Your Top five Favourite Foreign Movies

Just bought them off prime and going to watch today.

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I was thinking that myself, as a non American wouldn't all American films be foreign to me?

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And likewise, to you guys in the UK, wouldn't most USA films be foreign?

Technically, yes. Wherever you are in the world, a foreign film is one that wasn't produced domestically. But, as you suggest, people who use the term 'foreign movie' are usually using it as shorthand for 'foreign language movie' (and it's an Anglophone term, so they mean non-English).

We certainly wouldn't refer to American films as 'foreign' in day to day conversation. We might refer to them as 'American films'. Or as 'Hollywood films'. Or -- such is the dominance of the US at the international box office -- just as 'films'.

And then we might stipulate where a film was produced if it isn't American, as if American were the default... which, in fairness, for most mainstream cinema-going audiences, it probably is.

That said, outside of America you're less likely to hear 'foreign (language) film' at all. We're more likely to refer to a film's place of origin, however broadly. 'French film', 'European cinema', 'Japanese film', 'Asian cinema', &c. I don't wish to sound mean, but it's quite an American thing to carve the world up into a binary of America and 'foreignness'.

However, just the other day a German horror film fan I follow on social media announced 'foreign films just aren't for me!' before immediately correcting himself. He was talking about his vast preference for American horror films over European ones. 'Of course, most films I watch are foreign to me,' he added.

This is the power of American cinema at work.

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