Audience numbers are through the roof, the film is selling like hot cakes, everyone is singing its praises! The figures climb into the millions and success is declared. The industry cheers, the producers count their profits, the government swells with pride, the taxes roll in. But the crew just stand there gaping, and their bonuses may never even find their way into their pockets. There are plenty of facts like that.
When the profits are pocketed by a handful of people, who cares about those who sweated blood behind the scenes? The industry is busy displaying audience figures like trophies, but the welfare of the crew is not always cared about, and then it is simply forgotten. The film is crowned a great success. Done?
Hold on! Since when have audience numbers become the sole judge entitled to decide the quality of a film? Is a film watched by ten million people automatically better than one watched by only a hundred thousand? If so, why do juries argue until the veins in their necks bulge over artistic achievement? Why dissect the screenplay, scrutinise the direction, glare at the cinematography, inspect the art direction, interrogate the acting, flay the editing and rummage through the sound design?
If millions of viewers are enough to declare a film great, then just abolish all the debate about assessment and judging!
No need for juries, no need for artistic or aesthetic assessment, none of that! Just count the viewers, draw up the ranking and crown the winner! Done! Well, what else is there? Is there any difference?
Oh, there is a difference, obviously! You buy a ticket, walk into the cinema, settle into your seat, the lights go down, the screen lights up. The story unfolds, the audience tenses up, laughs, gets scared or moved. A hundred minutes or so go by, the film ends, the lights come on, and everyone goes home with their own impressions. Liked it, didn’t like it, satisfied, disappointed. All done! Perfectly legitimate. After all, films are made to be watched.
People buy tickets to enjoy a film, not to dissect the cinematography, unpick the structure of the story, tinker with the découpage1 or debate film theory and artistic achievement. They come to watch, to laugh, to cry, to be on edge, or just to pass the time.
They are under no obligation to explain how the arrangement of shots creates meaning, how images are assembled, or why a film succeeds or fails artistically. The film ends, the impression lingers. Liked it? Then you liked it. Hated it? Then you hated it. No film theory exam is needed once the cinema lights come up. And that’s that!
Things change once we start talking about the quality of a film. Does selling millions of tickets automatically make a film artistically superior? If not, why are ticket sales still treated as if they were a certificate of quality? Since when does selling well in the market mean winning on artistic achievement?
Of course, ideally a film sells well in the market, excels artistically and triumphs at festivals too. That is not impossible. Look at the works of Teguh Karya2, such as Badai Pasti Berlalu and November 1828, which mark important achievements in Indonesian cinema. Still, commercial success, artistic achievement and festival recognition must each be judged on its own evidence. The three can meet, but they do not automatically come as a package.
A hit can be good, but its quality can also be dismal, even embarrassing artistically. Conversely, a film few people see can be good, but it can also simply be bad. So don’t rush to assume that a film that sells well must be great, or that a film that flops must be a masterpiece its age failed to understand. Both are equally nonsensical! The problem is not whether a film sells or not, but when ticket sales are made the sole yardstick, as if the market had handed down a final verdict on the quality of a film.
And this is where the role of competitive festival juries becomes important. Being a juror is not just sitting back, watching and stamping a film good or bad. Jurors must be able to explain and answer for their judgement. How is the story built? How does the director handle a scene? How do camera, light, colour, art direction, acting, editing and sound work together to shape the whole film? All of this has to be looked at closely, not just watched while waiting for the story to end.
Personal taste may of course play a part, but an assessment cannot stop at the sentence, “I like this film.” Why do you like it? Why don’t you? What makes one film more successful than another in artistic achievement? This is where jurors are required to give reasons they can stand behind. If it all comes down to counting audience numbers, why go to the trouble of forming a jury at all?
Ghost in the Cell by Joko Anwar is an interesting example at FFI 20263. The film has a large audience (more than 3.3 million viewers over a 55-day theatrical run) and is also a nominee. The FFI 2026 nominations were determined through the assessment of 85 members of the Akademi Citra and 35 representatives of 13 professional film organisations. This means commercial success and artistic recognition can meet in a single film. But let’s not stop there. A nomination does not mean every achievement of the film is automatically outstanding, just as a large audience is no reason to crown it the best. What needs discussing is what makes the film work and what it really achieves.
