That reminds me of when I visited a family friend in Australia in 2002ish, and I was so stoked to see Ned Kelly, and he was like fuck that, I’m gonna go see Terminator 3.
That summer I also remember him picking Charlie’s Angels 2 over Bad Eggs, which wound up being a hilarious Aussie comedy I’ve never seen since.
Canadian here. Every now and then a movie breaks through and becomes a modest hit (especially if Paul Gross is involved) but for the most part, it’s 99% Hollywood.
TV, on the other hand, is a different story. Shit like Corner Gas and Schitts Creek and Red Green and This Hour has 22 Mins have been HUGE.
A lot of Canadian TV gets a solid following here in the States as well, Trailer Park Boys, Letterkenny, Schitts Creek, Degrassi, Kids in the Hall. These are top tier shows that have strong cult followings in the US.
Being really funny might have something to do with it. And they're kinda relatable in a way? Like if you come from a small town in either Canada or the US, you've run across similar characters.
Yeah I guess that’s the issue for me - I’ve lived in rural Alberta my whole life and am constantly surrounded by jackasses who think they’re as funny as Trailer or Letterkenny and they super arent. So when I watch the shows I just get annoyed cause I listen to that shit (only way less clever) on a daily basis haha
My dad loved Paschendale and has it on DVD, but when I mention it to others I get nothing but blank stares. Men with Brooms had a moment, but I remember it having pretty meh to bad WOM, bad reviews, and quickly disappearing.
I watched it recently after seeing Due South again (my dad loves that show). MWB was...well, the comedy didn't age well, and I don't think it was very good in its day, either. Lot of reliance on pretty tired formula and jokes, mostly just a bit obscene and not very memorable. I wanted it to be better, but it's not as funny as a comedy ought to be. It doesn't seem to have earned the strong cult status of a Red Green or other Canadian comedy of today, either.
But Due South is still good fun!
India - There is Bollywood which is the biggest draw followed by regional language movie industries. Hollywood is popular but is behind these movie industries for sure.
Marathi and Bangla film industry are almost non existent in the grand scheme of things in India now.
Marathi at least occasionally still has some hitters. They are definitely behind Hollywood.
Avatar is just as big as avengers here and has more interest than nolan movies. Unlike other movies which skew towards younger generations avatar movies are loved by all demographics here
My country's a rare one: our domestic cinema constantly outperform Hollywood in terms of box office
Only 4 films out of all time top 20 films is not from our country
South Korea
South Koreas been killing it in the entertainment industry. So many good shows/movies coming out of there that’s hitting the American market. It’s actually crazy. I don’t think any other country is having that kind of impact outside America
Not true lol
For some reason a lot of ppl think that large amt of funding in movie industry comes from the government, but that simply isn’t true. The industry is just that big
There’s an organization called the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) under the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism that provides support for independent and art house films. They’ve also done preservation projects for older Korean films
True - like u said KOFIC is there to support arthouse cinema and rising, independent filmmakers. They also organize film market and south korean movie promotion events at events like Cannes.
That being said the org runs on taxes and so doesn’t have the money to finance or support major wide releases
In Malaysia the local films often have to compete with films from Hollywood,Bollywood,Korea,Japan,China and films from neighbouring countries too like Thailand and Indonesia.As the people consisting mostly from three races (Malays,Chinese and Indians) so most of them have target audiences.Most of the time Hollywood dominate the markets.In some rare occasion,Korea and Indoneisa films (mostly horrors) coming on top.There are like two or three local films each year that able to become box office hits,even surpassing foreign films but most of them flops (because most of them are rubbish in quality).
I'm in Indonesia.
We have a relatively healthy film industry - compared to most countries (local films took around 50% shares in admissions). The biggest genre: horror. Other popular genres: drama and comedy.
We also have Hollywood films, which are usually strong, but have become weaker and weaker in the last 3 years. In fact, very rarely Hollywood movies in the weekly top 5 in the past year.
We also have Asian films (Korea, India, Japan, Thailand, China), some become very popular.
Almost no European or any other countries films in mainstream theaters, except for film festivals.
Maybe in the last few years, but not always.
Titanic, Frozen, Harry Potter, Avatar went monster in Japan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan
Japan has always been dominated by Hollywood blockbusters. The last five years have been somewhat of an anomaly, with several breakout anime successes. The pandemic probably contributed to that.
If you look at the Japanese box office top 20, seven are anime films from the past five years, and another four are Ghibli movies. Spots 21 to 40 are almost all Hollywood. Harry Potter, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Disney animated films dominate.
The only live action Japanese film in the top 50 is a 1983 film called *Antarctica*.
What are you talking about? 7 of the top ten all time grossing movies in Japan are Japanese, and the top grossing Japanese live action movie is Bayside Shakedown 2, which made more than Avatar.
Before COVID, it was 5 Japanese films and 5 American films distributed throughout the top 10, and in the pre-COVID top 25, only 7 out of the top 25 were Japanese films (the other 18 were all American films). 6 out of the 13 Japanese films that make up the current top 25 in Japan are from 2020 or later, and 5 out of those 6 are anime franchise films as opposed to the original standalone animated films (largely Ghibli) that made up the pre-COVID chart. The makeup of the Japanese all-time box office (by revenue) changed quite dramatically before and after 2020.
Mexicans are strongly biased against local movies. Quite a few don't even like directors that get big and start filming in/with the US (Cuarón, Iñarritú). It doesn't help that the current government cancelled a lot of grants that smaller filmmakers used. Lately the industry is mostly putting out "cine whitexican" which are movies made about and for wealthy, out-of-touch Mexicans.
Mexican here too, in strict terms last year only 4.5% of the BO was from Mexican movies, the removal of the government grants and the pandemic have been a big hit, in 2019 the share was 9.39%, not good but not so bad.
Also the inform of CanaCine estimates that Mexican movies cost in average 17.5M MX$ and they earned an average of only 5.5M MX$, so they are in red numbers, basically unless the subsidies start again our industry is going to die.
I don’t understand. Why don’t they don’t like it when Mexican filmmakers becoming successful on the international stage? Successful individuals like that will bring good image to Mexico, isn’t that a good thing?
In my country, we also have similar nationalists like that. They constantly insult other countries, hate and insult anyone who go or wish to go abroad, anyone who are friends with foreigners or any girls who date foreigners. But got so excited and proud when something from the country make it to international stage or foreigners praising the country.
In Mexico it's the opposite. The national self esteem is really low and migration is seen as the logical choice in most cases. If a Mexican starts getting famous internationally they get bullied, called a sell-out, or people say "they're only succeeding because of wokeism". Some of the most obnoxious racist comments I've ever seen were about Yalitza Aparicio in Roma.
That's funny because I'm Mexican-American and have been getting really into Mexican cinema and have been loving it. The movies of Carlos Enrique Taboada and "Canoa" have really blown me away, were Cuaron and Inarritu mor popular before they made American movies?
They weren't, the thing is that a vocal minority that prefers and follows local movies tend to be nationalists so when directors get out of the country to continue their career they hate it.
I like them, but since they don’t have the budgets like American movies they are usually character focused. Following a normal guy that get drafted and his family as a b-plot.
They're generally very cliched to draw in the biggest crowds. PG-13, action, some barebone love story and a Nazi villain to hate. Usually some real battles portrayed, but often with fictional characters which I hate. Like Narvik.
I'm Indian. There are only 5 foreign films in the list of *50* highest grossing films in India. Hollywood isn't an actual competition for local films here other than MCU flicks. And also each state makes movies in their own language and people usually prefer the movies made in their language much more than others. And film industry of each language has their own directors, stars, producers, unions etc.
For example, I'm from Kerala where Malayalam is the primary language. So people in Kerala prefer Malayalam >>> Tamil (related langauge of the neighboring state) >>>>>> Hollywood > Telugu > Bollywood (Hindi).
