The demand for Asian films in Madison theaters exists, therefore Asian films play in Madison

The lesson learned: If you want to see more of a certain type of film in Madison's theaters, make sure to see them when they do play in town.

Ranveer Singh stars in the Hindi-language spy action films Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge, both of which have played at AMC Fitchburg 18 in the past few months.

This is my third installment of numbers crunching about Madison’s theatrical market in the first half of 2026. I’ve already taken a look at the total number of films that have played in Madison from January though June, and how many of those films that have appeared on Best of 2026 Films So Far lists have played in town.

In this post I’m taking a look at the number of international / foreign language films that have played in town in the first half of the year. The TL;DR is this: of the nearly 400-or-so films or special programs in Madison theaters so far this year, there were 67 international or foreign language films.

I have included a complete list of titles at the end of this post. The breakdown by country can be seen in the pie chart below, where the leading country begins at 12 o’clock, with subsequent countries following clockwise. So, there were 30 films from India, 16 films from Japan, and so on. Further down, I also break down the films by language, which is important for discussing the many languages heard in Indian popular cinema.

There are a few problems with my methodology, but they should not significantly alter the larger points I’ll be making in this post. When deciding whether a film counted as a foreign-language film produced in another country, I erred on the side of inclusion. So, two films are included that most people might leave off the list: Erupcja, a Polish co-production and Marama, a co-production from New Zealand. The trailers for both films suggest that the dialogue is primarily in English, more than Polish and Māori, respectively. Since neither of those examples significantly impact the thesis of this post, I’m comfortable with leaving them in as examples of international co-productions. If you find that decision problematic, then mentally remove two very thin slices of the pie.

The Hong Kong action thriller The Furious, distributed in North America by Lionsgate, also presents a problem in terms of language, even though it is clearly an international production. The film is obviously dubbed in English, but a few accounts of the film suggest that it was always the intention of the filmmakers to have the dialogue primarily in English. For my purposes here, I feel very comfortable describing it as a Hong Kong production.

I don’t have enough information to be completely sure if some animated films were presented in either subtitled or English dubbed versions, or both. This does affect the numbers for Japan and Japanese-language films, but not enough to be too worried about in the larger picture.

I was also somewhat inconsistent in defining Japanese anime screenings. I attempted to count anything marketed as “a movie” as a movie, even if it was a collection of anime television series episodes. In Japan there is a history of marketing re-edits of anime television episodes as “movies.” For example, currently on the Criterion Channel you can watch Gatchaman: The Movie, released in Japanese theaters in 1978.

With methodology issues out of the way, let’s look at the results. In my July 2 post, when teasing Madison film market numbers, I wrote, “If you’re a regular reader here, you probably don’t need to guess the top countries of origin for international films that play in Madison (clue: they’re not in Europe).” JoAnne Powers chimed in with the correct answer in the comments on that post: India and Japan. It makes sense that JoAnne would know this, because she sees many if not most of the Indian films that play in town. If you’re not already listening to JoAnne’s show on WORT-FM, Fire Worship, every other Tuesday from 2:00pm to 5:00pm, you should do so and catch the film calendar segment, “The Wages of Cinema.”

Indian popular cinema, with dialogue in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, or Malayalam, accounts for almost half of the foreign-language films in Madison in the first half of 2026. Even the least frequent Indian language, Malayalam, beats out several countries.

The dominance of Indian popular cinema in Madison’s international film market is not new. Back in November 2013, I wrote an overview of the Bollywood films¹ that screened at AMC Star Fitchburg 18 (as it was then called) for Isthmus. Even back then, Indian popular cinema would often outnumber films from other countries screened in Madison theaters. I wrote:

Of the 21 foreign-language films that have played in Madison commercial theaters since June 1 [to the publication date, November 7], more than half have been from India. There were 12 by my count, compared to five subtitled films at Sundance Cinemas in the same period.

The Indian diasporic community in Madison seems to have more faithfully returned to theaters after COVID than other specialty film fans did. In part, that is because Indian Popular Cinema serves a range of functions for Indian diasporic communities. Surabhi Raj wrote an interesting article on this topic in 2023, “The Creation of Indian Diasporic Culture Through Hindi Cinema” in Confluence, an online platform for student writing at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study.

