# WHY Don't WE See MORE French Films In The USA?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-see-more-french-films-in-the-usa/224474>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [January 14, 2004, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-see-more-french-films-in-the-usa/224474 "2004-01-14T23:07:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![WereOtter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ac91a4/32.png) [@WereOtter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WereOtter)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-see-more-french-films-in-the-usa/224474/42 "2004-01-30T03:18:39Z")

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I suspect that in France the government strongly incourages english-language films be dubbed instead of subtitled because of their campaign to promote and preserve French culture from being Americanized. I don’t know this for a fact. Can anyone in France confirm or deny it?

I refuse to watch dubbed films. I once accidently rented a dubbed version of _Le Femme Nikita_ and it was truly awful.

I vagely recall watching a DVD on which I selected both English language and English subtitles, and I was amazed how often they didn’t match.

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**Author:** ![SanguineSpider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SanguineSpider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanguineSpider)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-see-more-french-films-in-the-usa/224474/43 "2004-01-30T05:35:22Z")

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Can’t answer your OP and I don’t mind subtitles BUT I gotch’er French films right’cher, baby!  
Go rent _Baxter_ and _Man Bites Dog_… yes, go RIGHT now and rent them! Funny French black comedies… family entertainment! OK, maybe for adults only but go get 'em right now. Now.

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**Author:** ![rngadam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/97f17d/32.png) [@rngadam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rngadam)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-see-more-french-films-in-the-usa/224474/44 "2004-01-30T06:04:54Z")

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> [@Tarrsk](#):
>
> Not true. I’ve seen quite a few movies while visiting relatives in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and every single foreign feature is shown with subtitles (even animated stuff like _Mulan_). Hell, even the Japanese _Return of the King_ trailer I recently saw had the original English dialogue, with Japanese captions.

To add to this… In China, HK and Taiwan even the Chinese movies are subtitled at least in Chinese and very often in (poor) English!

Why? Because not everybody will understands the dialect spoken in the movie… This is especially true of the very popular HK movies (in Cantonese) that are exported to the rest of the mainland (Mandarin and a bunch of other dialects) and Taiwan (Mandarin and Taiwanese…) and vice-versa.

So if there is a culture that is not subtitle-phobic, it is most definitely the Chinese!

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**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-we-see-more-french-films-in-the-usa/224474/45 "2004-01-30T15:29:55Z")

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We have a thriving movie industry that produces plenty of good movies throughout the year. There’s no reason to heavily import movies when you’ve already got movies at home.

Marc

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