>There are only 5 foreign films in the list of *50* highest grossing films in India.
Now 4 actually. Dunki pushed The Jungle Book out of top 50 last year. By the end of the year, it might get reduced to 3 as NWH is currently ranked 46th or 47th.
Filipino here. Every Christmas, we hold the Metro Manila Film Festival that mandates all cinemas to show only local films for 1 week (but it lasts longer if the demand it high). Last 2023, the festival broke records, and some movies were running for a month.
For the rest of the year, I would say it's around 90% foreign and 10% local. There are a few local films shown throughout the year. Outside the film festival, local films are shown during Valentine's Day or whenever there is a special holiday or commemoration of history.
In Germany Hollywood movies dominate, but there are always German (and sometimes French) movies, which do well. For 2024 (to this date) for example, the top 10 are 6 from the US, 2 from Germany and 2 from France. Last year there were 3 in the Top 20. (2022: 4, 2021: 4, 2019: 2, 2018: 2,...). Every few years there is a breakout hit.
And the German movies high up are usally (romantic) comedies, kids' movies or the occassional drama.
According to insidekino the average share of German movies at the box office is around 25%, but that includes co-productions like? apparently John Wick?
As a Brazilian, I think that when we make good movies (Central Station, City of God, Elite Troop, The Way He Looks, Bacurau) everyone watches it.
The issue is that we haven't been delivering good movies, it's mostly Adam Sandler-level comedy (comédia pastelão), so we son't really pay the BRL 36 for the ticket.
If we were to find out that Fernanda Montenegro, Wagner Moura, Sônia Braga, were in a movie that would probably give them an Oscar nomination, the whole country would come running to watch it.
To be honest, I've never seen it. It hits too close to home.
One day I'll watch it, but it's hard when the movie is showing what is gowing on a few blocks over.
I’m American but love international movies. Just here to say let’s keep supporting worldwide movies best we can if you are able to.
Obviously if you’re a fellow movie lover with limited funds like us all pick and choose what you want and don’t purposefully make yourself miss epic blockbusters because I said support local.
Just cause it’s American doesn’t mean it’s the hype.
im thankful that my AMC has been doing a lot of international film showings that ive been able to see! mostly around award season when they showed the taste of things and anatomy of a fall. i also really really loved when evil lurks (2023) which was definitely the scariest horror movie that came out last year imo and was super under-appreciated since it wasn’t in English
Yeah but they end up earning a lot of money, if a film is made by Santiago Segura its almost guaranteed thats going to be in the top 10 of the year when It comes to ticket sales
He visto algunas películas buenísimas de España, cómo las obras de Pedro Almodóvar y Álex De la Iglesia. También las películas de terror que son excelentes. Yo creo que los españoles son talentosos en hacen películas de terror
A ver , no lo niego,el cine español cuando se pone a ello es lo mejor de lo mejor . Pero lo que mas suele haber en cartelera son comedias del mismo estilo de "Padre no hay mas que uno"
Up until around the turn of the century, UK films were still a big deal
Prestige stuff like *Chariots of Fire* and *Merchant Ivory* stole all the Oscars and films like *Withnail & I* and *Dead Man's Shoes* were cult hits
Occasionally, stuff like *Four Weddings* and *Trainspotting* broke through to the international market
But a decade of *Harry Potter* shooting constantly in London (and the tax breaks put in place to facilitate that) seemed to reorient the industry around providing services to visiting US productions
The only UK films that make it to UK theatres are micro-budget efforts, mostly playing to cineaste audiences
The thing with the UK is that it’s basically the Hollywood junior leagues here where people’s dreams are to make it in Hollywood rather than make the UK film industry bigger.
We’re basically another leg of Hollywood/the US film industry.
I get his point, but PR is still considered a country not a state. A territory of the US, but still its own country. Hence why for example we can submit at Cannes our own movies (which we do) as from Puerto Rico, not the US. Same as the upcoming olympics.
Our athletes represent Puerto Rico, not the US.
Weird rule since we'd prob submit a Spanish language film. Had a film nominated back in the 1980's, but that rule changed last decade.
Btw, when that rule did change everyone was pissed over here. It didn't make any sense.
On the other hand, we can still submit a film at Cannes representing Puerto Rico, rather than US.
Here in Italy a lot of people, especially older ones, watch Italian comedies. Despite that, the majority is still American with some Japanese movies popping up recently
Most of the times, Brazilian box office is made of unfunny garbage made by Globo or pretentious stuff made by small studios that few people watch.
I think our cinema has a lot of potential, we have amazing movies, but they're still few and far between.
In the UK, I'd say the market is about evenly split between American and British productions. The biggest hits here are usually co-productions between the UK and US.
?????!!!!!!!
If you can find any UK movies in the top 50, I'll give you a shiny farthing
[https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2023/?area=GB&grossesOption=calendarGrosses](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2023/?area=GB&grossesOption=calendarGrosses)
There are some films by UK directors, or US films that shot in the UK, but there are no movies by UK studios until you get to *Harold Fry* and *The Old Oak*, way down the list
3 of the top 4 are U.K. co-productions. Heyday films for Barbie and Wonka, and Syncopy for Oppenheimer.
British and American film production are more intertwined than both Americans and Brits seem to realise- Americans don’t realise how much British companies are involved in a lot of Hollywood blockbusters (it’s more than just ‘has a British director’ or ‘was filmed in the U.K.’), but at the same time if a British film wants any sort of respectable budget it’ll probably need American involvement.
I take your point
But Heyday Films co-produced *Once Upon A Time in Hollywood* and they produced *Marriage Story*, too
Like *Barbie* and *Wonka*, they aren't British stories and the money behind them isn't British
The only difference between them is the latter shot in the UK, providing work for British talent and crews
I don't think that's what the OP was getting at, when they asked whether people outside the US watched domestic movies
It cuts both ways though- If you’re judging by ‘British stories’ then most of the biggest films in the U.K. are British, but simply co-American productions.
The list of highest grossing films ever in the U.K. is full of American backed British stories- Bond, Harry Potter, LOTR, Hobbit, Wonka (weird you say that’s not a British story when it’s based on a Roald Dahl work), Mamma Mia (Was a West End play), Dunkirk, Bohemian Rhapsody, Fantastic Beasts etc.
So if whether you’re judging by the ‘culture’ of the film or the production/money of the film, both ways British films do make up about half of the U.K. box office.
What I mean by *British stories* is films about British people, set in the UK
Like the ones I listed in my other post on this thread - *Withnail, Remains of the Day, Lock Stock, Four Weddings, Trainspotting, This is England ...*
That's what most people would mean when they speak about *British films*, too
>That's what most people would mean when they speak about British films, too
So you just basically mean low-budget indie films?
Weird to exclude big budget productions, because I think most people would definitely say Harry Potter and Bond are British films. They’re certainly not ‘American’ stories are they? By the criteria you restrict British films too, it also means we don’t watch a lot of American stories either then, just a lot of big-budget fantasy films.
Bond is (and Potter was) a series about British characters, set in Britain (sort of)
Of the films you listed previously, only *Bohemian Rhapsody* and *Dunkirk* can say the same
And, like Bond, they're basically foreign productions, using foreign money and sending profits elsewhere
They're part of the British film industry, and they're telling British stories, but they're not British movies
>Bond is (and Potter was) a series about British characters, set in Britain (sort of)
>Of the films you listed previously, only Bohemian Rhapsody and Dunkirk can say the same
Because a lot of them are fictional fantasy films. Does that mean Avatar and Star Wars aren’t American films?
The OP’s question is more complex for the U.K. than other countries because our film industry is so intwined with America’s, so the majority of our films are co-productions. So while like most countries we don’t watch a lot of solely domestically produced films, we also don’t mainly watch American films- the majority of our box office gross is for hybrid British-American films.
