I didn't realize how many bad movies Italy produces, or at least produced, until I started living there in the late 1990s. Italians often go to the movies every week, and I did too, and then I realized that for every 'Life is Sweet', there were 50 dire entries that were just well-targeted enough to make their money back from a native audience. You'll never have heard of these movies, and rightly so.
Having lived in other countries since, this appears to be a common syndrome. You can't judge a country by its tourists, and you certainly can't judge it by the small number of movies that get past its border control.
Well said. Most people don't realize this. And likewise there's a Paris Syndrome that tourists sometimes have when first visiting America and expecting to step into a Hollywood movie. That subsides quickly.
That said, American movies pass border control to other countries all the time because of their broad appeal.
I'll say that I am less offended than some of my fellow commenters in this thread. I can hardly name 5 Belgian movies that I would suggest anyone to watch; Belgium has 1/30th of the US' population, but certainly a much, much smaller percentage of good movies.
Also, none of them are of the same 'appeal' as the American movies you cited, which are mostly action movies. The general populace wants to see big stunts and explosions, which require budget, local movies don't gross because they rely on local audiences, repeat ad infinitum. Most European movies that try to _look American_ in that sense fail horribly imo.
However, the ones I can name all have something in common: they wouldn't appeal to an international audience because there is something inherently 'local' to them. Not only language barriers (imagine reading subtitles) but also a certain 'European film aesthetic/tone' just like American blockbusters have theirs. American movies don't have the same 'local barrier' for Europeans because they are the norm and we're getting them force-fed by the 100bio Hollywood industrial complex: it's a movie, or it's a local movie.
Having lived in other countries since, this appears to be a common syndrome. You can't judge a country by its tourists, and you certainly can't judge it by the small number of movies that get past its border control.