‘Black Market’ Sets Guinness World Record for Largest Single-Location Film Screening in Lagos
Nollywood has entered the Guinness World Records after crime thriller Black Market drew 51,000 attendees to a single screening at Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) in Lagos, setting a new record for the largest attendance at a film screening in a single location.
The record-breaking screening took place on Saturday evening, September 26, 2026, with gates opening at 2pm and long queues forming around TBS throughout the day as movie lovers arrived ahead of the event. A red-carpet session followed around 3pm, before the main screening got under way between roughly 7pm and 8:30pm. Guinness World Records officially confirmed the feat during the event, recognising 51,000 attendees as meeting the qualifying criteria for the record, surpassing the previous benchmark of 43,624 people set during a 2015 screening of the Filipino biographical film Felix Manalo at the Philippine Arena.
Lagos State Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat had earlier suggested that around 64,000 people attended the event overall, though Guinness World Records clarified that its official qualifying count of 51,000 was based specifically on attendees who remained present from the beginning to the end of the film. Distributor FilmOne Entertainment celebrated the achievement in a statement posted to social media following confirmation of the record. “We’ve officially set a WORLD RECORD for the Largest Audience Gathering Ever for a Movie Screening,” the statement read, adding, “Nigeria, we didn’t just watch a movie. WE MADE HISTORY.”
The event drew a mix of government officials and Nollywood stars to TBS, including Deputy Governor Hamzat, Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture Toke Benson, and cast members Lateef Adedimeji, Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman, Kunle Remi, Stan Nze, Gabriel Afolayan, Kunle Afolayan, Scarlet Gomez, Omowunmi Dada, Uzor Arukwe, Ibrahim Yekini (known as Itele D Icon), Susan Pwajok, Teniola Aladese, Taye Arimoro and Mike Afolarin. The gathering also featured music, food, games and other entertainment activities alongside the screening itself.
Black Market follows a group of market women running a cross-border fuel-smuggling operation, whose lives take a dangerous turn after the daughter of one of them is kidnapped. The film was directed by Fatimah Binta Gimsay, co-written by Gimsay and Abdul Tijani-Ahmed, and produced by Nora Awolowo, through a collaboration between Rixel Studios, Signet Ring Studios, Switch Visuals Production and FilmOne Studios, which also distributed the film, with additional support from the Lagos State Government through its Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. Gimsay had previously disclosed that setting a Guinness World Record was an explicit goal she and her team had set for the project from the outset.
The achievement adds to a growing list of Guinness World Records held by Nigerians in recent years, following celebrity chef Hilda Baci’s third title earlier this year for preparing the world’s largest serving of rice. For an industry that has spent years working to bring Nigerian stories to increasingly larger audiences, Black Market’s record-setting premiere has turned its own audience into part of the story, marking what many in the industry are describing as a landmark moment for Nollywood on the global stage.
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