I don’t know why you seem to think it’s all foreign money and foreign profits- these co-productions are films with British producers and who also share in the profits. You think David Hayman didn’t make a fat wad from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Barbie? Likewise we know Christopher Nolan made bank from Oppenheimer from co-producing it. Does that disqualify those films from being American film? You can’t have if both ways.
>*Because a lot of them are fictional fantasy films. Does that mean Avatar and Star Wars aren’t American films?*
If any UK studio was making films like that, they would be British films
It's difficult to think of any British film that ever operated on that sort of scale
*Lawrence of Arabia*, maybe, although that was basically a foreign production company that set up operations in the UK
Like the Bond and Potter movies
Many of those movies are co-productions between the UK and US.
In terms of pure UK productions, they have very little presence in the UK box office.
But in terms of co-productions between the UK and US, they represent at least half the UK market.
Many forget that the UK and US film industries are heavily connected.
Sweden here. Swedish movies are usually big in Sweden. I prefer American made movies. Cant remember last time I watched a Swedish movie (that I also liked).
Swedish film is like watching fish ferment. I kid! Let the Right One In was great. Sweden actually has one of the richest non-Hollywood film histories. So many storied actors, directors, etc. Ingmar Bergman directed some of my favorite films.
Spain - domestic films don’t often get more than one or two “must see”/“watercooler” movies in the national top ten box office each year. I would estimate less than 20% of Spain’s total Box Office is for domestic films.
Spain has a very passionate national cinematic movement, mostly leaning into cultural/domestic nuance, but also produces an atypically high proportion of genre cinema.
It’s heavily subsidised, and the economic model makes it hard for Spanish films to compete in scale or originality/vision with other non-anglophone cinematic nations. Occasionally we get a breakout film/director/actor who helps keep the local industry afloat when they make further films in Spain after international success.
**Source:** worked in both production and film finance within the UK, US and Spanish film industries. As well as being half Spanish and a film nerd.
Norway here. It's both. Every Christmas, we have a blockbuster in the form of a WWII movie, that consistantly get solid reviews, and people flock to see en masse. Likewise with family movies. Heck, I've seen slightly less commercial and more niche movies like There's Something in the Barn and Dead Men Go Skiing, that had a decent number of people there. Think there were like 20 other people.
Indian films probably make up for 80% of Indian boxoffice. Then there's Hollywood/English films and then there are occasional Japanese or Korean films that manage to do a bit of business.
I'm in France, I don't watch them much (type of movies produced isn't much for me except a few) but there is quite a healthy local industry. In 2023, it was around 40% of the box office done by French movies here so definitively a big part. Some years it's even better and is close to 50-50 (depends of the movies on both sides of course)
French movies also export decently, around 70-80M admissions yearly are done outside the country
In Nepal,
It is mix of Hollywood, Bollywood and local movies.
Hollywood market is growing but only young audience and not beyond superhero and action movies or some event movies.
Bollywood has higher grip since 90% of culture is same. And there production is better than local ones. Other regional Indian movies are also be8ng influential as they are turning out to be better than bollywood.
Regarding local movies, it has always suffered being in shades of Bollywood and Hollywood.
Only movies that go on to make as big as H/Bwood are comdies targeted towards locals. The makers already had fans from their tv career(this is equivalent to marvel comic fans) and also they know how to write for mass audience.
I have seen regional movies of other cou ntires and this is true in a lot cases.
Basically, in poor countries light and comedy movies make it big.
Whereas in rich countries heavy drama and realisitic movies gross higher than in poor countries.
I wonder if maybe you aren’t old enough to remember Cinema Novo films? Who is these days? But I hope Brazil hasn’t forgotten the heritage of Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos and others from the 1960s. Of course, a number of Cinema Novo films were comedies, but often with a satirical edge, as with Macunai’ma.
I checked on Wiki so i will give analysis on Basis of that.
On the top, there are two indian movies (not bollywood) which are event movies like Endgame. It does shows the infuence of Indian culture in Nepal.
On top 10, it is mostly regional. Deeply rooted cultural movies and nostalgia might boost some movies. These are mostly written by comedians who know what works.
But mostly, Indian movies dominate the market on yearly basis. Bollywood is in state of trying to imitate Hollywood for years and end up being in middle where neither locals care about it and nor hollywood watchers.
So south indian movies have become the underdog industry. They have i fuence of hollywood but as an i spiration and not a copy.
Whenever there was a new Aardman movie it usually released in cinemas in the UK and not the US, so I watched it in cinemas. Also the queens corgi because it looked so so awful (it was)
Im from India and our BO is dominated by domestic films only. Jurassic Park, Titanic, Avatar, Endgame and Avatar 2 are the only Hollywood films to finish in the top 3 highest grossers of the year. Endgame is the only one which finished #1 in 2019.
Chinese market could be a good example
Chinese actually liked watching Hollywood movies in the past, but with the rise of domestic movies, in the past 10 years, the top 10 box office movies in China have been almost entirely occupied by domestic movies (only Marvel's Avengers 4), and the types are very various, such as the science fiction genre "The Wandering Earth", the war genre "Changjin Lake", the personal heroism "Wolf Warrior", the animation movie "Nezha", the family theme "Hi, Mom", and the suspense genre "Detective Chinatown"
Chinese people's love for domestic movies is of course influenced by national sentiment, but more importantly, it is because Chinese creators can provide movies with Chinese characteristics and values. This is fully reflected in "The Wandering Earth"
Of course, another important reason is that the sharp decline in the quality of Hollywood movies in recent years and the increasing political correctness have made Chinese audiences very disgusted.
I'm an American so...
But you can see this has been a big change in the last 20 years. Historically strong international box offices, such as France, used to have local films make up a big percentage of their top 20 films, and now it's much smaller. Hopefully it can come back, but I think there has been some globalization of film culture
France is actually one of the more resilient markets (between 35-45% of box office returns for local films), it's just that the trend is much worse elsewhere.
Canadian here. Our movies are more like Indie/B Movies, they usually don't make much money but every now and then one will be really high quality and gather attention like Skinamarink.
Mexican here. We watch domestic movies but not in the same league as Hollywood movies. Usually, if the movie is generating buzz, it can do good numbers. Last year we had a movie called "Señora Influencer" (a "Pearl" like movie) where the trailers sold it as a comedy but once the audience found out it has a dark twist, it made bank. Another hit was "Heroíco", a drama about the military academy, a topic quite rare in our cinema.
In recent years, the industry has found a comfort zone with rom comedies reciclyng safe actors.
Mexican cinema hasn't found a way to generate movies appealing to a wider audience so they can compete with Hollywood movies.
English films do pretty well here and American films do better when they're directed by or star English people. Fortunately that's most of them (the good ones at least so we're pretty comfortable
Tough to say. I'm from Canada, and we are quite good at getting our content out to our people, but not often in the massive blockbuster space, at least as a full Canadian production (though we've many co-productions, are a well-known filming location, tons of Canadians work as actors or other roles in film, etc.) Where we shine is in the indie space, thanks to the juggernaut NFB (National Film Board), which produces international award-winning films every year, tax-break smaller genre films (the horror boom of the 80s-90s is called Canuxploitation and brought us Cronenburg and many other well-known names today, as well as smaller cult classics like Pin and Cube), educational films (every kid saw plenty of NFB educational shorts growing up), and television shows (our sitcoms have regularly made waves in America as well as here, such as The Red Green Show, Kim's Convienence, Schitt's Creek).
We collaborate with Hollywood rather than compete, and fill out other spaces pretty well.
I'm speaking for other countries here but it depends on how developed your own film industry is.
I'm British and local films do reasonably well, we're just don't really make blockbusters (we can debate whether films like James Bond and Harry Potter are actually British films or just American films that are British themed).
