Research and Statistics Bulletin - September 2005 - BFI

2. Foreign language films at the UK box office
This section looks in detail at the market for foreign language films at the UK box office,
to gauge its size and characteristics and also to consider whether it has grown between
2000 and 2004.
The number of foreign language releases has increased over the last five years. During this
period, 654 foreign language films were released theatrically in the UK, accounting for
33.1% of all releases. Table 2.1 reveals the pattern of increase in the number of foreign
language releases, which grew by just under 60% between 2000 and 2004. There was a
minor dip in the number of releases in 2001 and a drop in proportion of releases in 2003.
Table 2.1: Number of foreign language films released in the UK, 2000-2004
Year Number of foreign
language releases
Source: Nielsen EDI, RSU analysis
% of releases Total number
of releases
2000 106 27.7 382
2001 101 28.9 350
2002 131 35.5 369
2003 147 34.7 423
2004 169 37.5 451
Total 654 33.1 1,975
The market share of foreign language films has shown a less even growth pattern as it tends
to be driven by the performance of a small number of high earning individual titles, like the
surprise hit The Passion of the Christ in 2004. Nonetheless, even if The Passion of the Christ
is excluded from the analysis, the box office gross of foreign language films in 2004 stood at
£27 million, 141% higher than in 2000 (the figure for 2004 in Table 2.2 includes The Passion
of the Christ).
Research and Statistics Bulletin Volume 3 (1) September 2005 Copyright UK Film Council 2005
9