Germans Love David Hasselhoff / Animated Films

• Irish Folklore Trilogy:
  • According to an interview with Cartoon Saloon CEO Paul Young, The Secret of Kells ended up becoming more of a success in the USA than in its native Ireland, where, in Young's words, "it didn’t really make much of an impact." It was also one of the nominees for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards in 2010 (though it lost to Pixar's UP).
  • The Irish-animated film Song of the Sea was a very popular movie in Japan, likely due to Saoirse being a cute rare Selkie-themed magical girl.
• A mild example with Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie; in the United States, it went to number two at the box office due to being blocked by another superhero movie; in Norway, it went to number one.
• Despicable Me:
  • Japan loves the Minions so much that they cameoed along with Agnes in Inazuma Eleven. Also, the DVD of the first film frequently shows up in Amazon Japan's top 20 kids and family DVD rankings, occasionally beating out shows like Aikatsu! and Kamen Rider, and the third movie topped the box office for four weeks in a row, something that hasn't been accomplished by a non-anime or non-Disney film.
  • The Minions are also massive in the Philippines, and there are even claims that some of the gibberish they mutter is actually Tagalog.
  • Ditto for Portugal, many Portuguese tropers are convinced that at least 40% of the Minons language is Portuguese, and are loved for it.
  • Despicable Me is also big in South America. In the countries on that continent, whenever a new Despicable Me film comes out, it will usually top the box office for at least three weeks. The Minions spin-off used to be the highest-grossing film of all time in Chile.
• Illumination Entertainment films in general are quite popular in Japan as all of their films are box office hits. Sing even managed to overthrow Moana as the number one film of the month upon its release. In fact, Nintendo gave the movie rights to the Super Mario Bros. franchise to them, resulting in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It helps that Toho (yes, that Toho), Japan's largest film studio, co-produces nearly all of Illumination's films.
• Anything related to Walt Disney or Disney is big in Japan. This has led to Square Enix making the Kingdom Hearts series. In fact, Osamu Tezuka often cited Disney as one of his influences, which led to the standard manga look of large, expressive eyes. Mamoru Hosoda has also cited them (specifically Beauty and the Beast) as an influence for his movie Belle (2021).
  • Tangled was very popular in India, due to the uncanny coincidence that Rapunzel's birthday celebration sequence (including the song "I See the Light," which includes many colored lanterns floating in the air) unintentionally resembles the Diwali festival.
    • The film is also pretty popular in Japan because many Japanese see Rapunzel as a hard-working and brave role model for women.
  • The Little Mermaid (1989): Ariel is unironically the most popular Disney Princess in Japan than the native United States, since Japanese Disney fans love telling stories about mermaids.
  • In 2014, Frozen was a monster hit in Japan. It held the top box-office spot there for sixteen weeks straight. By the time it relinquished the top spot, it was the highest-grossing Western-animated film and the third highest grossing film ever in the country, below only Spirited Away and Titanic (1997). In addition, it became the top-selling Blu-Ray of all time in Japan on its first day of sale, surpassing previous record-holder Evangelion: 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance in one day. Frozen II grossed about half of its predecessor there, but was still a huge hit.
    • Its successors, Big Hero 6 and Zootopia are also widely loved in Japan, although not in the same level of Frozen.
    • Frozen is also big in France. It is not uncommon to search for pictures on Google or see bootlegged merchandise of the film, such as fake phone cases and clothing, with the French title of the film printed on it. Their Disney theme park, Disneyland Paris, also hosts many events related to the film each year, such as when they added Anna, Elsa, and Olaf to their Disney Dreams of Christmas event, as well as the annual Frozen Summer Fun event.^note  This makes Disneyland Paris the only Disney park to do this more than once outside of the United States, and the only park to host it three times in a row, as Disneyland and Disney World stopped the event in 2016.
    • Frozen is bigger in the United Kingdom than it is in the United States. To put this into perspective, it reached #1 twice, and it took until summer 2015 for the supply and demand situation involving the merchandise to be solved, when it took only until the fall of 2014 in its home country. Also there, the film tends to be re-released there around Christmastime in select cinemas alongside The Muppet Christmas Carol.
  • Oliver & Company did well at the box office in the U.S., but in France it was very popular. To promote the film's French release in 1989, Anne Meson made an album called "Oliver", which was a hit in France. Oliver, Dodger, Tito, and Francis were featured in a series of music videos starring her between 1989 and 1990. Anne Meson even performed the song "Oliver" at Disneyland Paris (then "Euro Disney") with Oliver and Dodger during the park's inaugural year.