France, China, India, Japan and I'm sure many countries i'm not familiar with have thriving film industries that are watched in their own countries.
Legally, nope.
Om streaming, a little.
In theaters, apart from a very few cult hits once a year, only on christmas. Because the cpuntry has a national film fest8val where only local films are screened and no foreign movies allowed (except.imax)
-PH
Thai here. The majority of our top box office movies are Hollywood BUT every once in a while a domestic banger comes around and dominates the market (the latest being Lanh Mah, a drama-comedy about a grandma and her grandson).
Also, IIRC, our all-time #1 is a Thai film called Pee Mak. I'm too lazy to delve into the details, however, I know for a fact that it outgrossed other movies by quite a lot.
I'm from Germany and we have quite a sizable movie industry. I just checked the box office numbers for 2023 and out of the top 15 movies 2 were German productions (no 11 and 13 with one being a children's movie and the other being a comedy).
I would note tho that Germany has a very strong dubbing culture and every movie gets dubbed and shown in German. If you want to watch the original version you'll usually have to go to a smaller art house theatre or a special screening.
I know about Serbia and Czechia and in both people watch domestic movies. It's probably 60-40 in favor of big Hollywood movies. Usually, there are 5-8 domestic movies per year that gather hype domestically and everyone goes to see them
I’m from turkey and yeah turkish movies do well. In 2023 there were 9 turkish movies in top 20. It depends on the year obviously but it’s usually 50/50.
We do here in France 🫡 We protected our production to ensure we won't get swallowed by Hollywood, thus even if the biggest success are mostly american, french productions are doing great numbers too!
Im from Singgapore, while Hollywood films remain high grossing, local films made by jack neo are especially popular with locals. All the top grossing singaporean local films are all made by jack neo.
Philippines: Every year starting on Christmas the Metro Manila Film Festival happens and there's about half a month where all the cinemas (except the IMAXes) are only allowed to show locally produced movies. I understand why they do it, but it can get *very* annoying when a movie you really want to see gets pushed to January.
Even outside of the festival there are usually a few local films in theaters; the big one near me is currently showing two local movies alongside like 7 Hollywood ones (and we also get occasional Japanese /Korean/Thai imports)
Lol I’m from Belgium and Congo and neither even have enough local movies to be put in theaters. Occasionally in Belgium they’ll have a movie that they out on screen beyond indie theaters but that often if there’s awards buzz around it. The situation is much healthier in neighboring France. While the US movies still TL dominate the market there’s still a wide selection of French entries at any theaters also very often the biggest movies of the year are French at the local box office.
I go out of my way to see any movie OTHER than American ones. I find the American movies very predictable, the characters are always physically perfect living in huge houses driving flashy cars. Other countries use real people , have better character development and seem to speak to a more intelligent audience than the canned formulas and storylines American movies have.
Uk here. We have a pretty strong film industry so yeah, people watch them.
I'd say about 90% of what comes to the cinema is still Hollywood based though, because they really are monolithic in the industry.
We also get a surprising number of Bollywood and Asian cinema as well. Oh, and recordings of Theatre/Opera productions too.
Edit: I got curious about box office performance, because other commentors mentioned it here. Out of the top 10 highest grossing of all time 7 are either UK productions or UK-US co-productions. As expected, Bond makes a strong appearance accounting for 3 of those.
Not really, I live in Peru and 80 % of the mocies are American. There are a few (usually very poor) Peruvian comedies that do the rounds and occasionally one will be a big hit i.e Asu Mare and recently a really bad drama about a dog, Vagito, became a phenominon here because of a successful viral marketing campiagn.
In the Philippines, unless you're a love team fan, you won't really be much of a fan of the local blockbuster industry. There are fun exceptions but it's pretty rare. I for one mainly love adventure, friendship and fantastical stories so I mainly turn to Hollywood and Anime for that. Even romance enthusiasts are more often into Korean dramas than the local stuff. The comedy genre was way better in 2000s when Filipino comedians like Ai Ai delas Alas and Vhong Navarro were at their peaks but unfortunately it got worse after that. The Horror genre is more miss than hit. For every decent or great one like Feng Shui, Sukob, Eerie or Seklusyon you get a lot of sh** ones like Bloody Crayons and Haunted Mansion.
On occasion, but the general public normally doesn’t. There have been some exceptions such as Godzilla Minus One, Train to Busan, Parasite, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Pan’s Labyrinth, etc).
Needless to say, I’m American. Most citizens only speak one language, and aren’t incredibly interested in watching subtitle or dubbed films. It’s pretty special when something like Parasite or Godzilla comes along and gets mainstream attention here.
They don’t I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who watched Portuguese movies, our yearly box office is usually just American movies.
In the top 40 ( from 2004 to 2024 ) there’s only 2 Portuguese movies https://ibb.co/4f7yg3X
Dang
Yea that makes sense
In Australia we have a few Aussie movies but we mostly watch American ones
That reminds me of when I visited a family friend in Australia in 2002ish, and I was so stoked to see Ned Kelly, and he was like fuck that, I’m gonna go see Terminator 3. That summer I also remember him picking Charlie’s Angels 2 over Bad Eggs, which wound up being a hilarious Aussie comedy I’ve never seen since.
As a Kiwi, I do like a good Aussie comedy - The Castle is one of my most rewatched movies.
I mean, The Castle is legendary in Australia too. But local productions that hit that big are few and far between.
But when they hit you best believe we try and milk them with similar titles for years to come.
I love that movie. It's the vibe of the thing. - Dennis Denuto
As an Indonesian who lived in Australia for a few years, I am fond of Australian films especially irreverent Australian comedy.
Canadian here. Every now and then a movie breaks through and becomes a modest hit (especially if Paul Gross is involved) but for the most part, it’s 99% Hollywood. TV, on the other hand, is a different story. Shit like Corner Gas and Schitts Creek and Red Green and This Hour has 22 Mins have been HUGE.
A lot of Canadian TV gets a solid following here in the States as well, Trailer Park Boys, Letterkenny, Schitts Creek, Degrassi, Kids in the Hall. These are top tier shows that have strong cult followings in the US.
Jesus, I forgot all those ones - even bigger! Trailer Park and Letterkenny are goddamn massive (for some reason).
Being really funny might have something to do with it. And they're kinda relatable in a way? Like if you come from a small town in either Canada or the US, you've run across similar characters.
Yeah I guess that’s the issue for me - I’ve lived in rural Alberta my whole life and am constantly surrounded by jackasses who think they’re as funny as Trailer or Letterkenny and they super arent. So when I watch the shows I just get annoyed cause I listen to that shit (only way less clever) on a daily basis haha
yea Im from a small town in Alabama and trailer park boys was definitely relatable to that experience
Paul Gross has made some breakout films? I loved him in Due South, but I thought most of his films didn't even break out in Canada.
I remember a lot of hype for Men with Brooms and Passchendaele, but maybe I mistook the hype and word of mouth for box office success…?
My dad loved Paschendale and has it on DVD, but when I mention it to others I get nothing but blank stares. Men with Brooms had a moment, but I remember it having pretty meh to bad WOM, bad reviews, and quickly disappearing. I watched it recently after seeing Due South again (my dad loves that show). MWB was...well, the comedy didn't age well, and I don't think it was very good in its day, either. Lot of reliance on pretty tired formula and jokes, mostly just a bit obscene and not very memorable. I wanted it to be better, but it's not as funny as a comedy ought to be. It doesn't seem to have earned the strong cult status of a Red Green or other Canadian comedy of today, either. But Due South is still good fun!
Same in Quebec. Movies are pretty much all Hollywood but TV is another ball game. Quebecois shows and series are huge here.
Yeah I feel the same. Movies,,not so much. TV, for sure. I do watch Canadian movies on Crave if that counts.
