What's the most underwatched type of film on this forum?

[mjf314]

By "type of film" I mean a country, genre, sub-genre, or any category of film or TV that you can think of. It can even be something like a country-genre-decade combination.

A type of film is "underwatched" if there are a lot of good films, but not many people on this forum watch those films.

Which type of film do you think is the most underwatched?

[cinewest]

I would start out by saying non-English language, non-genre films and narrow it down from there

[mightysparks]

I feel like this forum is pretty well-rounded in everything. Everyone has different viewing habits and preferences and manage to meet every possible niche that I can think of, based on what's generally considered 'good'. Maybe animation? And non-English, non-Anime TV, but I don't know if there are many of those considered 'good'.

[Teproc]

Popular cinema from non-English speaking countries.

[brokenface]

I'd say regions/counties that are more overlooked (and i include myself in this): Latin America, Africa, India (beyond S. Ray), Korea pre 90s, Balkans

[joachimt]

I would start out by saying non-English language, non-genre films and narrow it down from there

Do you mean?
1. non-English language
2. non-genre
Or do you mean the combination of the two?

I still don't understand what "genre film" and "non-genre film" mean, btw, so I can only reply to the non-English part.

Most people who regularly watch movies watch over 95% English language movies. I think the percentage on this forum is a LOT lower. I just did a quick check on the latest 100 features I watched and 45 of those are English. So I guess I'm doing pretty well on non-English movies and I don't feel I'm an exception here. And I don't even plan to watch movies from lots of different countries. I hardly plan my watches anymore. I just watch whatever comes along on Prime, Disney+, MUBI, World Cup and FotW. The combination of those results in a nice mixture of countries and genres (especially MUBI + VPN really helps to get you to watch movies from lots of different countries).

[sol]

Soviet and Balkan comedies. I keep recommending comedies from these two regions to Adam and Lauren but no dice.

[mightysparks]

Soviet and Balkan comedies. I keep recommending comedies from these two regions to Adam and Lauren but no dice.

They’re not under-watched by us, just not at all loved

[weirdboy]

I feel like this forum is pretty well-rounded in everything. Everyone has different viewing habits and preferences and manage to meet every possible niche that I can think of, based on what's generally considered 'good'. Maybe animation? And non-English, non-Anime TV, but I don't know if there are many of those considered 'good'.

There are some decent things I have seen on Japanese TV that are non-anime, but a) very few of those sort have decent subtitles and b) most of Japanese TV makes US TV look enlightened by comparison, so you really have to wade through a huge pile of crud to get to any hidden gems.

[Onderhond]

Contemporary Japanese cinema. Probably contemporary East-Asian cinema in general (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan). Apart from some films that trickle through (a handful of cult favorites and the ones film fests tell us to watch), there are hardly any people here who pay attention to these films.

[OldAle1]

Four categories that really deserve more love:

Spoiler

-conceptually bankrupt dramas selling Frenchness to wine mums
-run of the mill hype movies
-police action crime capers
-overrated arthouse poverty porn pictures.

If you didn't know that was coming you just aren't a hardcore icmer, are you?

But seriously...

I tend to agree with mighty overall - we have a pretty well-rounded forum. There are lots of generalists - I guess that's my category - who will watch (and even enjoy, much of the time!) almost anything, and lots of specialists, so I think we do cover it all, though sometimes admittedly it's a thin cover, more a light coating of butter than a thick dollop of mayo. Eww. Anyway one area that I *never* see discussed is older TV - I get the impression, wrong I'm sure but it's what I see, that virtually nobody here watches any TV made before 2010 except for The Wire, The SImpsons and some anime. I've thought about starting an older-tv lounge but I think it would just be me talking to myself about the shows from my youth. And yeah not a lot of talk about "foreign" tv either though to be fair that's probably harder to access than a lot of stuff - except for the fairly new things. Also not enough love for musicals but that's not surprising given that probably only 3eyes and our few Indian users grew up in a time/place where musicals were at all popular or well-regarded, and unlike noir or the western, they just haven't made much impact on modern viewers.

[OldAle1]

I would start out by saying non-English language, non-genre films and narrow it down from there

Do you mean?
1. non-English language
2. non-genre
Or do you mean the combination of the two?

I still don't understand what "genre film" and "non-genre film" mean, btw, so I can only reply to the non-English part.