  • Lilo & Stitch (a film the creators admitted was inspired by the works of Studio Ghibli), has an anime adaptation which, over the course of December 2009, outperformed Pokémon: The Series. There's also Stitch merchandise just about everywhere in Japan.
    • There's actually a gift shop in Malaysia which sells NOTHING but Lilo & Stitch merchandise. No, seriously.
    • The Chinese also love Lilo & Stitch as they received an iOS Game based on the franchise and eventually received their own TV series called Stitch & Ai.
  • The Aristocats is also big in Japan, though most Japanese viewers are only watching it because of Marie. She's a very popular Disney character in Asia and especially Japan, and merchandise of her can be easy to find back there. There was even a 2015 manga called "Miriya & Marie" (Miriya being a Canon Foreigner). The manga was exclusive to Japan and Brazil for a couple years until the manga gained an US release in the summer of 2018 under the "Disney Manga" brand. She also starred in her own music video called "Walk in Paris". Since she's well-known for her moe appeal and the Japanese are known for cuteness, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise.
    • Marie is very popular in Brazil where she receives tons of merchandise similar to Asia and Japan. While in Italy, she is the most popular character from the film with her Italian name ("Minou") becoming a popular name for Italian cats.
  • Anything related to Aladdin is big in Japan. The live-action remake topped the box office for three weeks in a row, and on JOYSOUND the month it came out, the karaoke version of the 2019 version of A Whole New World topped the charts and beat DA PUMP's USA and Hata Motohiro's "Himawari no Yakusoku", two of the most popular songs on the app, with the English and 1992 versions of the same song also making the top 10.
  • Brits of a certain age adore The Black Cauldron, and it is a touchstone of their childhood. The Black Cauldron was an appaling flop in nearly every market, but (just) hit the targets assigned for it in the UK by Disney.
  • Filipino audiences love Encanto given that they can relate to the concept of family and Generational Trauma shown by the Madrigals. It helps that when Disney+ became available in the Philippines, Tagalog translations of the movie's songs are released which many Filipino music fans enjoyed.
  • While domestically Wish (2023) performed below expectations and received a very polarizing critical response from most American critics, the movie was much more successful in Japan, even having the best box-office opening for a Disney film in the country since Frozen II. France and South Korea were also much more receptive to the movie.
• While we're talking about Japan, Cheburashka (a Russian book and cartoon character) is very popular there as well. It is a recurring joke in Russia that Cheburashka is the first Pokémon ever created.
• Pixar examples:
  • An example crossing this with Ensemble Dark Horse — During a publicity trip to Japan promoting A Bug's Life, the Pixar crew noticed that the Japanese loved the little green alien toys from Toy Story. As a result, this led to them giving the aliens a more prominent role than intended in Toy Story 2 (and needless to say, prominently featuring them among the main cast in Toy Story 3). This is probably also the reason they were incorporated into Buzz Lightyear of Star Command.
    • Toy Story is so popular in China that they have their own hotel and dedicated land at the Disney resorts in that region. In fact, Bob Iger seeing how huge of a presence it had at Hong Kong Disneyland was one of the factors that lead to Disney purchasing Pixar.
    • In-universe example in Toy Story 2. Woody's Roundup is apparently huge in Japan, and it's what drives Al to sell Woody and the rest of the Roundup Gang to a toy museum there. Justified, considering American Westerns are popular in Japan.
    • Both Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4 are very popular in Japan themselves and made into Top 40 most highest-grossing movies in that country.
    • Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear got a lot of merchandise in Japan, such as a toy bus, UFO catcher plushies, and even Halloween costumes for kids! He is also very huge in China, to the point where he's almost as popular as the Duffy and Friends characters in the country.
  • Inside Out has become extremely popular in Latin America to the point where it topped the box office for two weekends in a row, and merchandise relating to the film frequently sold out in that country, now going for double the price.
    • There are also many British fans of the film, to the point where they outnumber the American fans. It's also worth noting that fans in that country love Bing Bong due to his comic relief character status. In fact, the line that gets the biggest audience reaction during most British screenings of Inside Out will usually be one of his lines, and merchandise of him is very hard to find there. He's also left a bit of an impact in Japan, as there's also something of a Japanese fad where people take toys of him out to cafes and restaurants.
