ascending the Homeland" is scheduled for September.

By the fourth quarter, the release schedule became denser with The Almost Perfect Murder (October 2nd), Flying Dairy Cow (November 6th), The Chosen One (November 6th), Happy Prison (November 20th), and The Bad Mother closing the year with a release date of December 31st.

The published list alone reveals intense competition. The fact that two films, " Flying Dairy Cow" and "The Chosen One," share the same November 6th release date is the first sign of scheduling conflicts. This simultaneous release has been predicted by many experts as a "domestic film battle" throughout the past year.

A flurry of Vietnamese films are expected to be released in theaters during the second half of 2026.

Not to mention, the market also has a large number of projects currently filming or in post-production but without announced release dates, such as Detective Kien 2 , The Rich Heir , The Mother of the Dead, The Day My Child Still Has a Mother , Sister Sister 3 , Billiards Master , Human Trafficking Camp , Ut Lan 2 , The Last Empress … If all of them are concentrated in the third or fourth quarter, the pressure for screening slots will become even more intense.

Last year's market reality showed that this is not an easy game to win. In the second half of the year, only about seven films were considered to have achieved significant box office success, exceeding approximately 80 billion VND, including *Bringing Mother Abandoning Herself *, * Making Money with Ghosts 2* , *Red Rain *, *Battle in the Air* , *Grandma's Gold nugget *, * Searching for Ambergris* , and *Blood Paradise *.

This means that, on average, only about one film a month truly becomes a big hit, while the majority struggle to find audiences or are pulled from theaters early.

Amidst the growing dominance of foreign films, constantly changing audience movie-going habits, and the pressure of word-of-mouth, the second half of 2026 will be the most fiercely competitive period for Vietnamese films in years. With so many films vying for screen time, the biggest question remains: who will be able to survive the box office race?

Source: https://tienphong.vn/chat-vat-tim-phim-viet-tram-ty-dong-post1847030.tpo