100 Most Popular Foreign Films of 2018 + the Oscar Hopefuls!
Tuesday, December 18, 2018 at 2:20PM Our year in review party begins TODAY. A different list each day! Here's Nathaniel R...
Time for an annual look back at subtitled fare in cinemas. As with 2017 and the year before India, China, Mexico, and South Korea dominate with a smattering of Oscar contenders and random other countries faring much less well in the American marketplace. Much of the imbalance is due to dedicated distributors who saw a underserved market and focus specifically on it. Here in Manhattan, it's interesting to watch how this plays out. Generally speaking some big multiplexes reserve one or two screens for super specific distributors (Bollywood and mainstream Asian features for example are often at the Empire in Times Square which has 25 screens). Meanwhile the traditional "arthouse theaters" continue to rely on the decades-long practice of programming festival hits, docs, and arthouse style cinema which leans heavily European with a few buzzy Asian titles thrown in; in other words they're Oscar-aligned in their tastes.
For the purposes of the following list we skipped documentaries and animated films to keep the list more focused (and avoid arguments about dubbed versions or whatnot). The numbers are pulled from Box Office Mojo.
TOP 100 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS FOR 2018
Domestic Box Office Grosses Only - Figures as of March 2nd, 2019
The $1 Million Plus Club
(The Success Stories)
01 Padmaavat $11.8 (India) Jan 25th
This lux nearly 3 hour medieval epic is about an ambitious Sultan who becomes obsessed with a beautiful Queen. Available to stream on Amazon Prime.
02 Sanju $7.9 (India) June 29th
Biopic of a famous controversial actor. Available to stream on Netflix.
