Now this is a surprise! While the jump in people exploring Home Entertainment releases isn’t that shocking, it’s been revealed that Todd Phillip‘s Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix, took home over 1.4 million transactions on disc and digital (including digital EST and rental), beating the likes of Frozen 2, Jumanji: The Next Level and 1917 to the top spot.

British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) manage this list which, in context, looks at how the transactional home entertainment market (inclusive of physical and digital sales and digital rentals) has boomed as audiences sought out viewing movies in new ways.

I’m particularly impressed over the increased in 4K UHD titles and the spend there, plus the increase in the use of Blu-ray over DVD is superb, it’s just a much higher quality. It’s also good to see the classic boxset titles still making their mark on the industry, with the likes of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings offering their Complete Collections with impressive abundance.

Love a good breakdown of stats, like I do? Here’s a fancy full run-down:

• Video category now worth £3.3 billion, up 26% from 2019
• Consumers spent £194 million on digital film downloads, up 16% from 2019
• For the first time ever, over 56% of transactional copies were digital
• More than £21 million was spent on 564 4K UHD titles. The top 3 best-selling titles were Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker, Joker and 1917
• More than 30.8 million VOD digital rental transactions (1) – the top 3 titles were Joker, Jumanji: The Next Level and Knives Out
• 5.7 million copies of TV titles sold on disc
• Consumers spent over £80 million on catalogue TV Content on disc – the top 3 best-selling titles were Game of Thrones: Complete 8th Season, The Crown: Season 1 & 2 and Chernobyl
• Best-selling title JOKER sees more than 1.4 million transactions on disc and digital (including digital EST and rental)
• Four titles exceeded a million copies – Joker, Frozen 2, Jumanji: The Next Level and 1917 – while the entire top 15 titles each sold over 500,000(2)
• The most-searched title on FindAnyFilm.com was Summerland (Rent for £1.99 now!)
• High value box sets thrived this year, with the top three best-sellers The Harry Potter Complete Collection, IT & IT Chapter Two and Jumanji & Jumanji Next Level, while franchise collections Star Wars: Skywalker Saga, Harry Potter Complete Collection and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy generated the most cash
• 51% of box set spend was from Blu-ray formats, up from 36% in 2019 and 56% of this was on content worth more than £30

[1: First 9 months of the year – data covers January – end of September; 2: Based on Disc, EST and TVOD sales]

We’re not done yet! The Top 5 best-sellers across physical and digital formats by genre were:

· HORROR: It: Chapter Two, Zombieland: Double Tap, Doctor Sleep, The Invisible Man, Us

· SCI-FI: Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker, Terminator: Dark Fate, Tenet, Gemini Man, Avengers: Endgame

· COMEDY: Last Christmas, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Love Actually, Jojo Rabbit, Yesterday

· FAMILY: Frozen 2, Onward, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Trolls World Tour, Dolittle

· DRAMA: Downton Abbey: The Movie, Le Mans ’66, Knives Out, Rocketman, Little Women (2019)

· MUSICAL: The Greatest Showman, Cats, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Grease

· DOCUMENTARY: Apollo 11, They Shall Not Grow Old, Finding Jack Charlton, Diego Maradona, Seven Worlds One Planet

And these the numbers for disc-only:

· SPORT: Champions: Liverpool Football Club, The End Of The Storm, Joe Wicks: The Body Coach Workout, Everton: Howard’s Way, Joe Wicks: Lean In 15 – Workouts

· TV: Game of Thrones: Complete 8th Season, The Crown: Season One & Two, The Crown: Season Three, Chernobyl, Mrs Brown’s Boys: Merry Mishaps ·

KIDS NON-FILM: The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Paw Patrol Ultimate Rescue, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, The Snail and the Whale, Paw Patrol Ready Race Rescue