Most people who regularly watch movies watch over 95% English language movies. I think the percentage on this forum is a LOT lower. I just did a quick check on the latest 100 features I watched and 45 of those are English. So I guess I'm doing pretty well on non-English movies and I don't feel I'm an exception here. And I don't even plan to watch movies from lots of different countries. I hardly plan my watches anymore. I just watch whatever comes along on Prime, Disney+, MUBI, World Cup and FotW. The combination of those results in a nice mixture of countries and genres (especially MUBI + VPN really helps to get you to watch movies from lots of different countries).

I still don't get why cinewest steadfastly keeps on with the "English language" thing - if he were arguing that America, or Hollywood, had too much of an influence I'd be much more inclined to agree. But ranting at the forum for watching too many Canadian, British, Irish, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Nigerian, etc, films is pretty silly. And as someone who focuses mostly on newer films such as he does he must realize that English is getting more and more common outside of primarily English-speaking countries - if you watch English-language French, German, Indian or Filipino films does that still make you somebody with an anti-foreign bias? Not to mention the fact that there are occasionally American films that are in other languages, and that most films from Italy, and most genre or exploitation films from Germany, France, Spain, the Philippines, Indonesia and many other countries from the 60s-80s are or were only available in dubbed form - often English-language. Sorry, but both Italian films I watched over the past week - one in an English dub, the other in an Italian dub - are equally "Italian" as far as I'm concerned. And then we get into the multiple-languages thing as well; the one film I've watched from Singapore this month was mostly in English, because the two main characters can only communicate through their shared second language. This is fairly common in Indian cinema and I've seen it in Israeli films, Hong Kong films, etc, etc. You get the idea. English is the lingua franca now so when you have a bunch of people who come from different places, it's likely to be the language that gets used. Again - are they not "foreign" enough, and are we to not get credit as interested in world cinema unless we eschew them?

And for the record going on country instead of language, 29 of my last 100 viewings have been American while 38 have been from the Philippines; if I did go by language English would be in first place with probably 40-45, because many of the Filipino and Indonesian genre films were dubbed - though two at least were actually filmed in English with English-speaking Filipino actors; also one of the American films offers Canadian actor William Shatner speaking in Esperanto. That's a high percentage of "foreign" films for me though on the whole I've watched more non-American stuff over the past year than I have any other time since the 90s because I no longer live with an elderly person with bad eyes who had real difficulties with subtitles.

[tommy_leazaq]

Popular cinema from non-English speaking countries.

Agree. I tend to get questioned of my cinephile status by my friends when I say I havent watched much of latest mainstream Korean action thrillers/comedy films, which is a huge hit among young cinephiles here. Since then Im trying to cover those as well. So far I have found them not bad but not special either. Couple of famous ones were downright bad as well.

[Torgo]

Popular cinema from non-English speaking countries.

This 100%. I'm surprised and not surprised that only Teproc states it as clear.

I can best speak for Germany and the deutscher Filmgeschmack, but I'd like to ask every participating forum member who doesn't come from the USA or UK (and especially one of the smaller film countries): Is the contemporary, popular film culture of your homeland represented on the forum? Does it appear on ICM as a site at all? Speaking of commercially successful movies of the last 20 or 30 years.

Like I said, I can somewhat fairly judge what happens in my place of residence, and it's funny. Don't take that as an offense, but I noticed that some of you guys explore the Deutscher Film, do German challenges and so on; it makes sense, certainly counts as one of the bigger film nations. But 90% of the titles which get shared and recommended around here wouldn't be recognized if you asked the regular guy on main street. Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog? Only around cinephiles, absolutely. b/w stuff, silent films even? Murnau, Lang, Pabst? As if! Schlöndorff, Kluge, Trotta, Praunheim .. never. Riefenstahl - yes, for other reasons
There are some who were successful here and abroad, like Wolfgang Petersen in the past, or more contemporary Tom Tykwer (Lola Rennt), Fatih Akin (e.g. Gegen die Wand), the Oscar ones (Donnersmarck & Hirschbiegel for Das Leben der Anderen + Der Untergang). All of these will pale in comparison to the mainstream success of the omnipotent Til Schweiger, Matthias Schweighöfer or Bully Herbig. Then everything involving crow favorites such as Moritz Bleibtreu, Elyas M'barek (what a very German name, eh?), Daniel Brühl, Tom Schilling, Frederick Lau, Jürgen Vogel, maybe Lauterbach, Möhring, Diehl, Koch, Fürmann, and of course the Comedy-leaning ones like Christoph Maria Herbst (well-known as Stromberg), Axel Stein, some I am too proud to mention now.
You may take a look at the 50 commercially most successful films in Germany to see how little it has to do with the perceived reality of our industry on ICM. There's a shitload of atrocious comedies I'm ashamed of, Winnetou adaptations, sex films of the 1970s, rom-coms (bad and very bad ones, a few alright) some brainless mainstream trash - what the pleb will commonly enjoy, you know.
Apart from some truly bad TV-series, this is what our cinematic landscape actually looks like.


