Foreign Films in Italy By Number of Films

This infographic shows the evolution in time of the number of foreign films imported and theatrically distributed to Italian audiences. Taken into account both the inevitable variations linked to the greater or lesser availability of content within original contexts and those due to the success of individual films (and the pulling effect that they may have for entire national cinemas), here it can be noted with ease both the proportion between countries and some important trajectories that have characterized ten years, from 2007 to 2016, and still have consequences in the current period.

The films from the US, which constitute a large majority of the total, amaze with their constant abundance, fluctuating with few exceptions between 300 and 400 titles every year: it is an indication of a very strong production fabric in the context of origin, as well as of quantitatively solid international distribution relationships, which often succeed regardless of the quality of single films. Although with much lower absolute values, a similar substantial stability, in an elastic alternation, so to speak, also characterizes the imports from European countries such as Germany or Spain, or from smaller markets such as Australia, more culturally distant, or Denmark or Belgium, closer but smaller.

Finally, the trajectory of some other imports, seen as a whole, is different. At least from the strong general contraction of 2011, foreign films distributed in Italy have increased every year. Some countries, though, have benefited the most from this growth and widening of the basin: this is the case of France, always second by origin, which, and now able to double its exports to Italy; of the UK, which reached 100 titles in 2016; or Japan, a likely indicator of a more general (re)discovery of both live and animated production from the Far East.