Films about the antics of toys, plasticine chickens, mice, mutants and an orphaned dinosaur helped pull the biggest crowds for more than a quarter of a century into British cinemas in 2000.
A largely "feelgood" diet of bland family entertainment angled towards the young attracted more than 143m people, according to provisional figures yesterday. Ticket sales between January and November were 2.2% up on last year and the trend is thought to have continued last month.
While only one British-made film, Billy Elliot, reached the top 10 in its own country, three others - Peter Lord and Nick Park's Chicken Run, Sam Mendes' American Beauty and Danny Boyle's The Beach - had British directors. The film-going public was higher than in any year since 1974 - shortly after the UK's long postwar cinema-going boom began to collapse under the assault of television. At its lowest, in 1984, admissions sank to 54m.
The figure comes from the Cinema Advertising Association, which monitors all UK cinema admissions. It confirms a recovery dating from the late 1980s and continued through the 1990s.
The force behind the recovery is that cinemas are recapturing their "lost" audiences of thirtysomethings.
People who began seeing films as youngsters in the 1980s have kept the habit according to Samantha Newsom, an association research executive
"That would probably not have happened 10 years ago," she said. "Also, 15- to 24-year-olds are still going in large numbers, despite all the other interests they have these days.
"You go with your mates, it's something you plan to do and, at an average ticket price of £4 a head, it's something you can still afford to do on a night when you can't afford to go clubbing."
The year's top five films were: 1. Toy Story 2 (US, with British gross takings of £43.5m): 2. Gladiator (US, £31m): 3. Chicken Run (UK-US, £29.3m): 4. American Beauty (US, £21.3m): 5. Stuart Little (US, £17.8).
For the British magazine Screen International yesterday, the big surprise was the success of Stuart Little, about "the adventures of a heroic and debonair mouse with human qualities".
It narrowly beat the hugely hyped, special effect-based Mission: Impossible 2 to fifth place. Among the other top five, Chicken Run - with an almost entirely British cast apart from Mel Gibson - is "a comedy escape drama with a touch of passion set on a sinister Yorkshire chicken farm in 1950s England".
Toy Story is about a toy called Woody who is stolen by a collector and rescued by his comrades Mr Potato Head and Slinky Dog. X-Men, in eighth place, is about the "high kinks" of mutant children. Dinosaur, in 10th, is the story of "an orphaned donosaur raised by lemurs after a meteorite shower".
In 1974 - the last time cinema attendance figures reached 143m - the top five was dominated by adult films. The films were 1. The Sting: 2. The Exorcist: 3. Bruce Lee's Kung Fu film Enter the Dragon 4. The Three Musketeers 5. Papillon.
In 1973 attendances were 142m - one of the first horrendous postwar drops on the 1972 figure of 163m.
Ms Newsom said that, while this year's top 10 films were mainly aimed at younger audiences, the rest of the list contained "a good solid core: of films aimed at older people".
The British trend runs counter to the US, where box office takings are reportedly 17% down on last year and critics have complained of "a relentless assault of lousy movies". Blockbusters such as The Perfect Storm were box office disappointments.