I'm 100% sure that such a perspective on the mainstream of virtually all existing nations is severely lacking for our community and to an even greater extent for the ICM lists.
It's understandable, in a way - life is short and how much popular fodder that from an objective perspective is average at best are even the well-meaning among us willing to consume?

As a result, we will watch great and "relevant" films from many different countries which will always show a unique tone, but will often already be filtered through criteria for cinephiles and an arthouse crowd. (Onderhond could publish whole essays on that.)

We sometimes get an idea of how bad things really are when involountarily being exposed to audience hits of Turkey or India and call them mafia. I'm not too interested in completing those and so should you; but we will always have a blind spot for the real film soul of many countries due to that.
It looks a bit better for the big film nations such as France and Japan, maybe some of the Scandinavian countries, Benelux, Spain, Italy. Who of us (else than Onderhond) has an idea what Chinese folks truly enjoyed the last 20 years? Looking at the Box Office list, some will get mighty surprised it's not Zhang, Yang, Kia or HHH.
We also have a glimpse at Russia's popular cinema via the poll list on ICM. It ends for the rest of Eastern European countries, though.

[Torgo]

Popular cinema from non-English speaking countries.

Agree. I tend to get questioned of my cinephile status by my friends when I say I havent watched much of latest mainstream Korean action thrillers/comedy films, which is a huge hit among young cinephiles here. Since then Im trying to cover those as well. So far I have found them not bad but not special either. Couple of famous ones were downright bad as well.

Beat me to it. Maybe I'll try to answer with less than 30 paragraphs next time

[Torgo]

Oh, to make that clear: Not saying you guys or we as a community aren't aware of the things I'm trying to phrase in my long post, we have many self-reflecting users, many whom are more analytical and experienced than me.
I'd also say we have a fantastic mix of tastes and preferences around here. Thinking of how randomly assembled we are, it's amazing to always also get some exposure to, say, avantgarde/experimental stuff, horror-comedies, African dramas, documentaries, animated short films, lesser known classic films of the 30s to 50s, grindhouse, Japan offbeat flicks .... anything, really.

We're pretty cool, overall.

[Lonewolf2003]

Popular cinema from non-English speaking countries.

This 100%. I'm surprised and not surprised that only Teproc states it as clear.

I can best speak for Germany and the deutscher Filmgeschmack, but I'd like to ask every participating forum member who doesn't come from the USA or UK (and especially one of the smaller film countries): Is the contemporary, popular film culture of your homeland represented on the forum? Does it appear on ICM as a site at all? Speaking of commercially successful movies of the last 20 or 30 years.

Like I said, I can somewhat fairly judge what happens in my place of residence, and it's funny. Don't take that as an offense, but I noticed that some of you guys explore the Deutscher Film, do German challenges and so on; it makes sense, certainly counts as one of the bigger film nations. But 90% of the titles which get shared and recommended around here wouldn't be recognized if you asked the regular guy on main street. Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog? Only around cinephiles, absolutely. b/w stuff, silent films even? Murnau, Lang, Pabst? As if! Schlöndorff, Kluge, Trotta, Praunheim .. never. Riefenstahl - yes, for other reasons
There are some who were successful here and abroad, like Wolfgang Petersen in the past, or more contemporary Tom Tykwer (Lola Rennt), Fatih Akin (e.g. Gegen die Wand), the Oscar ones (Donnersmarck & Hirschbiegel for Das Leben der Anderen + Der Untergang). All of these will pale in comparison to the mainstream success of the omnipotent Til Schweiger, Matthias Schweighöfer or Bully Herbig. Then everything involving crow favorites such as Moritz Bleibtreu, Elyas M'barek (what a very German name, eh?), Daniel Brühl, Tom Schilling, Frederick Lau, Jürgen Vogel, maybe Lauterbach, Möhring, Diehl, Koch, Fürmann, and of course the Comedy-leaning ones like Christoph Maria Herbst (well-known as Stromberg), Axel Stein, some I am too proud to mention now.
You may take a look at the 50 commercially most successful films in Germany to see how little it has to do with the perceived reality of our industry on ICM. There's a shitload of atrocious comedies I'm ashamed of, Winnetou adaptations, sex films of the 1970s, rom-coms (bad and very bad ones, a few alright) some brainless mainstream trash - what the pleb will commonly enjoy, you know.
Apart from some truly bad TV-series, this is what our cinematic landscape actually looks like.


