As an American, I enjoy watching movies based on the US and its military, and I want to know if these movies are popular outside of the US.
I'm talking about movies of various genres that are based on the US government or war:
More specifically, does this kind of movie commonly profit outside of the US?
The site Box Office Mojo is a good resource. It gives domestic and foreign grosses.
For instance, Saving Private Ryan grossed more abroad ($265,300,000) than here in the States ($216,540,909). The same is true with White House Down which grossed $73,103,784 in the US and $132,262,953 in foreign territories. A sixty million dollar difference is a significant amount and rather telling that like most other American movies, the military ones do just fine.
After all, I don't have to be from Japan to appreciate Seven Samurai or The Hidden Fortress.
EDIT : Speaking of Japan, the movie Pearl Harbor did rather well over there, despite its delicate subject matter. In the marketing the love story was played-up, as opposed to the bombing, and it was a surprising box-office score for Disney. That says a lot about American "military" movies. This link also seems to substantiate the claim.
Short answer: yes, provided you don't offend anyone. Longer answer: yes and/or no, depending on how you look at it.
Firstly, I'm a little surprised that no one has mentioned the language barrier with respect to international market size. The US is about 60% of the English-speaking world (by native speaker count), so it's a little surprising that international sales are as strong as they are compared to domestic sales - it seems 40% domestic to 60% international is becoming the trend. Until relatively recently a US film could expect roughly three equal amounts from domestic box office, foreign box office, and other sources (DVD, cable, etc).
Secondly, there are a couple of problems with the question. The first is the word "generally". You have several good answers with numbers comparing US vs. worldwide sales, but these are all fairly successful, well received films. When you move from a domestic market to an international market you will notice something TVTropes likes to call the "import filter". You can read more about it there, but as 90% of all movies are crud, most films are never exported in the first place.
To show a film in a cinema you typically need to go through a certification process. You pay some board a fee to sit and watch your film, they tell you to cut 1.3 seconds of excessive violence and one incidence of foul language (so that they look like they're working), and then you re-edit the film at your own expense. If you want to show the film in the UK, France, Germany, they all have separate boards. They will all ask for different edits. An example with special relevance to war films: Germany in particular is notably more strict on depictions of violence, Nazi symbolism, and glorification of war. Depending on the local language and culture you will also have to rework a lot of the marketing material too.
The upshot of this is that an international release incurs a lot of additional cost. This has the effect that a film will only be released internationally if the distributors are already relatively sure that they will make a profit. A larger number of films will be made that never get a theatrical release outside the US. For example, IMDb 7.1/10 rated, Tigerland, a domestic flop that grossed less than 2% of its production cost, never had an international release. So one answer to your question is "no, most US military films make little or no money outside the US". Another answer would be "yes, if they get an international release at all they will typically make a fair profit".
The other problem with the question is the assumption that you can so easily split the domestic and foreign profits of big budget films. Pearl Harbor had a budget of ~$151m and domestic takings of ~$198m. After you consider the $45m marketing budget you're little more than breaking even. No one would ever make that film if they were only hoping for that kind of return. When you factor in the international box office takings you get a much more respectable gross of $449m. Did this movie profit outside the US? You could easily say it only made its profit outside the US. More dramatically, Battleship had a budget of $209m, a domestic take of just $65m, and was barely rescued by international sales of $237m.
Anecdotally, I'd say good, honest US military films, with strong production values, are as well received here in the UK as they would be at home, WW2 films especially so. Obviously, films that outright offend a particular country don't do as well. U-571 took only $50m internationally, compared to domestic takings of £77m, probably because no one in the UK went to see it. A rough back-of-the-envelope estimate based on the domestic suggests that this film earned about $65m less internationally than might be expected.
For the movies you quoted, here is the box office in France, and the "users ratings" according to allociné.fr.
And i'd like to add :
Knowing that out there, more than 1 million can be considered as a success. More than 500 000 is average for blockbusters and less than 100 000 a flop.
I'll also add that :
On the most popular TV channels, roughly 50% of the movies broadcasted are americans, and some of these have already been broadcasted several times. The rest of the time being shared between french and european movies. Others countries movies being anecdotic. For TV series, it's almost 80% american.
The US makes huge numbers of movies and, in the UK at least, the majority of the movies we see are American. As such, we're completely used to the people in the movies being Americans. The cops in the movies are Americans, the criminals in the movies are Americans, the office workers in the movies are Americans, the spacemen in the movies are Americans, the musicians in the movies are Americans, the clowns in the movies are Americans. Nobody cares because that's how it always is. And the soldiers in the movies are Americans, too. How is that any different?
Although we already have a rather objective box-office oriented answer, I'll try a rather general approach, with the help of some personal experience.
First of all, even if this might not speak for general appreciation, I have seen and ejoyed many, if not all, of the examples you provided. While I am neither an American, nor an American patriot, nor a patriot for my own country above average levels, I can still appreciate the depiction of foreign patriotism and military admiration in movies, if they contribute to the overall impression of the movie.
But that isn't my, and I guess other people's, primary motivation for watching those movies anyway. I think all those movies (measured by your examples at least) don't derive their primary attraction mainly from presenting us people in uniforms to admire and infusing feelings of nationality and patriotism, but simply from their action and drama and from their overall gripping stories and realization, with the governmental/historical/war setting as a backdrop. You certainly don't need to be an American to be moved by Tom Hanks dying for his country, Gerard Butler kicking ass for his president, or Mel Gibson contributing to the birth of his nation.
While the overt patriotism of some of those movies (which isn't the case with many of your examples anyway) might be a deterrent factor for certain people to limit their enjoyment of those movies, it is only a part of the movies' overall impression and there's much more to derive enjoyment from. Add to this that modern American cinema has always had a large influence on the TV and movie landscape of many countries (or at least mine), so people there are certainly accustomed to a healthy portion of American culture in movies anyway.
So I don't see why those movies shouldn't be successful outside of the US and I know (although without specific box-office evidence) that many of your examples were generally pretty successful in my home country and, I guess, around the world.
I don't have an international exposure about that but speaking for me (living in Asia) I have many friends who are crazy about military movies. These movies are not advertised as much by cinemas as mainstream franchises but they make good presence.
A good point just came to mind: Countries with large armies like India, military movies do pretty well
I cannot provide an objective answer to your question and I think it is really hard to find. You can devise a general conclusion if persons from different regions tell their experience.
It is hard to tell that from the movies you mention. Because they are all big productions with very well-known artists or directors.
If we think about Saving Private Ryan;
Even with those people in the crew, the movie had got great attention in my country (Turkey). It was a great production and an excellent movie.
I guess you must consider movies without big budget and well-known movies. But, on the other hand, such movies do not have much chance to air in foreign countries.
And finally, USA have great actors and actresses to cast in war movies. So I can say yes, most of USA productions have success in Turkey.
I think it possibly depends on the movie. As a Brit (who admittedly doesn’t watch that many films):
Obviously, it would depend on what the greater appeal is of the movie.
Saving Private Ryan, as cited by others, had great mass appeal. That's because it had a realistic depiction of the actual insanity of WWII on the battlefield, and that the characters had universal appeal - scared, angry, school teachers, family killed in war, wanting to stand by each other - that's pretty universal stuff that anyone can identify with.
Movies that aim for a more, say, jingoistic appeal are obviously not going to play as well or have as much appeal.
So, if the thumbnail synopsis is "Americans kick foreign ass because America is awesome," then that's not going to sell well. If the appeal is something a bit more real, or universal, then that will do well. Obviously, the quality of the acting, writing and movie-making are going to impact this.
