In 2005, just 10 foreign-language films had ticket sales of more than $1 million in the United States.

"I feel as if there's almost no auteur draw anymore." The honest truth is that the filmmaker matters increasingly little today."

I recommend many of the films mentioned in this article. (Have you seen The Aristocrats?)

[ The Aristocrats has been on my list for a while... I'll have to see some of these others too.

I have trouble pinning the blame on pseudo-indies, as the article sort of hints at. If the movies are good, I don't care if they're made in America or Paraguay. Lets face it, the problem isn't with the still smallish quantity of artistically motivated films coming out of hollywood, but with the far vaster quantity of over-hyped, heavily marketed tripe. And it's not the industry's fault either, they want to make money, and do what they need to.

I'd also argue that there are political (American ego) and pragmatic (people seeing less movies in the theater, particularly documentaries or dialogue driven movies that don't benefit as driectly from the big screen as do action flicks). As NYT hints at the end, the video market will be savior of foreign and other marginal films.

I see the division continuing, personally, until theater's are even more reserved for blockbusters, and everything else just ends up as DVD

Is Foreign Film the New Endangered Species?