    • It's also very popular in Italy. Despite being released late, it topped the box office for three weeks in the country. This lead to it becoming the second highest-grossing film of the year there, only beaten by The Force Awakens.
  • Monsters, Inc. is the most popular Pixar movie in Japan, possibly because Japan has a lot of monsters in their folklore.
  • In France, Cars is a very popular film series, and has a strong presence at Disneyland Paris.
  • Finding Dory is huge in Japan and spent many weeks in the top ten at the box office, which lead to it becoming the second highest-grossing animated movie in Japan of 2016, after Your Name. Its popularity led to the release of exclusive merchandise based on the film, including everything from stuffed animals and figurines of characters that haven't had toys released in the USA to an educational kids' smartphone toy.
  • Coco became the highest grossing film of ALL TIME in Mexico before even releasing in the US, and it's extremely beloved there to the point that the film's Tear Jerker aspect became a national meme. Understandable as it is a very respectful and fun representation not only of Day of the Dead, but Mexican culture in general.
    • The film has also been a strong hit in China, beating out Finding Dory to become the highest-grossing Pixar hit there, and even raking in more ticket sales than the US box office! This is presumably because of its themes revolving around family, memory, and honoring ancestors, all of which are traditional elements in Chinese culture. Coco was popular enough that it wasn't even censored or banned by the Chinese Censorship Bureau, which is known for prohibiting any movies that display supernatural elements, presumably because they were just that moved by the film's story.
  • In China, Soul performed surprisingly well for Pixar, whose films have typically flopped in the country. At $57 million, it not only outstripped Incredibles 2 to be China's #2 Pixar film (behind Coco), but it also significantly outperformed would-be blockbusters Wonder Woman 1984 and the China-tailored Mulan.
  • In Canada, Turning Red was warmly received with Air Canada decorating an Canadian built Airbus A220 with livery featuring images of Mei in her human and red panda forms and flying it across the country. Also, a life-size replica of red panda Mei was placed in various Canadian cities including Toronto where passerby could have their photos taken with the statue.
  • Elemental is very popular in Brazil, where it had huge promotion.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas is also a prominent Disney film in Japan instead of the cult-classic, Touchstone production in its home country, where it is usually presented as a Tim Burton film instead. Because of the movie's massive fanbase in Japan, Halloween Town is a recurring world in the Kingdom Hearts series. Its presence in Kingdom Hearts has actually made this come full circle with western fans of KH knowing about TNBC through the game.
  • The Japanese are well-aware of the movie's status in the United States, and the Japanese arm of Square (this was pre-merger) was rather surprised that the American arm wanted to promote the Halloween Town levels here, not realizing it would go over well in part because the American fandom for the movie overlaps well with video gaming fandom. Also, American Kirby Is Hardcore came into effect.
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise seem to be huge hits in many South East Asian countries such as Malaysia, where everything from handbags to cell phone cases feature Jack Skellington.
• Nickelodeon's Barnyard gained huge popularity in Iran when it was released for Home Media. Although it did not have an official dub, it was awesomely translated.
• The animated film Gnomes and Trolls: The Secret Chamber has been almost universally panned in its native Sweden. In Turkey, however, it was still playing in theaters half a year after its initial release.
• 3D animated features tend to gross ridiculous amounts of money in Russia, particularly if it's a sequel (the country's cinema audience widens every year). Basically, the formula for success is 3D animation + talking animals = $$$. DreamWorks seems to exploit this trend most successfully, with the latest installments of Shrek and Madagascar sitting in the top 10 highest-grossing movies of (post-Soviet) Russia.
• While The Three Caballeros are Ensemble Dark Horses among fans of Disney animation, Brazilians will be quick to single out their favorite character: their fellow green Brazilian parrot, José Carioca. In fact, they've even given him an endearing alias, Zé Carioca. Walt Disney would probably be very pleased, given that Saludos Amigos was made expressly as a propaganda piece to improve relations between the peoples of North America and South America.
• The Jungle Book is a cult classic in Europe, but is MUCH beloved in Germany. For further details, this article explains why.
• Kung Fu Panda was a massive hit in China. So much so there was a council meeting where the officials of the nation chided their own people for not doing something of the same detail.
