The 2025 Film Markets Reality Check: Cannes, Sundance, TIFF, and AFM Under a Tighter Rulebook

For much of 2025, the film industry clung to a comforting narrative: that the markets were “coming back.” Sundance had buyers. Cannes saw presales again. TIFF produced headline deals. AFM regained operational momentum. On the surface, the system appeared to be healing. It wasn’t.

What the 2025 film market circuit revealed—across Sundance, Cannes, TIFF, and AFM—was not a recovery, but a recalibration. Deals did happen, but under narrower assumptions. Capital showed up selectively. Buyers re-engaged, but only where risk could be tightly managed. The market still functioned, yet it functioned with less tolerance for excess, weaker downstream economics, and a far smaller margin for error.

The misconception entering 2026 is not that markets are “dead.” It is that many sellers still believe they operate under the same rules that governed 2017–2019. They do not.

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The Common Thread: Fewer Safety Nets, Narrower Windows

Across all four markets, the same structural constraint surfaced repeatedly: the erosion of reliable post-theatrical revenue.

The collapse of expansive Pay-1 licensing, the contraction of broad output deals, and the rise of walled-garden streaming strategies have removed the safety nets that once supported mid-budget films.

Distribution no longer absorbs miscalculations—it exposes them.

As a result:

• Buyers are underwriting fewer titles
• Financing stacks rely on more conservative assumptions
• Windowing strategy has become a primary value driver, not an afterthought

This realignment is why the market feels simultaneously active and restrictive. Activity exists, but optionality does not.

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Sundance 2025: Demand Without Depth

Sundance once signaled the start of the buying year. In 2025, it signaled something else: interest without scale.

Yes, select titles moved quickly. Genre-driven projects, particularly horror, contained thrillers, and socially resonant documentaries, attracted attention. But the buyer pool was thinner, more cautious, and far more price-sensitive than in past cycles. Platforms that once competed aggressively for cultural cachet now weighed every acquisition against declining Pay-1 values and compressed post-theatrical returns.

The defining feature of Sundance 2025 was not competition; it was restraint. Buyers attended, screened, and circled projects, but fewer were willing to stretch pricing to “own the conversation.” The era of overpaying for symbolic wins has ended. Sundance remains culturally relevant, but economically, it has become a filter rather than a windfall.

For producers, the message was clear early in the year: visibility still matters, but leverage does not automatically follow.

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Cannes 2025: Presales Returned On Harsher Terms

If Sundance exposed buyer discipline, Cannes revealed the new mechanics of international risk.

Presales did return in 2025. Co-productions increased. European partners reasserted relevance. But the structure of those deals bore little resemblance to pre-lockdown norms. MGs were smaller, territory carve-outs were more selective, and financing stacks required more creativity and more patience.

The most successful projects at Cannes shared several traits:

• Clear genre positioning
• Disciplined budgets
• Credible cast with measurable international value
• Realistic expectations about territory-by-territory pricing
  

What struggled were the films caught in the middle: too expensive to be “safe,” too non-franchise to command premium rates, and too dependent on post-theatrical upside that no longer reliably exists.

Cannes 2025 did not revive presales as a broad-based solution. It reinforced them as a surgical tool, effective only when applied with precision.

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See What Streamers Pay in Major Markets

Develop, Budget, Negotiate, and Forecast with Precision.

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TIFF 2025: Headlines Masked a Narrow Market

TIFF remains the most misunderstood market on the calendar. In 2025, it once again produced splashy headlines with seven-figure acquisitions, genre standouts, and select platform wins. But beneath those headlines sat a familiar pattern: a few wins carrying disproportionate attention.

The majority of titles faced slow negotiations, stalled conversations, or quiet exits without meaningful distribution momentum. Buyers attended TIFF with mandates, not curiosity. If a project did not fit an existing strategic gap, whether in genre, windowing, or subscriber utility, it struggled to advance.

TIFF 2025 demonstrated the growing bifurcation of the market:

• Projects that “clear” do so decisively
• Projects that do not often linger without resolution

The danger for producers is mistaking TIFF’s visibility for liquidity. Exposure does not equal monetization, and in 2025, the gap between the two widened.

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AFM 2025: A Market That Worked With Discipline

AFM was the most operationally instructive market of the year. Logistically improved and better centralized, AFM 2025 brought together buyers from more than 35 countries, with robust participation from Europe and Asia. Meetings happened. Deals closed. The machinery of the market functioned again. But the economics were unforgiving.

Minimum guarantees remained under pressure across most territories. Pay-1 assumptions were revised downward. Buyers focused on risk containment, not volume. Genre mattered more than ever, but even favored genres required tight packaging and realistic pricing.

AFM 2025 made one thing unmistakable: the market clears at lower baselines. Sellers who adjusted expectations early found traction—those who didn’t often left with full slates and no leverage.

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Why Many Producers Misread 2025

The most persistent error in 2025 was conflating deal activity with market health. Deals closing does not mean leverage has returned. Attendance does not mean competition has widened. Headlines do not mean pricing discipline has loosened.

Markets are doing precisely what they are supposed to do under constrained economic conditions: allocating capital selectively. The problem is not that buyers are absent; it’s that they are more rational.

For producers and distributors entering 2026, the implication is uncomfortable but necessary: success will depend less on presence and more on preparation. Projects must be designed to clear a narrower funnel.

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FilmTake Away: The Markets Didn’t Fail—They Changed

The 2025 film markets delivered a consistent message across continents and calendars. Sundance tested demand. Cannes refined presales. TIFF amplified select winners. AFM clarified the new floor.

Together, they confirmed that the industry is not rebounding to its old shape. It is stabilizing at a smaller, more disciplined scale. Fewer films will move. Fewer territories will matter. Fewer buyers will decide outcomes.

The producers, sales agents, and distributors who adapt—by aligning budgets, structuring smarter windows, and grounding decisions in real licensing data—will continue to operate. Those who wait for the old market to return will find themselves perpetually “almost sold.

The markets still work. But only if you do.

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