I'm 100% sure that such a perspective on the mainstream of virtually all existing nations is severely lacking for our community and to an even greater extent for the ICM lists.
It's understandable, in a way - life is short and how much popular fodder that from an objective perspective is average at best are even the well-meaning among us willing to consume?

As a result, we will watch great and "relevant" films from many different countries which will always show a unique tone, but will often already be filtered through criteria for cinephiles and an arthouse crowd. (Onderhond could publish whole essays on that.)

We sometimes get an idea of how bad things really are when involountarily being exposed to audience hits of Turkey or India and call them mafia. I'm not too interested in completing those and so should you; but we will always have a blind spot for the real film soul of many countries due to that.
It looks a bit better for the big film nations such as France and Japan, maybe some of the Scandinavian countries, Benelux, Spain, Italy. Who of us (else than Onderhond) has an idea what Chinese folks truly enjoyed the last 20 years? Looking at the Box Office list, some will get mighty surprised it's not Zhang, Yang, Kia or HHH.
We also have a glimpse at Russia's popular cinema via the poll list on ICM. It ends for the rest of Eastern European countries, though.

Greatly said, Torgo. I agree that popular non-English speaking cinema is the most underwatched on this forum. What people on this forum watch, and mostly for good reason, is indeed the revered classis, arthouse/-festival hit and critical darlings plust some cult and genre favorites. But those indeed aren't what you would get recommended when you would ask the man on the street. Sure you might get some Verhoeven mentioned if you do, but I'm sure most Dutch won't say a van Warmerdam and a Belgian might mention a Felix van Groeningen, but I'm sure none will mention the Dardennes. Looking at what's most popular here now the last decade or so, it's romcoms. Which started with the quite enjoyable "Alles is liefde" but exploded after that. So much that our national film industry primarily exist of romcoms now.

Overall I agree with mighty that we as a forum are pretty well-rounded with different users watching different niches. Looking at the succes and popularity of all the regional challenges and the WC, non-english non-genre cinema surely isn't the most underwatched cinema on this forum. Sure people still (also) watch a lot (or probably even more) English or genre cinema, but that doesn't make non-english non-genre cinema relatively underwatched.

[Lonewolf2003]

Four categories that really deserve more love:

Spoiler

-conceptually bankrupt dramas selling Frenchness to wine mums
-run of the mill hype movies
-police action crime capers
-overrated arthouse poverty porn pictures.

If you didn't know that was coming you just aren't a hardcore icmer, are you?

But seriously...

I tend to agree with mighty overall - we have a pretty well-rounded forum. There are lots of generalists - I guess that's my category - who will watch (and even enjoy, much of the time!) almost anything, and lots of specialists, so I think we do cover it all, though sometimes admittedly it's a thin cover, more a light coating of butter than a thick dollop of mayo. Eww. Anyway one area that I *never* see discussed is older TV - I get the impression, wrong I'm sure but it's what I see, that virtually nobody here watches any TV made before 2010 except for The Wire, The SImpsons and some anime. I've thought about starting an older-tv lounge but I think it would just be me talking to myself about the shows from my youth. And yeah not a lot of talk about "foreign" tv either though to be fair that's probably harder to access than a lot of stuff - except for the fairly new things. Also not enough love for musicals but that's not surprising given that probably only 3eyes and our few Indian users grew up in a time/place where musicals were at all popular or well-regarded, and unlike noir or the western, they just haven't made much impact on modern viewers.

There were some users that actively sought out older tv-series like the Prisoner for awhile. Don't know who exactly anymore and if they still do or have left this forum.

[Lonewolf2003]

Popular cinema from non-English speaking countries.

Agree. I tend to get questioned of my cinephile status by my friends when I say I havent watched much of latest mainstream Korean action thrillers/comedy films, which is a huge hit among young cinephiles here. Since then Im trying to cover those as well. So far I have found them not bad but not special either. Couple of famous ones were downright bad as well.