In Ghost in the Cell, nominated for Best Cinematography at FFI 2026, a cramped prison space is not a reason to give in to limitation. It is precisely there that cinematographic creativity is put to the test. The camera movement is designed to merge with the blocking and the movement of the actors, through choreographed shots in a one-shot approach, forming a sequence of images with a flowing rhythm that needs no cuts in the edit.
Camera and actors cannot go their separate ways. Everything is designed and carried out with precision. This is not a camera swooping here and there just to make the image look busy! Every movement has a purpose: building rhythm, creating mood, heightening tension and serving the dramatic needs of the scene.
The lighting is dominated by a dim, low-key look with high contrast between bright and dark areas. This choice is not just meant to create a gloomy or frightening impression, but also to shape a visual reality that supports the world of the story. Shadow becomes part of the dramatic space, limiting what can be seen while leaving dark regions that hold threat and uncertainty.
The contrast of light is used to define the character of the space, strengthen the atmosphere of the prison and direct the viewer’s attention to particular details or actions. At the same time, this arrangement of light and dark raises the dramatic tension, especially when a threat appears or a situation turns dangerous. So the lighting works to build the reality of the storytelling and to control the intensity of the viewer’s experience, not as lifeless “beauty light” that merely sweetens the image.
Horror, action and comedy intertwine, while the death scenes are designed as extreme visual compositions. Bodies, space and movement are not just accessories to the story but part of how the film builds the viewer’s experience. So, if after watching the film all anyone does is argue about the story, the blood and the audience numbers, where does attention to how the film works go? Surely a film isn’t to be judged only by what is presented on the screen, while how the story is built, how scenes are designed, how the camera is moved, how the light is arranged and how the sound is treated slip out of the conversation altogether?
Of course, box office still matters. The film industry does not live on applause and praise alone. The next production needs capital, and companies have to keep their business running. If a film makes a large profit, there is nothing wrong with sharing part of that profit as a bonus with the cast and crew, if it is fair and humane. The profit should not be enjoyed only by those who sit in the producer’s chair or hold the capital, while the people who toiled to make the film are left with nothing but applause. A film is not born from the work of one or two people. A great deal of energy, time, thought and creativity is at stake behind the scenes.
Yet valuing box office does not mean handing the whole question of a film’s quality over to ticket sales figures. Just because the tickets sell out and the audience is overflowing, don’t think you have read the film right down to its innards. Ticket sales tell us how many people bought tickets, not automatically how a film’s quality was built. If the number of buyers is made the sole yardstick, a film ends up treated like a product on a supermarket shelf: whatever is bought the most is deemed the best. So what is the difference between reading a film and counting transactions?
A film is not just a commodity to be sold, watched and forgotten. Inside it are a story that has been put together, scenes that have been designed, a camera that chooses a point of view, light and colour that shape the atmosphere, sound that unsettles or steers emotion, and an editing rhythm that determines how the audience experiences the story. There are also ideas and social issues conveyed through those creative choices. None of this can be read just by looking at a graph of ticket sales.
Box office starts from the people who watch and buy tickets. Those who read films, on the other hand, actually get paid ☺, because they are required to pay attention to how the work is built. The two can bond. Ideally, a film sells well and is also recognised for its artistic achievement. But such a combination is still rare. There are films that sell well and earn artistic recognition, ones that sell well without it, and others praised at festivals whose audiences can be counted on the fingers of one hand. So why force them to be the same?
The market has its own calculations, festivals have their own considerations. Box office belongs to the realm of distribution and business, while festivals provide a space to assess a film’s achievement as a work. The two can meet, and they can also produce different judgements. And that is not a problem. Not every film has to sell well to win artistic recognition, just as not every award-winning film has to succeed in the market.
So, no need to mix everything up! “Box office is not a tool for reading films, and reading films is not a way of counting ticket sales”. Each has its own domain and both are needed in the film ecosystem. Ticket sales may be celebrated, artistic achievement deserves to be discussed. But let’s not get so busy counting how many people watched that we forget to look at what a film actually has to offer.