Has a foreign-language movie ever reached number one in America?
These days, American audiences are watching foreign-language material in much bigger numbers than ever before. In the last decade or so, many of the barriers US viewers may have felt were stopping them from watching movies with subtitles, or even regrettable dubbed voiceovers, have fallen away.
It may seem like the movement to accept foreign film on a wider scale finally broke through into the mainstream with Parasite’s ‘Best Picture’ win at the Oscars in 2020, which helped the South Korean flick to a $53million box office haul in the US. However, that didn’t exactly open the floodgates for other foreign films to rake in cash. Sure, Godzilla Minus One made $57m in late 2023/early 2024, but that’s still a rarity in the modern market, and neither of those films actually scaled the heady height of number one at the box office, either.
In truth, it is on streaming that foreign-language material has gained the most steam. These days, Netflix updates its service with more movies and shows from all over the world than any American audience would have had access to in past decades, and that can only be a good thing in the long run. It has led to genuine hits like Squid Game, the South Korean juggernaut that became the biggest show in the streaming giant’s history, and The Eternaut, an Argentinian post-apocalyptic sci-fi series that found a dedicated audience in early 2025.
Netflix’s platforming of material from seemingly every country in the world is excellent for introducing audiences to new cultures, languages, and filmmaking styles. It only makes sense from the streamer’s point of view, too; after all, it is a worldwide service. Sadly, though, this openness to foreign movies and shows hasn’t translated directly to the US box office, where only one foreign-language film has ever reached number one – and that came more than 20 years ago, long before Netflix came along.
The unlikely box office reign of Hero
On August 27th, 2004, Zhang Yimou’s Chinese martial arts epic Hero hit cinemas across the US and secured the number one spot at the box office for two consecutive weeks. The film starred Jet Li, who was familiar to US audiences for his ass-kicking roles in Lethal Weapon 4, Romeo Must Die, and Kiss of the Dragon. This familiarity helped it make $53m at the box office.
Sadly, though, Hero didn’t prove to be an inflexion point in foreign cinema becoming viable at the US box office, so much as it demonstrated that a confluence of factors could still come together to aid a worthwhile film in finding a receptive audience. For one thing, many people likely paid for a ticket to Hero because it was “presented” by Quentin Tarantino, who loved the film when it was released in its native China in 2002, and twisted Miramax’s arm into giving it a theatrical release in the States.
“I am very proud to do that,” Tarantino told Fangoria at the time. “I had to fight for it with Miramax. I think they lost faith in it and everything. And I thought that Hero was an absolute masterpiece, so I fought with them not to cut it. Not to bring it down, but to keep it the same length as when I saw it.”
It also can’t be denied that Hero piggybacked on the unprecedented success of Ang Lee’s 2000 masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, still the highest-grossing foreign language movie in US history. It made an enormous $128m, and even though it never quite hit number one, its staying power at the box office proved there was undoubtedly an appetite for a crossover martial arts hit, should the right film come along.
