100 Most Popular Foreign Films of 2018 + the Oscar Hopefuls!

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.

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FYC?

Dearest Readers, Nathaniel and Team Experience are requesting your memory jogs as we prepare our "best of the year" lists. We're particularly looking at the following fields of joy that are sometimes hard to keep a mental list of in the busy last months of the year.

So what are YOUR favorite...

• Line readings of the year?
• Best kisses or sex scenes?
• Favorite credits sequence?
• Action sequence or fight scene?
• Cameos or tiny roles?
• Individual scenes of any kind?

2018 Review: Top Ten Hits in Nine Categories!

Soon we'll start daily 'year in review' parties, but here's an early one...

It's time for a special box office report AND the kick off to our year in review party. Yes, yes, everyone knows that Disney/Marvel owned the domestic and international box office with Black Panther and Infinity War, respectively. Yet there is far more to the story of ticket sales than just one studio and superhero films in general.

It's much more interesting to break it down into types of films and see which films most interested the ticket-buying public. We'll have separate reports on foreign films and documentaries but for now nine other categories!

🔺 = means that the film is still in release so its place in these rankings is not yet settled. All figures are as of March 24th, 2018

TOP ORIGINALS
NOT PRE-EXISTING  / NOT (YET) A FRANCHISE

 

01 🔺Bohemian Rhapsody (Fox) $215.9 (Nov 2nd)
02 A Quiet Place  (Paramount) $188 (April 6th)
03 The Mule (Warner Bros) $103.8 (Dec 14th)...

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It's the most wonderful time of the year... 'Top Ten List' time

by Nathaniel R

I've been gleefully reading top ten lists for as long as I've loved movies. The first I waited for impatiently was in the Detroit Free Press in the 1980s and decades later I still love the impulse to live best movies, no matter how many people occassionally play contrarian to dismiss them as irrelevant and reductive. Top ten lists are definitely the latter but they're hardly the former, since what people value tells us so much about them and the idiosyncracies of individual top ten lists as well as occassional consensus across them are are especially beautiful if you love the magic that happens between any artform and its audience.

That said they'll make you crazy as often as they delight you. After the jump three early top ten lists worth discussing...

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November. It's a Wrap

!!!!!!!!!!! How is their only one month of the year left? It's nearly time for our year in review festivities to begin. So many movies left to see. So much holiday interference. Etcetera. Nevertheless we must move on by looking back. Wait, what? Here are some highlights from the month that was.

ICYMI 10 Favourites*
• Milk Eric thinks it's aging beautifully on its 10th anniversary
• Green Book and Widows a passionate podcast discussion
• Pauline, Jane, and Olympia -Glenn looks at new docks about legendary movie women
• Top Ten Ezra Miller Lewks Nathaniel appreciates his fashion
• Hirokazu Koreeda Interview Murtada interviews the great Japanese director of Shoplifters Palme d'Or winning fame
• Chris Pine's Penis Anna looks at the double standards around nudity
• The Best of Parker Posey a 50th birthday look back 
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Chris hauntingly sings the soundtrack's praises
• Blindspotting Lynn Lee on codeswitching and one of the year's indie gems
• Thanksgiving Team Experience gives thanks 

Most Discussed (you didn't miss these ones obviously!)
• 1997 Best Actress. An impromptu look back at gowns and ballots 
• NBR and NYFCC Winners - yes, awards season is officially here!
• Oscar's 10 Favorite Leading Actors the names might surprise you!  
• Rebecca remake? The rumors are true 

Coming in December!
Year in Review silliness w/ best of this & that (so specific!), SAG & GLOBE nods (exciting!), lots of interviews (transcribing now... fingers be tired), Team Experiences's favorite X-mas movies, anniversaries (Philadelphia, Gilbert Grape, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and, of course, new releases (Aquaman, Mary Queen of Scots, Vox Lux, Destroyer) and Oscar build-up mania.

Since a few of you have been asking: the new season of 'Supporting Actress Smackdown' will begin in February with the 2018 shortlist which will include some but not all of these ladies, followed by the long delayed '72 showdown in March. Ok? Ok.

* Yes we will be adding "u" to all "favorites" in honor of Yorgos Lanthimos awesome new movie.