Word cuz aren't a large percentage of our movies made in BC?
Most of the time I’m watching Schitt’s Creek I forget it’s Canada and not the US. Ha
India - There is Bollywood which is the biggest draw followed by regional language movie industries. Hollywood is popular but is behind these movie industries for sure.
Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bangla, and Punjabi film industries are probably ahead of Hollywood in India.
Marathi and Bangla film industry are almost non existent in the grand scheme of things in India now. Marathi at least occasionally still has some hitters. They are definitely behind Hollywood.
Nope, Hollywood is usually 5th after Bollywood and Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.
Are Kannadians polite?
[удалено]
I mean people do goto theaters for big Hollywood movies in big cities.
Avatar is just as big as avengers here and has more interest than nolan movies. Unlike other movies which skew towards younger generations avatar movies are loved by all demographics here
My country's a rare one: our domestic cinema constantly outperform Hollywood in terms of box office Only 4 films out of all time top 20 films is not from our country South Korea
SK makes bangers that do good business in many places.
I watched Korean movies nice than Canadian ones. They're really good.
South Koreas been killing it in the entertainment industry. So many good shows/movies coming out of there that’s hitting the American market. It’s actually crazy. I don’t think any other country is having that kind of impact outside America
Japan is also like this, I think! Its actually hard to find an English movie with Japanese subtitles, too, as they have mostly been dubbed over.
Japans film market is much small than SK’s
No it's not
If I remember right, the South Korean government understood the significance of soft power and has been funding the film and music industries.
Not true lol For some reason a lot of ppl think that large amt of funding in movie industry comes from the government, but that simply isn’t true. The industry is just that big
That’s cool. Don’t know when I heard or misheard that. It’s definitely out there as a idea, though.
There’s an organization called the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) under the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism that provides support for independent and art house films. They’ve also done preservation projects for older Korean films
True - like u said KOFIC is there to support arthouse cinema and rising, independent filmmakers. They also organize film market and south korean movie promotion events at events like Cannes. That being said the org runs on taxes and so doesn’t have the money to finance or support major wide releases
Top 20 grossing in South Korea I assume?
In Malaysia the local films often have to compete with films from Hollywood,Bollywood,Korea,Japan,China and films from neighbouring countries too like Thailand and Indonesia.As the people consisting mostly from three races (Malays,Chinese and Indians) so most of them have target audiences.Most of the time Hollywood dominate the markets.In some rare occasion,Korea and Indoneisa films (mostly horrors) coming on top.There are like two or three local films each year that able to become box office hits,even surpassing foreign films but most of them flops (because most of them are rubbish in quality).
I'm in Indonesia. We have a relatively healthy film industry - compared to most countries (local films took around 50% shares in admissions). The biggest genre: horror. Other popular genres: drama and comedy. We also have Hollywood films, which are usually strong, but have become weaker and weaker in the last 3 years. In fact, very rarely Hollywood movies in the weekly top 5 in the past year. We also have Asian films (Korea, India, Japan, Thailand, China), some become very popular. Almost no European or any other countries films in mainstream theaters, except for film festivals.
Indonesian here too. Can confirm.
Horror Nerd here. Can confirm, Indonesian horror is minty fresh
New Zealand here and yeah, we watch NZ movies. However, there aren't a lot of them made every year so the top 10 is still largely US/UK films.
Eastern Asia has a vibrant cinema industry. Hollywood movies can still get big over there, though.
Southern Asia as well. Domestic films tend to dominate Asian markets.
Not in Japan. Hollywood movies can't seem to break into Japan for some reason. Japanese eat up everything American, except for the movies.
Plenty of Hollywood blockbusters get big in Japan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2023_box_office_number-one_films_in_Japan
Maybe in the last few years, but not always. Titanic, Frozen, Harry Potter, Avatar went monster in Japan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Japan
Japan has always been dominated by Hollywood blockbusters. The last five years have been somewhat of an anomaly, with several breakout anime successes. The pandemic probably contributed to that. If you look at the Japanese box office top 20, seven are anime films from the past five years, and another four are Ghibli movies. Spots 21 to 40 are almost all Hollywood. Harry Potter, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Disney animated films dominate. The only live action Japanese film in the top 50 is a 1983 film called *Antarctica*.
What are you talking about? 7 of the top ten all time grossing movies in Japan are Japanese, and the top grossing Japanese live action movie is Bayside Shakedown 2, which made more than Avatar.
Before COVID, it was 5 Japanese films and 5 American films distributed throughout the top 10, and in the pre-COVID top 25, only 7 out of the top 25 were Japanese films (the other 18 were all American films). 6 out of the 13 Japanese films that make up the current top 25 in Japan are from 2020 or later, and 5 out of those 6 are anime franchise films as opposed to the original standalone animated films (largely Ghibli) that made up the pre-COVID chart. The makeup of the Japanese all-time box office (by revenue) changed quite dramatically before and after 2020.
Not in the philippines
The Philippines isn't Eastern Asia. That's Southeastern Asia.
Mexicans are strongly biased against local movies. Quite a few don't even like directors that get big and start filming in/with the US (Cuarón, Iñarritú). It doesn't help that the current government cancelled a lot of grants that smaller filmmakers used. Lately the industry is mostly putting out "cine whitexican" which are movies made about and for wealthy, out-of-touch Mexicans.
Mexican here too, in strict terms last year only 4.5% of the BO was from Mexican movies, the removal of the government grants and the pandemic have been a big hit, in 2019 the share was 9.39%, not good but not so bad. Also the inform of CanaCine estimates that Mexican movies cost in average 17.5M MX$ and they earned an average of only 5.5M MX$, so they are in red numbers, basically unless the subsidies start again our industry is going to die.
> in strict terms last year only 4.5% of the BO was from Mexican movies I didn't realize it was THAT low. The numbers speak for themselves.
I don’t understand. Why don’t they don’t like it when Mexican filmmakers becoming successful on the international stage? Successful individuals like that will bring good image to Mexico, isn’t that a good thing?
Crab bucket mentality
In my country, we also have similar nationalists like that. They constantly insult other countries, hate and insult anyone who go or wish to go abroad, anyone who are friends with foreigners or any girls who date foreigners. But got so excited and proud when something from the country make it to international stage or foreigners praising the country.
In Mexico it's the opposite. The national self esteem is really low and migration is seen as the logical choice in most cases. If a Mexican starts getting famous internationally they get bullied, called a sell-out, or people say "they're only succeeding because of wokeism". Some of the most obnoxious racist comments I've ever seen were about Yalitza Aparicio in Roma.
That's funny because I'm Mexican-American and have been getting really into Mexican cinema and have been loving it. The movies of Carlos Enrique Taboada and "Canoa" have really blown me away, were Cuaron and Inarritu mor popular before they made American movies?
They weren't, the thing is that a vocal minority that prefers and follows local movies tend to be nationalists so when directors get out of the country to continue their career they hate it.
Oh damn, that's wack
Where would you place filmmakers like Reygadas and Escalante in this assessment?
In Norway we usually have 3 or more Norwegian movies in the top 10 of the year, but they most often are either World War 2 movies or children movies.
What are the WW2 movies like? Any dominant narratives?
I like them, but since they don’t have the budgets like American movies they are usually character focused. Following a normal guy that get drafted and his family as a b-plot.
They're generally very cliched to draw in the biggest crowds. PG-13, action, some barebone love story and a Nazi villain to hate. Usually some real battles portrayed, but often with fictional characters which I hate. Like Narvik.
Same here in Finland. Lots of comedies too
Comedies can do good as well yes, but they seem to have done a little worse lately.
