foreign-language successes this year include Wadjda (£387,000), No (£346,000), Populaire (£343,000) and Lore (£300,000), but overall it hasn't been a strong year for foreign films. In 2012, Untouchable, Headhunters and The Raid all cleared £1m.

The Great Beauty benefited from a Sleeper award from the British Film Institute's Distribution Fund, a relatively recent innovation devised to help specialised titles reach a wider audience throughout the regions, and only bestowed after the opening weekend has already demonstrated proven appetite for a film. In the case of The Great Beauty, it has helped sustain advertising spend, as well as an expansion from the initial 25 sites.

The survivor

Back in the top 10 (up from number 15) in its 12th week of release, Monsters University continues its solidly achieving run after a wobblystart. With £29.77m so far, the animated prequel has achieved a hefty 8.6 times its £3.46m opening tally – definitely the highest multiple for any of this summer's major releases. In the all-time league table for animation, Monsters University has recently overtaken Shrek (£29m), A Bug's Life (£29.45m), Chicken Run (£29.51m) and Ice Age 2 (£29.61m). It's the sixth most successful Pixar film of all time at the UK box office, behind Toy Story 3, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc, Finding Nemo and Up.

The future

Despite the current box-office doldrums, takings are in fact only 11% down on the equivalent weekend from 2012, when Looper arrived at the chart summit with £2.43m. Now cinemas are pinning hopes on Proclaimers musical Sunshine on Leith, which may not be in the