"Parasite" and the other most popular foreign film hits of our lifetimes.

by Nathaniel R

In lieu of the traditional box office charts for the holiday weekend, it's time to marvel yet again at how leggy Parasite (2019) continues to be. After its Oscar win a week ago it doubled its screen count and is expected to take in over $5 million this weekend once the actual money has been counted. So let's take a look at the very biggest international hits since box office stats began to be a commonly reported thing. Which foreign films were the all time biggest hits (since the late 80s)? For clarity we're talking about films that weren't in English but also weren't from the US which removes Mel Gibson's weird dead language projects like Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto, Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima, and the recent Lulu Wang hit The Farewell among a few others. 

THE 25 HIGHEST-GROSSING INTERNATIONAL
FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILMS
IN DOMESTIC RELEASE (1987-2019)

01 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Taiwan, 2000) $128
10 Oscar nominations including Best Picture. 4 wins. There will never be another subtitled hit as big as this one but what a glorious film to find up top. 

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Did you see any movies over Oscar weekend?

This past weekend's box office results suggest that a lot of people were trying to catch up on Oscar nominees before the big show. Here are all the titles still in wide release and their counterparts in limited release...

Weekend Box Office February 7th-9th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
Margot Robbie in "Birds of Prey"	Oscar WINNING Short Film "Hair Love"
1 🔺 BIRDS OF PREY  $33 *NEW* REVIEW	1 🔺 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORTS $870k on 535  screens (cum. $2.7) REVIEW,  THE CHARTS ★
2 BAD BOYS FOR LIFE  $12 (cum. $166.3)	2 THE LAST FULL MEASURE $214k on 617 screens (cum. $2.5)

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Weekend Box Office

It was a quiet weekend at the box office with both new wide releases (horror film Gretel and Hansel and revenge thriller The Rhythm Section) opening softly, apart from a few noteworthy monetary marks for indie films...

Weekend Box Office January 31st through February 2nd (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
"Gretel and Hansel"	Oscar Nominated Short Film "Hair Love"
1 BAD BOYS FOR LIFE  $17.6 (cum. $148)	1 🔺 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS $1.0 on 460  screens *NEW* THE CHARTS ★
2 1917  $9.6 (cum. $119.2) THE ACTING,  CONTINUOUS SHOT ★	2 THE LAST FULL MEASURE $519k on 617 screens (cum. $2.0)
3 DOLITTLE $7.7 (cum. $55.2) THIS ODD FRANCHISE	3 WEATHERING WITH YOU $405k on 224 screens (cum. $7.2) REVIEW  ★

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What did you see this weekend?

Parasite was astonishingly up 16% in its 16th weekend getting its third wind or so now as we approach Oscar night. 1917 has passed the $100 million mark and Little Women is almost there, too, both dropping less than 30% this weekend five weeks into their run. In short: they're all quite popular which is good news for the Oscars coming in early February. 

Weekend Box Office January 17th-20th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
1 BAD BOYS FOR LIFE  $34 (cum. $120.6)	1 🔺   THE LAST FULL MEASURE $1.0 on 614  screens *NEW*

2 🔺  1917  $15.8 (cum. $103.8) CONTINUOUS SHOT, GLOBE VICTORIES ★	2 WEATHERING WITH YOU $693k on 458 screens (cum. $6.5) REVIEW  ★

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"Bad Boys for Life" and audiences check out those BP nominees

The box office report comes real late this week since it takes a while for the coins to settle after holiday weekends. But here we go with the long weekend estimates (which probably aren't all in).

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are both in their 50s but there's no aging out of action franchises (as we saw with Hamilton & Schwarzenegger last summer in Terminator Dark Fate). The first Bad Boys arrived in 1995 as an instant smash and its sequel waited until 2003 but audiences haven't fallen out of love in the long gaps. They came back in droves 17 years later for round three.

Since this was the first weekend after the Oscar nominations and most of the Best Picture nominees (re) expanded their screen counts, let's check in with EVERYTHING in wide release... and their counterparts in platforming.

Weekend Box Office January 17th-20th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
1 🔺  BAD BOYS FOR LIFE  $73.4 *NEW*	1 🔺   WEATHERING WITH YOU $1.7 on 486 screens *NEW* REVIEW  ★

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