What seems to have dropped since 2017 (the year of the Sundance Theater’s transition to an AMC Theater) has been the number and range of other specialty titles on Madison screens. I’ll have to crunch some numbers at the end of the year to see if this is just a subjective impression. (But most subscribers to this Substack probably have a similar subjective impression.)

In another Isthmus article, written in 2017, I had access to Sundance booking documents for 2015 and 2016, thanks to a little birdie. (I did not make it clear at the time that I had such access, because the little birdie potentially would have gotten in trouble.) With that data in hand, I argued that in its later days, Sundance was not doing as bad a job as some people were arguing at the time:

Sundance delivered what the specialty market demanded. The theater screened 75 percent of IndieWire’s list of highest grossing specialty releases in 2015 and 2016. (“Specialty” means indie, foreign and limited-release documentaries.) Of the 136 feature films Sundance screened in 2016, 90 (66 percent) were from specialty distributors or specialty divisions of studios, while 46 (34 percent) were mainstream studio releases . . .

. . . On its six screens, Sundance averaged four specialty films and two mainstream films. Sundance showcased specialty distributors like Music Box and Oscilloscope far more frequently than Marcus or AMC.

Again, it seems like we’re not doing as well currently with specialty releases in Madison’s theaters. At the end of this year, assuming I keep up with the Now Showing posts here at Moving Image Madison, I’ll be in a position to compare the 2026 highest grossing specialty releases to what ended up playing in Madison. This will hopefully be a more useful assessment of the international and independent specialty film markets in Madison than only referencing the year end “Best of 2026” lists.

Whenever I make predictions, at best I only get things half right. I ended up getting something half wrong and half right in that 2017 Isthmus article. When predicting changes in programming at the “AMC Madison 6,” the new name for the former Sundance Theater, I wrote:

The most likely shift at [AMC] Madison 6 will be an increase in Asian popular cinema, as suggested by the screening of three Mandarin-language titles just before Sundance’s rebranding. This reflects the corporate strategy of AMC’s parent company, the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group.

What I clearly got wrong is that an ongoing increase in Asian films never developed at AMC Madison 6, despite being closer to UW international student housing in Eagle Heights than the AMC Fitchburg 18. With 20/20 hindsight, one wonders if AMC Madison 6 could have held out longer if they had catered to the demand for Indian popular cinema, which remains a part of AMC’s current corporate strategy.

What I got right is that now we do see Mandarin-language films via AMC, at AMC Fitchburg 18. Mandarin-language Chinese films² come in right between Telugu and Tamil films in the chart below.

The takeaway here is the truism that I keep repeating like a broken record: If you want to see certain types of films in Madison’s theaters, you have to go see them when they do play in town. If there is a demand, there will be a supply. If there is not an adequate demand, the supply will not be there. Indian diasporic communities (and general movie enthusiasts) in Madison have supported Indian popular cinema when it plays in town, therefore the supply of these films has been consistent for well over 10 years.

