Foreign-language films are seven times more likely to be British box-office hits than they were a decade ago, thanks to Mel Gibson, digital technology and the cultural awakening of the multiplex cinemas.

Since the start of 2004, 23 subtitled films have taken more than £1 million in Britain, according to the UK Film Council. In the 1990s, only nine foreign-language films crossed the £1 million mark. Lottery support, technical innovations, the growth of Bollywood and more sophisticated advertising have all played a part.

Audiences have changed, too. Sean Perkins, a box-office analyst at the UK Film Council, said that the arrival of Channel 4 in 1982 and the growth of video and then DVDs made new and classic foreign films accessible to a much wider audience. “They demystified the subtitled film,” he said.

A crop of more accessible foreign films has helped to fuel the demand. Where once the works of Ingmar Berg-man and Satyajit Ray charmed critics but left most film fans cold, audiences have flocked to see Penélope Cruz in Volver, the breathtaking martial arts sequences in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or this year’s Hollywood-style French thriller Tell No One.

No one has done more to ease resistance than Mel Gibson, whose The Passion of The Christand Apocalyptowere in Aramaic, Latin and the Mayan dialect Yucatec. Between them they earned more than £15 million.

The audience is now large enough for foreign films to be screened regularly in multiplexes. Andrew Turner, head of film-buying at Cineworld Cinemas, which has 73 cinemas around the country, said: “When multiplexes were introduced in 1985 no one would have dreamt of putting a subtitled film in one. But that audience has moved on – they are looking for more choice and not just popcorn movies.”

More detailed data about box-office takings has helped cinema owners to realise that showing subtitled films has commercial as well as an artistic merit, he added. “We put these films on because we genuinely believe there’s a business in them.”

Bollywood films, which play almost exclusively to an Asian audience rather than an art-house crowd, are particularly lucrative but movies from all around the world are pulling in enough viewers to justify their slots.

Hugo Grumbar of Icon Films, which distributed La Vie en Roseand the two Gibson films, said that marketing tricks and technology helped. Increasingly, foreign-language films are sold as thrillers, romances or comedies rather than the latest French, German or Spanish hit, he said. “With Caché you change the name to Hidden and try to cut a trailer that is not too French. Tell No One is a commercial thriller, not an art-house movie at all.”

Focus group research among audiences leaving German and French films this year revealed that between a third and a fifth did not know beforehand that they would be watching a subtitled film. Mr Grumbar said that funding from the film council to subsi-dise the distribution and marketing of subtitled films was also important, while the increasing number of digital cinema screens has made it cheaper to schedule minority-interest film for one or two nights around the country.

Cultural revolution at the box office

Foreign-language films grossing more than £1 million at the British box office:

2007 Tell No One, La Vie en Rose, Curse of the Golden Flower, The Lives of Others, Apocalypto

2006 Dhoom 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, Don, Volver, Fanaa, Kabhi Alvida naa Kehna, Fearless, Hidden ( Cache)

2005 Kung Fu Hustle, Downfall, The Chorus, A Very Long Engagement

2004 House of Flying Daggers, Veer Zaara, Hero, The Motorcycle Diaries, Bad Education, The Passion of The Christ

2003 Kal Ho Naa Ho, Spirited Away, Good Bye, Lenin!, City of God

2002 Talk to Her, Devdas, Y Tu Mamá También

2001 Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Amélie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

1990s All About My Mother, Life is Beautiful, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dil to Pagal Hai, Il Postino, Farewell My Concubine, Delicatessen, Cyrano de Bergerac, Cinema Paradiso

Source: UK Film Council

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