Funke Akindele and Tunde Olaoye have emerged as the top-performing Nollywood directors in Nigeria’s 2025 box-office ranking, with their films recording a combined ₦1.320 billion during the year.
The ranking was reported on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, following data released by StatiSense and drawn from the 2025 Nigeria Box Office Yearbook, which tracks theatrical performances using Comscore data.
The yearbook uses December 31, 2025, as its cut-off date, meaning the figures in the ranking represent box-office earnings recorded during the 2025 calendar year rather than the eventual lifetime earnings of films that continued their cinema runs into 2026.
Akindele and Olaoye’s leading position was driven principally by Behind The Scenes, which the yearbook records as earning exactly ₦1,320,795,889.67 at the Nigerian box office by Wednesday, December 31, 2025.
The film was released nationwide on Friday, December 12, 2025, and recorded an opening-weekend gross of ₦178,550,380.
The yearbook ranks Behind The Scenes as the highest-grossing Nollywood release of 2025, ahead of Gingerrr, which recorded ₦522,909,952.49, and Oversabi Aunty, which earned ₦480,133,936.40 within the same reporting period.
The performance also placed Behind The Scenes third on the yearbook’s list of the top 50 Nigerian box-office releases of all time as at Wednesday, December 31, 2025.
Only Everybody Loves Jenifa*, with ₦1,882,549,547.79, and A Tribe Called Judah, with ₦1,408,277,540.55, ranked above it on that year-end list.
The yearbook further records that Behind The Scenes crossed the ₦1 billion mark in 19 days, making it the fastest film in West Africa to reach the milestone according to the yearbook’s stand-out marketing section.
The director ranking places Adebayo Tijani second with films that generated ₦1.159 billion, while Tope Adebayo ranked third with ₦852 million.
Yehi Morafa followed in fourth place with ₦522 million, while Toyin Abraham-Ajeyemi occupied fifth position with ₦480 million.
Kayode Kasum ranked sixth with ₦422 million, followed by Muyiwa Ademola with ₦419 million, Biodun Stephen with ₦341 million, Adeoluwa Owu with ₦248 million and Daniel Etim Effiong with ₦193 million.
The top 10 directors were attached to films that collectively generated at least ₦5.97 billion at the Nigerian box office in 2025.
Beyond the director ranking, the 2025 yearbook records Behind The Scenes as a 12A-rated comedy-drama distributed by FilmOne.
The film’s strong performance also extended beyond Nigeria, with the yearbook recording a £144,348 cumulative gross in the United Kingdom and Ireland for its December 12, 2025 release.
The yearbook describes the film’s marketing campaign as including a colourful premiere, outdoor advertising across cities, LED screens, lamp-post campaigns, branded public buses, in-cinema activations and nationwide cast meet-and-greet activities.
It also records Behind The Scenes among the productions that demonstrated the importance of sustained audience interest beyond opening weekend.
The film’s 2025 result, however, should not be confused with its eventual lifetime box-office earnings, because the production continued earning money after the yearbook’s Wednesday, December 31 cut-off.
The October 7, 2026 ranking therefore refers specifically to 2025 calendar-year performance, with ₦1,320,795,889.67 being the verified year-end gross attached to Behind The Scenes.
The achievement places Akindele and Olaoye at the centre of another strong year for Nollywood’s theatrical market and highlights the growing commercial strength of locally produced films at the Nigerian box office.