1. 7 DOGS

   1. Country: Saudi Arabia

   2. Language: Arabic

2. AA BATA AAMA

   1. Country: Nepal

   2. Language: Nepali

3. ALL YOU NEED IS KILL

   1. Country: Japan

   2. Language: Japanese

4. ALPHA

   1. Country: India

   2. Language: Hindi

5. ARCO

   1. Country: France

   2. Language: English dub

6. ATTACK ON TITAN: THE LAST ATTACK

   1. Country: Japan

   2. Language: Japanese

7. BEING TOWARDS DEATH

   1. Country: China

   2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

8. BENDITO CORAZÓN (BLESSED HEART)

   1. Country: Mexico

   2. Language: Spanish

9. BERSHAMA

   1. Country: Egypt

   2. Language: Arabic

10. A BETTER TOMORROW

    1. Country: Hong Kong

    2. Language: Cantonese Chinese

11. BHOOTH BANGLA

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

12. BLADES OF THE GUARDIANS

    1. Country: China

    2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

13. BLEACH: THOUSAND-YEAR BLOOD WAR - THE CALAMITY

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

14. BORDER 2

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

15. CHAND MERA DIL

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

16. CHAO

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

17. DACOIT: A LOVE STORY

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

18. DHURANDHAR

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

19. DHURANDHAR: THE REVENGE

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

20. DRISHYAM 3

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Malayalam

21. ERUPCJA

    1. Country: Polish

    2. Language: Polish

22. EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY

    1. Country: China

    2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

23. EXIT 8

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

24. THE FURIOUS

    1. Country: Hong Kong

    2. Language: English dub

25. FRUITS BASKET: PRELUDE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

26. GODZILLA MINUS ONE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

27. GOVERNOR: THE SILENT SAVIOUR

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

28. HAI JAWANI TOH ISHQ HONA HAI

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

29. HAPPY RAJ

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Tamil

30. HARD BOILED

    1. Country: Hong Kong

    2. Language: Cantonese Chinese

31. HAUNTED: ECHOES OF THE PAST

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

32. KAPODISTRIAS (THE GOVERNOR)

    1. Country: Greece

    2. Language: Greek

33. KARUPPU

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Tamil

34. KATTALAN

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Malayalam

35. KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

36. THE KILLER

    1. Country: Hong Kong

    2. Language: Cantonese Chinese

37. KING’S WARDEN

    1. Country: South Korea

    2. Language: Korean

38. KRISHNAVATARAM

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

39. LUPIN THE IIIRD: THE MOVIE-THE IMMORTAL BLOODLINE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

40. MAIN VAAPAS AAUNGA

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

41. MANA SHANKARAVARAPRASAD GARU

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

42. MARAMA

    1. Country: New Zealand

    2. Language: Maori

43. MARDAANI 3

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

44. MRITHUNJAY

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

45. OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTIHI

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

46. PARIMALA AND CO

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Tamil

47. PATI PATNI AUR WOH DO

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Hindi

48. PEDDI

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

49. PEGASUS 3

    1. Country: China

    2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

50. PONYO

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

51. PRATHICHAYA

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Malayalam

52. THE PRESIDENT’S CAKE

    1. Country: Iraq

    2. Language: Arabic

53. RAAKAASAA

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

54. THE RAJASAAB

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

55. SAMPRADAYINI SUPPINI SUDDAPOOSANI

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

56. SCARLET

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

57. THE SECRET AGENT

    1. Country: Brazil

    2. Language: Portuguese

58. THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

59. SENTIMENTAL VALUE

    1. Country: Norway

    2. Language: Norwegian

60. THAT TIME I GOT REINCARNATED AS A SLIME THE MOVIE: SCARLET BOND

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

61. THAT TIME I GOT REINCARNATED AS A SLIME THE MOVIE: TEARS OF THE AZURE SEA

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

62. USTAAD BHAGAT SINGH

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

63. VANISHING POINT

    1. Country: China

    2. Language: Mandarin Chinese

64. VISHNU VINYASAMM

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Telugu

65. WHISPER OF THE HEART

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

66. WITH LOVE

    1. Country: India

    2. Language: Tamil

67. ZOMBIELAND SAGA: YUMEGINGA PARADISE

    1. Country: Japan

    2. Language: Japanese

1. Note on terminology: In general I tend to use the “Indian Popular Cinema,” because “Bollywood” is a nickname specifically for the Hindi-language cinema in India, which has different studios and stars than regional film industries in other languages like Telugu and Tamil (which have their own nicknames, “Tollywood” and “Kollywood,” respectively). And I tend not to use those nicknames, even though they provide a quick shorthand that people are familiar with, because some would argue the terms imply that Indian Popular Cinema is just a derivative copy of Hollywood cinema. But sometimes I do use “Bollywood” just for expedience.

2. You will also notice that there were three Cantonese-language films in theaters in the first half of 2026. I did not incorporate this fact into the post because these were unique cases: the limited re-releases of classic Hong Kong action films directed by John Woo, A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989), and Hard Boiled (1992), as part of Shout! Studios’ acquisition of the Golden Princess studio catalog.