  • The sequel did not do as well in North America as the original, although it was popular enough to make back the production budget. However, the film is a worldwide smash hit, especially in China, reigning as #1 for two weeks with overseas earnings that more than compensated to outgross not only the original, but also Pixar's Cars 2.
  • The third film made even less money in the US than Kung Fu Panda 2 (being released in the dump month of January might have caused this), but it once again proved to be very popular in China. And like with Kung Fu Panda 2, over 70% of its total box office grosses came from overseas.
    • As an example of this in action, the third Kung Fu Panda film actually had its lip movements reanimated for its Chinese release to fit the Chinese dub. It's that popular.
• Japan loves Kubo and the Two Strings. It helps that Laika has Shown Their Work and that the Japanese dub is a Superlative Dubbing.
• The Ice Age series have all had decent box office runs in the United States and Canada, but are mainly just viewed as just another animated film series. However, in the overseas market, the series has been huge, with the first four films in the series being the highest grossing animated films worldwide in the years in which they were released.
  • One element that made the first movie extremly popular in Germany was cult comedian Otto Waalkes voicing Sid The Sloth in his common mannerisms. Once the producers got aware of Sid's popularity thanks to his voice actor they even consulted Waalkes to improve the voice acting in English.
• Going from a post on Jorge's Tumblr, The Book of Life seems to have been well received in Italy and Taipei.
• Don Bluth films and games seems to have a lot more popularity and devoted fans in Italy. So much so that Don Bluth and Gary Goldman even mentioned in one of their interviews that the Italians held a Dragon's Lair festival for them.
• Zootopia has become very popular in China, France, Russia, and especially Korea. It was so popular in China, in fact, that it got an extension in Chinese theaters, something that's very rare for a foreign film there. Not only that, it was the highest-grossing animated film for a few years (before being taken over by Ne Zha three years later). It did so well that Disney announced in early 2019 that Shanghai Disneyland would be getting a land themed around the movie.
• Ferngully The Last Rainforest and Thumbelina, two animated movies from 1994 that were bombs in their native country of the United States, were more successful in Japan, to the point where both films sold more VHS copies than the Sailor Moon S movie.
• The Emperor's New Groove is considered one of the best and funniest Disney films in Brazil, Italy and the Netherlands, mainly thanks to their Superlative Dubbing.
• The How to Train Your Dragon films and TV shows are huge across Scandinavia, thanks to their Viking-era setting. In fact, Alexander Rybak, who represented Norway in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest and won, recorded a few songs for the second film and even voices Hiccup in the Norwegian dub!
• In a rather unfortunate case of this, Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was beloved in Nazi Germany (the next time Disney would have a movie ready for international distribution, Europe was kind in the middle of a huge war, so it was more well known in Allied Countries at the time). Even Adolf Hitler was a fan, as he occasionally doodled fan art of the dwarves during war meetings.
  • Snow White is also the second most popular Disney Princess in Japan, only beaten by Ariel, to the point where most Japanese works portraying her draw influence from Disney's adaptation of the story, just like in its homeland of the United States. This may be because Snow White’s distinguishing features — her black hair and pale skin — are considered hallmarks of traditional Japanese beauty.
• In the UK and Ireland, The LEGO Movie was the second highest-grossing family film of 2014, behind Paddington (2014).
• While My Little Pony: The Movie bombed in the United States due to poor marketing and critics thinking it was too girly, in the United Kingdom it beat films that were more popular in its home country such as Call Me by Your Name and The Star in British ticket sales. It helps that My Little Pony is pretty big in the United Kingdom.
  • It was also big in China despite being released a few months late, with the film making more money than the imported family films it was competing against.
• Trolls is a big success in its home country of the United States, where it rivals Frozen (2013) in popularity. But in India, the franchise is much bigger than it is in the United States. It's one of the most-streamed kids' films on a popular Indian streaming service, and the merchandise is almost everywhere.
  • It's also big in the UK, where it topped the box office for two weeks in a row, outgrossed Moana in ticket sales and has received exclusive merchandise, most notably some which has art similar to that of Trolls: The Beat Goes On!.
• Sausage Party did decently in the United States. But in New Zealand, it was a major success, beating The Secret Life of Pets in ticket sales and topping the box office for three weeks.
• Winnie the Pooh is one of Disney's most popular properties, but it's even bigger in Asian countries, namely Japan and Hong Kong, where merchandise can be found everywhere and the rides based on the franchise are the most popular in those countries' Disney parks. The 2011 film often appears on DVD sales charts in Japan, selling just as many copies as the domestically-produced Kiki's Delivery Service.
