100 Biggest Foreign Language Hits of 2017

Our year in review party begins. A different list each day. Here's Nathaniel R...

In the Fade didnt risk release in 2017 after all, hoping for Oscar favor to buoy its release in 2018Time for an annual look back at subtitled fare in cinemas. As with last year's list India, China, Mexico, and South Korea dominate with a smattering of other countries faring much less well in the American marketplace. Much of that is due, we think, to dedicated distributors focusing specifically on one market like FIP, China Lion and WellGo. Some of the movies we though might be big deals this year like Chile's Oscar nominee A Fantastic Woman opted for Oscar qualifying release only and Germany's Oscar finalist In the Fade starring Diane Kruger (pictured left) opted to sneak out at the last second to qualify for all Oscars though it did not receive nominations, buried in that post Christmas glut of tiny releases.

For the purposes of this list we skipped documentaries and animated films to keep the list more focused (and avoid arguments about dubbed versions or whatnot) but please to know that had we kept them in the wonderful Turkish street cat documentary Kedi would be in the top ten right here. This list is otherwise, as carefully as we could manage, accurate though we're happy to take corrections should we have missed something.

TOP 100 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS FOR 2017
Listed By US Box Office Gross only  - FINAL TOTALS | Title links to reviews

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Weak Weekend Box Office - Did You Go To the Movies?

It was a rather tepid week and weekend at the box office aside from some milestones further down the list. Wonder Woman continues to break records despite falling out of the top 15. In its 12th weekend its just passed by Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (if you don't adjust for inflation) making it the top grossing origin story superhero film. In other happy news for fans, both Girls Trip and Baby Driver passed the important $100 million mark this week. The Girls Trip figure isn't as unusual as the internet seems to be  pretending -- how quickly people forget that The Color Purple, Hidden Figures and The Help, which all centered on black women, were megahits and two of those in the very recent past! But the Baby Driver milestone is rarer. It's a first for director Edgar Wright who has had a devoted fanbase for years but never quite crossed over in this way. More after the jump...

Weekend Box Office (Aug 18th-20th)
W I D E	L I M I T E D
1. 🔺 THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD $21.6 NEW	1. AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL $300k (cum. $2.9) 514 screens  REVIEW
2. ANNABELLE CREATION $15.5 (cum. $64)	2. A TAXI DRIVER $266k (cum. $842k) 41 screens
3. 🔺 LOGAN LUCKY $8 NEW   REVIEW	3.🔺 INGRID GOES WEST  $265k (cum. $438k) 26 screens REVIEW
4. DUNKIRK  $6.7 (cum. $165.5) PODCAST | TOM HARDY	4. 🔺  MENASHE $230k (cum. $715k) 86 screens REVIEW

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Four Movies Shared the Wealth This Weekend

By Nathaniel R

What did you see this weekend?

Weekend Box Office (July 28th-30th)
W I D E	L I M I T E D
1. DUNKIRK $28.1 (cum. $102.8) PODCAST	1. 🔺   A GHOST STORY $382k (cum. $941k) 329 screens
2. 🔺  THE EMOJI MOVIE $25.6	2. 🔺  DETROIT $365k 20 screens
3. GIRLS TRIP $20 (cum. $65.5)	3. MAUDIE  $350k (cum. $4.6) 228 screens REVIEW
4. 🔺 ATOMIC BLONDE  $18.5	4. 🔺  MUBARAKAN $300k 128 screens
5. SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING  $13.4 (cum. $278.3) REVIEW | 2ND OPINION | PODCAST	5. 🔺WOLF WARRIOR 2 $190k 53 screens
6. WAR FOR PLANET OF APES  $10.3 (cum. $118.6) REVIEWISH | PODCAST	6. 🔺 LADY MACBETH  $179k  (cum. $467k) 104 screens
7. DESPICABLE ME 3 $7.7 (cum. $230.4)	7. 🔺  AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL $130K 4 screens REVIEW
8. VALERIAN $6.8 (cum. $30.6)	8. THE LITTLE HOURS  $125k (cum. $1.2) 96 screens  REVIEW
9. BABY DRIVER $4 (cum. $92) REVIEW | 2ND OPINION | POSTERIZED | PODCAST	9.🔺 THE MIDWIFE $78k   (cum. $112k) 27 screens
10. WONDER WOMAN $3.5  (cum. $395.4) REVIEW | TOP TEN | SPECIAL	10. THE HERO  $68K (cum. $3.8) 102 screens BEST ACTORS
🔺 = new or added screens numbers from box office mojo

Dunkirk and Girls Trip, both enjoyed very strong second weekends (giving their audiences exactly what they promised... which is all too rare!) and managed to mostly fend off the new challengers which were the animated Emoji Movie and Charlize Theron kicking all kinds of spy ass as Atomic Blonde. It was a fairly unique weekend since all four titles were within 10 million of each other - they all have a reason to celebrate. The only people not celebrating? Whoever chose to take their families to Emoji Movie which is the worst reviewed movie of the year. 

In limited release the doc sequel An Inconvenient Truth (reviewed), Kathryn Bigelow's race riot drama Detroit, the Hasidic drama Menashe (reviewed), and Brigsby Bear all barely dipped their toe into theaters but audiences expressed interest in all four. Expect expansions soon with Detroit going wide next weekend.

A Lovely Trailer for "Menashe"

Chris here. It's worth remembering as we head toward the clanging of the summer movie season that we will have some quieter cinematic treasures ahead to cleanse our palettes. One of my most anticipated is Sundance favorite Menashe, which Nathaniel recently reviewed. 

Menashe stars Menashe Lustig (loosely portraying himself) as a newly widowered father trying to regain custody of his son in their very conservative Hasidic Jewish community. If that sounds a little maudlin, the film promises to be balanced by humor and authenticity, as it stars actual residents of the Brooklyn neighborhood it depicts. The film will be the first non-English language film for distributor A24 - good to see their Oscar triumph with Moonlight isn't making them shy away from the tough sell, not to mention their commitment to new American voices like Menashe director Joshua Z. Weinstein.

The film's first trailer just dropped, and it is delicate and charming in the best way - a familiar story told in unfamiliar voices.

ND/NF: "Menashe" and "The Future Perfect"

MOMa and Film Society of Lincoln Center's annual New Directors / New Films festival wrapped up this past weekend. Their goal each year is to celebrate "a group of filmmakers who represent the present and anticipate the future of cinema: daring artists whose work pushes the envelope and is never what you’d expect"  The big tickets this year were two buzzy Sundance titles: the gay drama Beach Rats (a subway misshap prevented me from making the screening - argh!) and the rap comedy Patti Cake$ which will be out in July. The latter prompted a bidding war with Fox Searchlight offering $10+ million. Beach Rats was picked up by a new distribution company called Neon so who knows when it will arrive. Colossal, that Anne Hathaway as a kaiju oddity, will be Neon's first proper release on April 7th. 

At ND/NF we previously reviewed Sexy Durga, Happiness Academy, and Strong Island. Here are the two final films yours truly caught, one being maybe my favorite of 2017 thus far...

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