American movies famous in Europe?

Just curious, which American movies do people watch in Europe a lot? I know that a lot of movies that come out in America also come out in Europe, and are dubbed or have subtitles. I'm not sure why I want to know, just wondering......American movies famous in Europe?boxofficemojo.com is a good site to visit for this kind of information. For example, here is a list of the top-grossing movies in Germany for 2010:



http://boxofficemojo.com/intl/germany/ye鈥?/a>



and here's France for the same time:



http://boxofficemojo.com/intl/france/yea鈥?/a>



If you click around with the menus and options you can get similar info for other countries and other years, and for most countries you can even get it broken down by week instead of by year. (It's a little harder to use weekly comparisons because a movie that is in theaters right now in the USA might not hit a theater in another country yet--- so even if it goes on to be popular, you wouldn't see it by comparing the box office results for the same week. This is still an issue with yearly returns, but generally only for movies released near the end of the year, instead of for all movies.) IMDB has similar lists (click around "box office") but they tend to be broken down only into "US" and "non-US," which also includes the huge Asian market.



Some basic patterns: often, the most popular movies in America in a given year are among the most popular movies in Europe for that year. Individual countries often also have their own movies among their most popular movies (that most Americans likely have not heard of). Action/sci-fi movies, animated movies, children's movies, and movies based on internationally popular books (e.g. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings) tend to do better international business than dramas and adult comedies.



I think partly this is because many dramas require knowing extra stuff about the society in which they take place to understand the story. And humor that is highly verbal, or highly dependent on culturally specific references, may not translate at all. But I am just guessing about that.