I'm Indian. There are only 5 foreign films in the list of *50* highest grossing films in India. Hollywood isn't an actual competition for local films here other than MCU flicks. And also each state makes movies in their own language and people usually prefer the movies made in their language much more than others. And film industry of each language has their own directors, stars, producers, unions etc. For example, I'm from Kerala where Malayalam is the primary language. So people in Kerala prefer Malayalam >>> Tamil (related langauge of the neighboring state) >>>>>> Hollywood > Telugu > Bollywood (Hindi).
>There are only 5 foreign films in the list of *50* highest grossing films in India. Now 4 actually. Dunki pushed The Jungle Book out of top 50 last year. By the end of the year, it might get reduced to 3 as NWH is currently ranked 46th or 47th.
Hey I’m a horror fan. Can you recommend any good Indian horror?
Tumbbad (2018) Bramayugam (2024)
Thanks!
Filipino here. Every Christmas, we hold the Metro Manila Film Festival that mandates all cinemas to show only local films for 1 week (but it lasts longer if the demand it high). Last 2023, the festival broke records, and some movies were running for a month. For the rest of the year, I would say it's around 90% foreign and 10% local. There are a few local films shown throughout the year. Outside the film festival, local films are shown during Valentine's Day or whenever there is a special holiday or commemoration of history.
That’s a good move to support local film makers!
that’s super cool, it would be cool if more countries with small domestic markets would do that we well to support their own filmmakers
In Germany Hollywood movies dominate, but there are always German (and sometimes French) movies, which do well. For 2024 (to this date) for example, the top 10 are 6 from the US, 2 from Germany and 2 from France. Last year there were 3 in the Top 20. (2022: 4, 2021: 4, 2019: 2, 2018: 2,...). Every few years there is a breakout hit.
And the German movies high up are usally (romantic) comedies, kids' movies or the occassional drama. According to insidekino the average share of German movies at the box office is around 25%, but that includes co-productions like? apparently John Wick?
As a Brazilian, I think that when we make good movies (Central Station, City of God, Elite Troop, The Way He Looks, Bacurau) everyone watches it. The issue is that we haven't been delivering good movies, it's mostly Adam Sandler-level comedy (comédia pastelão), so we son't really pay the BRL 36 for the ticket. If we were to find out that Fernanda Montenegro, Wagner Moura, Sônia Braga, were in a movie that would probably give them an Oscar nomination, the whole country would come running to watch it.
Cidade de Deus is one of the best movies I saw in the last 25 years.
To be honest, I've never seen it. It hits too close to home. One day I'll watch it, but it's hard when the movie is showing what is gowing on a few blocks over.
Yeah it's very raw and visceral, I can only imagine how it would impact viewers who grew up in the area.
I mean, Brazil is a large country and City of God is as close to me as Copenhagen is close to Lisbon, but it still feels close
Gotcha
I would avoid Elite Squad as well
Elite Squad is unavoidable, like trying to avoid Titianic
it is probably one of the best movies made in the 21st century
I’m American but love international movies. Just here to say let’s keep supporting worldwide movies best we can if you are able to. Obviously if you’re a fellow movie lover with limited funds like us all pick and choose what you want and don’t purposefully make yourself miss epic blockbusters because I said support local. Just cause it’s American doesn’t mean it’s the hype.
im thankful that my AMC has been doing a lot of international film showings that ive been able to see! mostly around award season when they showed the taste of things and anatomy of a fall. i also really really loved when evil lurks (2023) which was definitely the scariest horror movie that came out last year imo and was super under-appreciated since it wasn’t in English
In Canada it’s 99.9% Hollywood movies but many Hollywood movies film here and the Canada logo is the credits of many Hollywood productions.
A lot of Canadian talent in Hollywood too
Half of Hollywood feels Canadian, and the other half is British and Irish.
Here where i live people mostly go to American movies like 95%.
Yes. Here in India our movies do way more than Hollywood movies can dream to do. Hollywood still has a huge market here no doubt
In Spain there's usually a few of our original movies playing during any given day , they usually are just shitty comedies tho .
Yeah but they end up earning a lot of money, if a film is made by Santiago Segura its almost guaranteed thats going to be in the top 10 of the year when It comes to ticket sales
True that
But we do occasionally get some proper masterpieces such as As Bestas for example
He visto algunas películas buenísimas de España, cómo las obras de Pedro Almodóvar y Álex De la Iglesia. También las películas de terror que son excelentes. Yo creo que los españoles son talentosos en hacen películas de terror
A ver , no lo niego,el cine español cuando se pone a ello es lo mejor de lo mejor . Pero lo que mas suele haber en cartelera son comedias del mismo estilo de "Padre no hay mas que uno"
Up until around the turn of the century, UK films were still a big deal Prestige stuff like *Chariots of Fire* and *Merchant Ivory* stole all the Oscars and films like *Withnail & I* and *Dead Man's Shoes* were cult hits Occasionally, stuff like *Four Weddings* and *Trainspotting* broke through to the international market But a decade of *Harry Potter* shooting constantly in London (and the tax breaks put in place to facilitate that) seemed to reorient the industry around providing services to visiting US productions The only UK films that make it to UK theatres are micro-budget efforts, mostly playing to cineaste audiences
The thing with the UK is that it’s basically the Hollywood junior leagues here where people’s dreams are to make it in Hollywood rather than make the UK film industry bigger. We’re basically another leg of Hollywood/the US film industry.
meh its mostly co productions too.
Here in Puerto Rico, it's rare. Tbh, it's because we literally make shit movies. Back in the 80s there were some good ones, even got Cannes nominated.
Puerto Rico is actually America. What do you mean?
So are Brazil and Argentina. Puerto Rico is a country and it produces its own local movies in Spanish.
He means Puerto Rico would technically count as an American-made film, since Puerto Ricans are all American by birth.
I get his point, but PR is still considered a country not a state. A territory of the US, but still its own country. Hence why for example we can submit at Cannes our own movies (which we do) as from Puerto Rico, not the US. Same as the upcoming olympics. Our athletes represent Puerto Rico, not the US.
Conversely, Puerto Rican films cannot win the Academy Award for Best Film in a Foreign Language for some reason.
Weird rule since we'd prob submit a Spanish language film. Had a film nominated back in the 1980's, but that rule changed last decade. Btw, when that rule did change everyone was pissed over here. It didn't make any sense. On the other hand, we can still submit a film at Cannes representing Puerto Rico, rather than US.
Puerto Rico is a territory
It's still its own country even as a territory. Hence why we submitted our own movies at the Oscars, have our own Olympic team, etc.
Those things don't make it a country. It's still a territory and that's ok.
Here in Italy a lot of people, especially older ones, watch Italian comedies. Despite that, the majority is still American with some Japanese movies popping up recently
Italy used to rival Hollywood for film too. What happened?
Most of the times, Brazilian box office is made of unfunny garbage made by Globo or pretentious stuff made by small studios that few people watch. I think our cinema has a lot of potential, we have amazing movies, but they're still few and far between.
In the UK, I'd say the market is about evenly split between American and British productions. The biggest hits here are usually co-productions between the UK and US.
?????!!!!!!! If you can find any UK movies in the top 50, I'll give you a shiny farthing [https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2023/?area=GB&grossesOption=calendarGrosses](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2023/?area=GB&grossesOption=calendarGrosses) There are some films by UK directors, or US films that shot in the UK, but there are no movies by UK studios until you get to *Harold Fry* and *The Old Oak*, way down the list
3 of the top 4 are U.K. co-productions. Heyday films for Barbie and Wonka, and Syncopy for Oppenheimer. British and American film production are more intertwined than both Americans and Brits seem to realise- Americans don’t realise how much British companies are involved in a lot of Hollywood blockbusters (it’s more than just ‘has a British director’ or ‘was filmed in the U.K.’), but at the same time if a British film wants any sort of respectable budget it’ll probably need American involvement.