Yes, indeed just look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... outh_Korea and compare it to the popularity of those on iCM or this forum.

[mjf314]

There are some decent things I have seen on Japanese TV that are non-anime, but a) very few of those sort have decent subtitles and b) most of Japanese TV makes US TV look enlightened by comparison, so you really have to wade through a huge pile of crud to get to any hidden gems.

Most of the Japanese (non-anime) TV that I've watched has been good. I usually look at Douban ratings to help me decide what to watch. I posted some of my favorites in this thread, but here are a couple of recommendations for people on this forum:

If you like detective shows, I recommend Unnatural (2018). It's about a group of forensic pathologists who investigate crimes, and I think it's pretty mainstream and would probably appeal to most people.
If you like historical/time travel, I recommend Jin (2009). It's about a doctor who goes back in time to the edo period.

[mjf314]

Popular cinema from non-English speaking countries.

To you and other people who gave this answer: Is there a particular country that you think is the most underwatched?

I think HK has a large number of good popular films, but there are a good number of people on this forum who watch popular HK films (in part thanks to LoveHKFilm), so maybe HK isn't the best answer to the question. I'm not knowledgeable enough about most other countries to say how many good popular films they have.

There were some users that actively sought out older tv-series like the Prisoner for awhile. Don't know who exactly anymore and if they still do or have left this forum.

I'm one of those who watched (and liked) The Prisoner, but not as part of a larger effort to watch older TV series. I watched it because I noticed it had a good favorite/check ratio.

[Lonewolf2003]

Popular cinema from non-English speaking countries.

To you and other people who gave this answer: Is there a particular country that you think is the most underwatched?

I think HK has a large number of good popular films, but there are a good number of people on this forum who watch popular HK films (in part thanks to LoveHKFilm), so maybe HK isn't the best answer to the question.

There were some users that actively sought out older tv-series like the Prisoner for awhile. Don't know who exactly anymore and if they still do or have left this forum.

I'm one of those who watched (and liked) The Prisoner, but not as part of a larger effort to watch older TV series. I watched it because I noticed it had a good favorite/check ratio.

I think it goes for almost every nations. As I showed above even for a nation as Korean were there is a large overlap between national successful/popular movies, international hits and critical praised movies, there are plenty of highly national popular movies that are rarely watched here (except by maybe an Onderhond or two). I think it goes even for a nation as France, where arthouse movies (still) seems to be relatively popular. But one of our French users could shine a light on that maybe.

I'm no expert but I would be far from surprised if you compare a list of highest grossing movies from Brasil or Argentina one would see the same discrepancies between those lists and the amount of checks on iCM.
(If I'm wrong it might be time for me to immigrate to another country )

[mjf314]

I think it goes for almost every nations. As I showed above even for a nation as Korean were there is a large overlap between national successful/popular movies, international hits and critical praised movies, there are plenty of highly national popular movies that are rarely watched here (except by maybe an Onderhond or two). I think it goes even for a nation as France, where arthouse movies (still) seems to be relatively popular. But one of our French users could shine a light on that maybe.

Ok, so my next question is, which countries have the best popular cinema?

I'd be interested in hearing opinions from people who watch a lot of popular cinema from all over the world (if there are such people on this forum).

[Teproc]

France is probably better covered than most countries with regard to popular cinema, but it still feels like the view you get of French cinema from this forum's perspective is radically different from how it looks like from here for most people. But again, France is definitely better covered in that regard than most countries, so I'm not thinking of any country in particular, it's literally any non-English speaking country.

For instance, I would love a box office list that's just made of the top 10 films from every country you could get data from (only counting films from that particular country). Don't know how doable that is though.

[cinewest]

I'd say regions/counties that are more overlooked (and i include myself in this): Latin America, Africa, India (beyond S. Ray), Korea pre 90s, Balkans

Yes, that is a good beginning to the narrowing of non-English cinema that tends to be overlooked here.

And I agree with others that “popular” non-English cinema is probably the most overlooked, though personally I wouldn’t be interested in most of it.

There are also a lot of Very good “festival” films from non-English speaking countries that are overlooked here, particularly those that don’t secure much of an international release.