  • In France, Winnie the Pooh is the second most popular Disney character (and franchise) after Mickey Mouse (and before Donald Duck). It was especially popular during the 1980s, having its own localized version of Welcome to Pooh Corner (the narrator sequences were changed to suit the French audience) as well as a magazine series.
• In the United States, Ugly Dolls failed at the box office due to being overshadowed by Avengers: Endgame. But in South Korea, it sold more tickets than Pokémon Detective Pikachu and that year's Pororo the Little Penguin film, and had Happy Meal tie-in toys sell out due to their popularity. It helps that one of the creators of the franchise the film's based on is Korean.
• Wonder Park was a Box Office Bomb because of it receiving negative reviews from critics and coming out two weeks before Dumbo and being overshadowed by the smash hit Captain Marvel (2019). But in France, the film was a big hit, beating out SHAZAM! (2019) and The Queen's Corgi in the country, with the earnings of the film being so huge ($12,000,000 USD) that they accounted for a major chunk of the film's overseas earnings.
• Studio Ghibli:
  • My Neighbor Totoro was well-known in the United States during the 90's via a Fox VHS release a year after hitting theaters that became decently popular, selling half a million units in two years, and is so fondly remembered that DVD copies now fetch high prices on online shopping sites.^note  This is because of the fact that this dub's DVD was only in print for three years before being discontinued in favor of the newer Disney release. The character of Totoro, particularly merchandise featuring him, is also so popular in the country that he has been referenced in Western works like Toy Story 3.
    • In China, merchandise featuring the titular character is extremely popular, being sold in every store imaginable. When the country finally got an official release of the film in 2018, it made more during that release than it did in its original Japanese run, accounting for more than 80% of the worldwide gross for that movie.
  • Kiki's Delivery Service was a hit in the US due to Disney (through Touchstone Pictures as their first G-rated film) distributing the video and casting celebrities such as Kirsten Dunst and Phil Hartman as the characters, and sold over a million copies in its first week on video. Like Totoro above, older DVDs of the original cut of the dub ^note  The newer version removes the opening and ending songs and the background music made for the English dub in favor of the original soundtrack, and omits many ad-libbed lines in the film. are highly demanded by those who grew up with the film.
  • Princess Mononoke got this during its American home video release due to good word-of-mouth about the translation, acting and the storyline.
  • Spirited Away is beloved by Americans because it was the only anime to earn the Oscar for Best Animated Film, and is also big in China (despite featuring ghosts and other spirits, which usually gets films Banned in China), to the point where its official Chinese release beat Toy Story 4 in ticket sales when the latter film opened.
  • Castle in the Sky is so popular in China that one of the most popular overseas vacation destinations for the Chinese is a hillside building that looks like the titular location in the movie.
  • Ponyo is another popular Studio Ghibli work in the United States, and seems to be a common movie choice for parents of preschool-aged children. It helps that the English dub was co-produced with Pixar and Lucasfilm, including future Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.
  • While The Wind Rises is the tenth highest-grossing anime film of all time worldwide and got nominated for an Oscar, it isn't as frequently talked about as other Studio Ghibli titles do, both among that studio's fandom and among those outside of it. But in China, the film is extremely popular, and is slated for a release in Chinese theaters after the successes of My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, along with the previously-mentioned Castle In The Sky and Howl's Moving Castle.
• Marcell Jankovics's 1981 Hungarian mythological film Son of the White Horse opened to a mediocre reception in his home, lost the "Movie of the Year" award to Vuk the Little Fox and has since gotten divisive reactions, sinking into obscurity. But on the international stage, especially in the United States, it's been hailed as a masterpiece of artistic animation and has become by far the most recognized Hungarian animated film, even receiving an American co-produced restoration in 2019, then in 2021 a Blu-ray version came out in the U.S. alongside Germany. It was the first of Jankovics's four feature films to be released in more than one Western country, which is especially poignant since he had made it with no intent to appeal to any foreign market.
• Foam Bath from 1980, one of the worst-ever performing animated films of Hungary, slowly built enough of a reputation over the decades to get restored into 4K in 2021. However, the only countries to actually release this restoration on Blu-ray were France, with a later US set following in 2024. The restoration is currently unreleased in its home country.