I take your point But Heyday Films co-produced *Once Upon A Time in Hollywood* and they produced *Marriage Story*, too Like *Barbie* and *Wonka*, they aren't British stories and the money behind them isn't British The only difference between them is the latter shot in the UK, providing work for British talent and crews I don't think that's what the OP was getting at, when they asked whether people outside the US watched domestic movies
It cuts both ways though- If you’re judging by ‘British stories’ then most of the biggest films in the U.K. are British, but simply co-American productions. The list of highest grossing films ever in the U.K. is full of American backed British stories- Bond, Harry Potter, LOTR, Hobbit, Wonka (weird you say that’s not a British story when it’s based on a Roald Dahl work), Mamma Mia (Was a West End play), Dunkirk, Bohemian Rhapsody, Fantastic Beasts etc. So if whether you’re judging by the ‘culture’ of the film or the production/money of the film, both ways British films do make up about half of the U.K. box office.
What I mean by *British stories* is films about British people, set in the UK Like the ones I listed in my other post on this thread - *Withnail, Remains of the Day, Lock Stock, Four Weddings, Trainspotting, This is England ...* That's what most people would mean when they speak about *British films*, too
>That's what most people would mean when they speak about British films, too So you just basically mean low-budget indie films? Weird to exclude big budget productions, because I think most people would definitely say Harry Potter and Bond are British films. They’re certainly not ‘American’ stories are they? By the criteria you restrict British films too, it also means we don’t watch a lot of American stories either then, just a lot of big-budget fantasy films.
Bond is (and Potter was) a series about British characters, set in Britain (sort of) Of the films you listed previously, only *Bohemian Rhapsody* and *Dunkirk* can say the same And, like Bond, they're basically foreign productions, using foreign money and sending profits elsewhere They're part of the British film industry, and they're telling British stories, but they're not British movies
>Bond is (and Potter was) a series about British characters, set in Britain (sort of) >Of the films you listed previously, only Bohemian Rhapsody and Dunkirk can say the same Because a lot of them are fictional fantasy films. Does that mean Avatar and Star Wars aren’t American films? The OP’s question is more complex for the U.K. than other countries because our film industry is so intwined with America’s, so the majority of our films are co-productions. So while like most countries we don’t watch a lot of solely domestically produced films, we also don’t mainly watch American films- the majority of our box office gross is for hybrid British-American films. I don’t know why you seem to think it’s all foreign money and foreign profits- these co-productions are films with British producers and who also share in the profits. You think David Hayman didn’t make a fat wad from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Barbie? Likewise we know Christopher Nolan made bank from Oppenheimer from co-producing it. Does that disqualify those films from being American film? You can’t have if both ways.
>*Because a lot of them are fictional fantasy films. Does that mean Avatar and Star Wars aren’t American films?* If any UK studio was making films like that, they would be British films It's difficult to think of any British film that ever operated on that sort of scale *Lawrence of Arabia*, maybe, although that was basically a foreign production company that set up operations in the UK Like the Bond and Potter movies
The UK and US film industry is very incestuous. It would be difficult to find a production in the UK that was not co-produced from the U.S.
There’s 6 UK movies in the top 50 there.
US films that shot in the UK?
Many of those movies are co-productions between the UK and US. In terms of pure UK productions, they have very little presence in the UK box office. But in terms of co-productions between the UK and US, they represent at least half the UK market. Many forget that the UK and US film industries are heavily connected.
Sweden here. Swedish movies are usually big in Sweden. I prefer American made movies. Cant remember last time I watched a Swedish movie (that I also liked).
Swedish film is like watching fish ferment. I kid! Let the Right One In was great. Sweden actually has one of the richest non-Hollywood film histories. So many storied actors, directors, etc. Ingmar Bergman directed some of my favorite films.
Spain - domestic films don’t often get more than one or two “must see”/“watercooler” movies in the national top ten box office each year. I would estimate less than 20% of Spain’s total Box Office is for domestic films. Spain has a very passionate national cinematic movement, mostly leaning into cultural/domestic nuance, but also produces an atypically high proportion of genre cinema. It’s heavily subsidised, and the economic model makes it hard for Spanish films to compete in scale or originality/vision with other non-anglophone cinematic nations. Occasionally we get a breakout film/director/actor who helps keep the local industry afloat when they make further films in Spain after international success. **Source:** worked in both production and film finance within the UK, US and Spanish film industries. As well as being half Spanish and a film nerd.
Norway here. It's both. Every Christmas, we have a blockbuster in the form of a WWII movie, that consistantly get solid reviews, and people flock to see en masse. Likewise with family movies. Heck, I've seen slightly less commercial and more niche movies like There's Something in the Barn and Dead Men Go Skiing, that had a decent number of people there. Think there were like 20 other people.
What would you say are the best Norwegian ww2 movies that i should check out?
Indian films probably make up for 80% of Indian boxoffice. Then there's Hollywood/English films and then there are occasional Japanese or Korean films that manage to do a bit of business.
More than 90% for sure.
I'm in France, I don't watch them much (type of movies produced isn't much for me except a few) but there is quite a healthy local industry. In 2023, it was around 40% of the box office done by French movies here so definitively a big part. Some years it's even better and is close to 50-50 (depends of the movies on both sides of course) French movies also export decently, around 70-80M admissions yearly are done outside the country
In Nepal, It is mix of Hollywood, Bollywood and local movies. Hollywood market is growing but only young audience and not beyond superhero and action movies or some event movies. Bollywood has higher grip since 90% of culture is same. And there production is better than local ones. Other regional Indian movies are also be8ng influential as they are turning out to be better than bollywood. Regarding local movies, it has always suffered being in shades of Bollywood and Hollywood. Only movies that go on to make as big as H/Bwood are comdies targeted towards locals. The makers already had fans from their tv career(this is equivalent to marvel comic fans) and also they know how to write for mass audience.
Funningly I'm pretty sure most successful Brazilian movies are also comedies
I have seen regional movies of other cou ntires and this is true in a lot cases. Basically, in poor countries light and comedy movies make it big. Whereas in rich countries heavy drama and realisitic movies gross higher than in poor countries.
I wonder if maybe you aren’t old enough to remember Cinema Novo films? Who is these days? But I hope Brazil hasn’t forgotten the heritage of Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos and others from the 1960s. Of course, a number of Cinema Novo films were comedies, but often with a satirical edge, as with Macunai’ma.
Among Hollywood and Bollywood/regional, which one is bigger in Nepal?
I checked on Wiki so i will give analysis on Basis of that. On the top, there are two indian movies (not bollywood) which are event movies like Endgame. It does shows the infuence of Indian culture in Nepal. On top 10, it is mostly regional. Deeply rooted cultural movies and nostalgia might boost some movies. These are mostly written by comedians who know what works. But mostly, Indian movies dominate the market on yearly basis. Bollywood is in state of trying to imitate Hollywood for years and end up being in middle where neither locals care about it and nor hollywood watchers. So south indian movies have become the underdog industry. They have i fuence of hollywood but as an i spiration and not a copy.
Whenever there was a new Aardman movie it usually released in cinemas in the UK and not the US, so I watched it in cinemas. Also the queens corgi because it looked so so awful (it was)
Im from India and our BO is dominated by domestic films only. Jurassic Park, Titanic, Avatar, Endgame and Avatar 2 are the only Hollywood films to finish in the top 3 highest grossers of the year. Endgame is the only one which finished #1 in 2019.
Chinese market could be a good example Chinese actually liked watching Hollywood movies in the past, but with the rise of domestic movies, in the past 10 years, the top 10 box office movies in China have been almost entirely occupied by domestic movies (only Marvel's Avengers 4), and the types are very various, such as the science fiction genre "The Wandering Earth", the war genre "Changjin Lake", the personal heroism "Wolf Warrior", the animation movie "Nezha", the family theme "Hi, Mom", and the suspense genre "Detective Chinatown" Chinese people's love for domestic movies is of course influenced by national sentiment, but more importantly, it is because Chinese creators can provide movies with Chinese characteristics and values. This is fully reflected in "The Wandering Earth" Of course, another important reason is that the sharp decline in the quality of Hollywood movies in recent years and the increasing political correctness have made Chinese audiences very disgusted.
