Most of us are aware that the film sector and especially the indie film sector has struggled to regain box office position ceded during COVID. Admittedly the sector had been on the decline before COVID shut things down but the pandemic sped that decline big time.
However, in the past year an intriguing relative bright spot is in the box office performance of Non-English language films. This includes both top arthouse entries as well as films that appeal to specific immigrant groups. A number of these films were victorious on Oscar night.
Best International Feature and Best Sound Oscar Winner The Zone Of Interest has grossed over $8 Mil domestically thus far for A24 and over $24 Mil worldwide. Almost all of this has been post Oscar noms and there's so much more to come with an inevitable expansion and territories yet to release. The performance of this A24 entry is all the more impressive when one considers that prior to this year only one of their non-English language films had grossed over $4 Million. In fact The Zone of Interest has grossed more for them than Climax, Lamb, Int Oscar nominee Close, and Oscar winner Minari combined!!!!!! Yes neither it nor Past Lives has matched the local success of The Farewell, but these two films are far more globally balanced and their ww totals are comparable
Another subtitled Oscar winner, Anatomy of a Fall has managed over $5 Mil via Neon and a ww box office of over $32 Mil! For perspective this Cannes Palme D’Or winner has outperformed Ava Duvernay’s Origin in North America. All accomplished against a budget of under $7 Mil USD. Notably most of its box office total was in the fall, pre-Oscar noms but after we knew it would not be France's Oscar entry.
Going away from indies but still with Oscar victories, there’s the Japanese language Godzilla Minus One which has stomped its way to $56,418,793 in North America! That makes this VFX Oscar winner one of the top 50 grossing films of 2023.
ID: Godzilla, a towering dinosaur esque monster with a spikey back is surrounded by debris and smoke
Speaking of Past Lives, it launched at Sundance 2023. Two of the top three grossing Sundance films from 2023 are primarily not in English. The first of course being Best Picture Oscar nominee Past Lives, which has grossed $11,331,983 domestically via A24. Most of that generated over the summer with only a small Oscar boost of less than 5%. The other title is the Mexican film Radical which Pantelion took all the way to $8,702,731. Both films have grossed over $20 Mil worldwide. In the case of Past Lives it’s current worldwide total is just shy of $29 Mil. Roughly 1/3 of its international box office has been in countries where the film opened AFTER Oscar nominations. And the film is still opening in other countries.
Thus far Neon has pushed Int Oscar nominee Perfect Days to $2.7 Mil with more to come. That number is already ahead of each of the int Oscar entries from last year. None of whom exceeded $1.6 Mil at the North American Box Office. While SPC’s The Teachers’ Lounge hasn’t lit the box office on fire it has manged $571K to date in NA. That’s better than SPC’s Sundance pickup The Persian Version.
Even shortlisted but not nominated entries have seen relatively solid results. IFC’s The Taste of Things (Which France foolishly chose over Anatomy of a Fall) passed $2 Million this week. And Mubi’s Fallen Leaves is just shy of $1 Mil at the NA box office.
Even when we look at the abysmal documentary box office, the Oscar nominated Four Daughters has surpassed $120K in NA via Kino Lorber. That’s a total that’s higher than EVERY SINGLE Sundance world premiere doc from 2023. The French language Wiseman doc Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros has $140,000 to date. Wim Wender’s Anselm was largely a non factor in awards season but the German language film has grossed just shy of $500K in NA via Sideshow and Janus. That number is higher than EVERY SINGLE world premiere doc from Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and TIFF’s 2023 editions.
Heck the horror film Out of Darkness, which is in an entirely made up language managed $1,951,547 in a semi-wide release from Bleecker Street. And even the #1 film of the year thus far, Dune Part 2 has a significant amount of non-English language dialogue, also from a made up language.
ID a group of cave people dressed in animal furs stare into the wilderness
Indian entries Jawan and Pathaan have both grossed over $15 Mil in North America as Indian-Americans seek out Bollywood spectacles. A few of which have had some crossover with the larger marketplace.
So what does this mean,
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