[OldAle1]

As to the popular-cinema vs arthouse debate I think HK has to be considered a major exception - is there anybody here watching a lot of HK films and totally avoiding the likes of Hark Tsui, John Woo, Johnnie To, Jing Wong, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Jet Li? I doubt it. HK has always been better known for it's popular genre cinema than for it's "serious" or artsy stuff, and even filmmakers that might be called generally arthouse, like WKW or Ann Hui, have often made the occasional martial arts film. So I really don't think HK is comparable in terms of what people watch to, say France or Iran, or maybe even to Japan or South Korea, which are also pretty well known for their genre films but maybe don't get as much attention here for that stuff as they do for Ozu, Naruse or Hong.

But overall - yeah, most people do gravitate more to the kinds of films that are on film awards lists, or critics' lists, and those tend to be arthouse, serious drama, challenging semi-experimental stuff, etc. As I've delved into the Philippines I've seen just how large their popular cinema is, and I do intend to watch at least a couple of mainstream romances before this month is over - but I have to face it, I'm much more interested in Diaz or Brocka overall, at least right now. And speaking of German films Torgo - I've watched several of the Winnetou films in the last couple of years and plan to finish them all off soon, and then start on some Edgar Wallace adaptations. I dunno about a lot of the newer dumb comedies though - Til Schweiger doesn't look like he's any better than schlock comedy directors here. Uwe Boll on the other hand...

[Onderhond]

is there anybody here watching a lot of HK films and totally avoiding the likes of Hark Tsui, John Woo, Johnnie To, Jing Wong, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Jet Li? I doubt it.

But even there you're cherrypicking from the past 25 years. Are there any people here following the latest Jing Wong films? Herman Hau's latest blockbuster? Maybe the odd film when there's a HK/China challenge, but that's about it really. Let alone people who are sampling HK's less visible genre cinema. Same goes for Japan really, as for Taiwan, this forum is still stuck discovering the Taiwanese New Wave (the irony of that name ...).

[OldAle1]

is there anybody here watching a lot of HK films and totally avoiding the likes of Hark Tsui, John Woo, Johnnie To, Jing Wong, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan and Jet Li? I doubt it.

But even there you're cherrypicking from the past 25 years. Are there any people here following the latest Jing Wong films? Herman Hau's latest blockbuster? Maybe the odd film when there's a HK/China challenge, but that's about it really. Let alone people who are sampling HK's less visible genre cinema. Same goes for Japan really, as for Taiwan, this forum is still stuck discovering the Taiwanese New Wave (the irony of that name ...).

Sure but the argument isn't about newest and least-well-known-to-a-general-audience genre directors, it's about genre/mainstream/popular stuff vs arthouse stuff, and whether we offer the newest names in either category or older ones - I could've mentioned Cheh Chang and Bruce Lee also of course and lots of others - the point is still that most people who watch HK stuff aren't sticking just to arthouse films that get nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscars or show up on TSPDT. They're watching popular-audience films. Whereas a lot more people talk about Hong than about SK horror films like Train to Busan. Point is, Hong Kong is, overall, the exception to the rule that people mostly watch foreign films that are critic-approved "serious films" instead of what is (or was) being watched by regular people in those countries.

[mjf314]

Although I haven't seen a lot of it, I'm a fan of popular Czechoslovak cinema.

I assume comedies like Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea, Give the Devil His Due, or anything directed by Václav Vorlícek or Oldrich Lipský, can be considered "popular".

Soviet and Balkan comedies. I keep recommending comedies from these two regions to Adam and Lauren but no dice.

There are a few Soviet comedies that I like, but maybe not enough to call myself a fan. Do you have any recommendations?

[Onderhond]

Sure but the argument isn't about newest and least-well-known-to-a-general-audience genre directors, it's about genre/mainstream/popular stuff vs arthouse stuff, and whether we offer the newest names in either category or older ones - I could've mentioned Cheh Chang and Bruce Lee also of course and lots of others - the point is still that most people who watch HK stuff aren't sticking just to arthouse films that get nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscars or show up on TSPDT. They're watching popular-audience films. Whereas a lot more people talk about Hong than about SK horror films like Train to Busan. Point is, Hong Kong is, overall, the exception to the rule that people mostly watch foreign films that are critic-approved "serious films" instead of what is (or was) being watched by regular people in those countries.

Well, I agree with you that for HK the mainstream stuff is more prevalent, they just don't have a very strong arthouse scene (though in recent years that seems to be changing a little). I don't agree people here watch the popular stuff. They watch the once-popular stuff.

[PeacefulAnarchy]

For instance, I would love a box office list that's just made of the top 10 films from every country you could get data from (only counting films from that particular country). Don't know how doable that is though.