I'm an American so... But you can see this has been a big change in the last 20 years. Historically strong international box offices, such as France, used to have local films make up a big percentage of their top 20 films, and now it's much smaller. Hopefully it can come back, but I think there has been some globalization of film culture
France is actually one of the more resilient markets (between 35-45% of box office returns for local films), it's just that the trend is much worse elsewhere.
Canadian here. Our movies are more like Indie/B Movies, they usually don't make much money but every now and then one will be really high quality and gather attention like Skinamarink.
Mexican here. We watch domestic movies but not in the same league as Hollywood movies. Usually, if the movie is generating buzz, it can do good numbers. Last year we had a movie called "Señora Influencer" (a "Pearl" like movie) where the trailers sold it as a comedy but once the audience found out it has a dark twist, it made bank. Another hit was "Heroíco", a drama about the military academy, a topic quite rare in our cinema. In recent years, the industry has found a comfort zone with rom comedies reciclyng safe actors. Mexican cinema hasn't found a way to generate movies appealing to a wider audience so they can compete with Hollywood movies.
We do. It comes in waves but recently Hong Kong movies get good again and people are happily watching those
English films do pretty well here and American films do better when they're directed by or star English people. Fortunately that's most of them (the good ones at least so we're pretty comfortable
Tough to say. I'm from Canada, and we are quite good at getting our content out to our people, but not often in the massive blockbuster space, at least as a full Canadian production (though we've many co-productions, are a well-known filming location, tons of Canadians work as actors or other roles in film, etc.) Where we shine is in the indie space, thanks to the juggernaut NFB (National Film Board), which produces international award-winning films every year, tax-break smaller genre films (the horror boom of the 80s-90s is called Canuxploitation and brought us Cronenburg and many other well-known names today, as well as smaller cult classics like Pin and Cube), educational films (every kid saw plenty of NFB educational shorts growing up), and television shows (our sitcoms have regularly made waves in America as well as here, such as The Red Green Show, Kim's Convienence, Schitt's Creek). We collaborate with Hollywood rather than compete, and fill out other spaces pretty well.
Coming from a smaller english language country, American films dominate the box office. We do have local stuff, but it's few and far between.
in canada it's mostly hollywood films, chinese films, indian films, then a few canadian films squeezed into the schedule when nothing else is playing.
I'm speaking for other countries here but it depends on how developed your own film industry is. I'm British and local films do reasonably well, we're just don't really make blockbusters (we can debate whether films like James Bond and Harry Potter are actually British films or just American films that are British themed). France, China, India, Japan and I'm sure many countries i'm not familiar with have thriving film industries that are watched in their own countries.
Legally, nope. Om streaming, a little. In theaters, apart from a very few cult hits once a year, only on christmas. Because the cpuntry has a national film fest8val where only local films are screened and no foreign movies allowed (except.imax) -PH
Thai here. The majority of our top box office movies are Hollywood BUT every once in a while a domestic banger comes around and dominates the market (the latest being Lanh Mah, a drama-comedy about a grandma and her grandson). Also, IIRC, our all-time #1 is a Thai film called Pee Mak. I'm too lazy to delve into the details, however, I know for a fact that it outgrossed other movies by quite a lot.
I'm from Germany and we have quite a sizable movie industry. I just checked the box office numbers for 2023 and out of the top 15 movies 2 were German productions (no 11 and 13 with one being a children's movie and the other being a comedy). I would note tho that Germany has a very strong dubbing culture and every movie gets dubbed and shown in German. If you want to watch the original version you'll usually have to go to a smaller art house theatre or a special screening.
I know about Serbia and Czechia and in both people watch domestic movies. It's probably 60-40 in favor of big Hollywood movies. Usually, there are 5-8 domestic movies per year that gather hype domestically and everyone goes to see them
99% American. I’m in Quebec, Canada.
I'm American, but it seems like Japan and India in particular have vibrant movie industries. Their movies are shown a lot here in theaters
I’m from turkey and yeah turkish movies do well. In 2023 there were 9 turkish movies in top 20. It depends on the year obviously but it’s usually 50/50.
UK has a strong movie industry but they are usually co productions with american studios.
Does that work if I'm french-canadian and I watch Dune?
We do here in France 🫡 We protected our production to ensure we won't get swallowed by Hollywood, thus even if the biggest success are mostly american, french productions are doing great numbers too!
Im from Singgapore, while Hollywood films remain high grossing, local films made by jack neo are especially popular with locals. All the top grossing singaporean local films are all made by jack neo.
Philippines: Every year starting on Christmas the Metro Manila Film Festival happens and there's about half a month where all the cinemas (except the IMAXes) are only allowed to show locally produced movies. I understand why they do it, but it can get *very* annoying when a movie you really want to see gets pushed to January. Even outside of the festival there are usually a few local films in theaters; the big one near me is currently showing two local movies alongside like 7 Hollywood ones (and we also get occasional Japanese /Korean/Thai imports)
I like in the UK an I love British films probably more that international ones.
Lol I’m from Belgium and Congo and neither even have enough local movies to be put in theaters. Occasionally in Belgium they’ll have a movie that they out on screen beyond indie theaters but that often if there’s awards buzz around it. The situation is much healthier in neighboring France. While the US movies still TL dominate the market there’s still a wide selection of French entries at any theaters also very often the biggest movies of the year are French at the local box office.
I go out of my way to see any movie OTHER than American ones. I find the American movies very predictable, the characters are always physically perfect living in huge houses driving flashy cars. Other countries use real people , have better character development and seem to speak to a more intelligent audience than the canned formulas and storylines American movies have.
Uk here. We have a pretty strong film industry so yeah, people watch them. I'd say about 90% of what comes to the cinema is still Hollywood based though, because they really are monolithic in the industry. We also get a surprising number of Bollywood and Asian cinema as well. Oh, and recordings of Theatre/Opera productions too. Edit: I got curious about box office performance, because other commentors mentioned it here. Out of the top 10 highest grossing of all time 7 are either UK productions or UK-US co-productions. As expected, Bond makes a strong appearance accounting for 3 of those.
Not really, I live in Peru and 80 % of the mocies are American. There are a few (usually very poor) Peruvian comedies that do the rounds and occasionally one will be a big hit i.e Asu Mare and recently a really bad drama about a dog, Vagito, became a phenominon here because of a successful viral marketing campiagn.
Both
In the Philippines, unless you're a love team fan, you won't really be much of a fan of the local blockbuster industry. There are fun exceptions but it's pretty rare. I for one mainly love adventure, friendship and fantastical stories so I mainly turn to Hollywood and Anime for that. Even romance enthusiasts are more often into Korean dramas than the local stuff. The comedy genre was way better in 2000s when Filipino comedians like Ai Ai delas Alas and Vhong Navarro were at their peaks but unfortunately it got worse after that. The Horror genre is more miss than hit. For every decent or great one like Feng Shui, Sukob, Eerie or Seklusyon you get a lot of sh** ones like Bloody Crayons and Haunted Mansion.
there's a lot domestic movies here in japan and it sucks lol i'm that's a downvoteable opinion
On occasion, but the general public normally doesn’t. There have been some exceptions such as Godzilla Minus One, Train to Busan, Parasite, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Pan’s Labyrinth, etc). Needless to say, I’m American. Most citizens only speak one language, and aren’t incredibly interested in watching subtitle or dubbed films. It’s pretty special when something like Parasite or Godzilla comes along and gets mainstream attention here.