It's doable, and it would be Titanic and Avatar and Jurassic Park and Marvel movies repeated over and over with the occasional local hit thrown in. I guess that you mean local hits only, which would also be doable, but a lot more work I expect. The data does exist, if someone wanted to take the time to do it.

Some countries count admissions instead of $ like the US, so that would be something you'd have to make a decision on when making the list as well.

[mjf314]

For instance, I would love a box office list that's just made of the top 10 films from every country you could get data from (only counting films from that particular country). Don't know how doable that is though.

It's doable, and it would be Titanic and Avatar and Jurassic Park and Marvel movies repeated over and over with the occasional local hit thrown in. I guess that you mean local hits only, which would also be doable, but a lot more work I expect. The data does exist, if someone wanted to take the time to do it.

Some countries count admissions instead of $ like the US, so that would be something you'd have to make a decision on when making the list as well.

I would be interested in a list of the top 10 local films from each country.

I guess this page would be useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... _by_region

I'm not sure what other good sources there are.

[Torgo]

Thanks for the link, mjf. Probably one of the more interesting ones: Nollywood

[PeacefulAnarchy]

I thought Mojo had data (flawed as their data generally is), but it doesn't seem available. Maybe it's paywalled or maybe I'm misremembering.

Those lists are a good start and if you follow some links can probably find more.
Here's Spain, for example: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Las ... a_historia
Which isn't in that list since it only exists in Spanish.

Top 10 should definitely be findable for a lot of countries.

[Teproc]

For instance, I would love a box office list that's just made of the top 10 films from every country you could get data from (only counting films from that particular country). Don't know how doable that is though.

It's doable, and it would be Titanic and Avatar and Jurassic Park and Marvel movies repeated over and over with the occasional local hit thrown in. I guess that you mean local hits only, which would also be doable, but a lot more work I expect. The data does exist, if someone wanted to take the time to do it.

Some countries count admissions instead of $ like the US, so that would be something you'd have to make a decision on when making the list as well.

I meant local films, obviously I understand that US films are generally dominating overseas box-office.

Admissions is the much, much better way to count anyway, but whatever data is available would be good.

[outdoorcats]

By "type of film" I mean a country, genre, sub-genre, or any category of film or TV that you can think of. It can even be something like a country-genre-decade combination.

A type of film is "underwatched" if there are a lot of good films, but not many people on this forum watch those films.

Which type of film do you think is the most underwatched?

American films with mostly/all Black casts? (Unless it's a big Oscar winner like Moonlight I guess)

[blocho]

Four categories that really deserve more love:

Spoiler

-conceptually bankrupt dramas selling Frenchness to wine mums
-run of the mill hype movies
-police action crime capers
-overrated arthouse poverty porn pictures.

If you didn't know that was coming you just aren't a hardcore icmer, are you?

Let's not forget Monty's l'il mom's p**n movie.

[OldAle1]

Four categories that really deserve more love:

Spoiler

-conceptually bankrupt dramas selling Frenchness to wine mums
-run of the mill hype movies
-police action crime capers
-overrated arthouse poverty porn pictures.

If you didn't know that was coming you just aren't a hardcore icmer, are you?

Let's not forget Monty's l'il mom's p**n movie.

I think that must've been before my time - good one though.

[Torgo]

By "type of film" I mean a country, genre, sub-genre, or any category of film or TV that you can think of. It can even be something like a country-genre-decade combination.

A type of film is "underwatched" if there are a lot of good films, but not many people on this forum watch those films.

Which type of film do you think is the most underwatched?

American films with mostly/all Black casts? (Unless it's a big Oscar winner like Moonlight I guess)

Hm, I have the impression that this is a branch of the movie industry which is growing since the early 2010s and rose to some popularity among critics at the end of the decade. Would films such as The Hate U Give (2018) and Jenkins' follow-up If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) count for you? I see authors of certain film sites in support of an ethnically more diverse (other than white, that is) cinema; these are often part of the huge branch of American independent films, where you'll find anything.
You could compare the movement with the rise of LGBTQ as a broad area that seemed to rise earlier and probably also has more output in the meantime. ICM added Slate's small Black Canon, for a start, at least.

Are you saying you don't see any of the forum users watching these films - which I doubt - or that no one dedicatedly works on them as a project - which seems possible and clearly isn't the case with LGBT cinema around here.

[Armoreska]

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