Regular scrutinisers of the box office charts will discover that the majority of this week's international territories contain a common feature: French productions.

While it is common to see the same US titles grace the charts of every territory, it is less usual to see the films of other countries experiencing such global appeal.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie leads the trend having built up an international gross of over $50m. The majority of this take is of course accounted for by France's own $44m take, but strong performances in Germany ($3.45m) and Switzerland ($3.03m) would indicate a massive international performance to come.

Amelie currently heads up the Yugoslavian chart which has five French films in the top 10. The accompanying films: Belphegor, Would I Lie To You 2 (La Verite Si Je Mens! 2), The Closet and Brotherhood Of The Wolf provide French titles with 48.5% of the Yugoslav top 10 total gross.

The Closet has been enjoying an impressive domestic run having grossed more than $4.5m in 10 weeks on limited release for Miramax. Brotherhood Of The Wolf is also visible in various territories, having recently opened in Poland to a 10-day gross of $316,387 and racking up $2.99m in South Korea ($1.6m in Seoul alone). Brotherhood remains in the Yugoslav chart after 18 weeks on release (The Closet remains after 14 weeks) and has recorded 127,200 admissions to date, equivalent to $83,290.

French-US co-production Kiss Of The Dragon, co-written and produced by Luc Besson, also frequents the tables. Opening in Japan the Jet Li actionner managed a whopping $503,934 in the key nine cities alone (Sapporo, Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Hiroshima). Showing on just 13 screens the film, which also stars Bridget Fonda showed a screen average of $38,764. Dragon recently tallied over $0.8m in Hong Kong and has a French gross of $6.0m to add to its $35.5m US total.

Finally, despite some damning reviews, local comedy Absolument Fabuleux opened in France this week, accumulating a 645,638 admissions, equivalent to approximately $3.8m. The comedy, based on the hit British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous which stars Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, should perform well in the UK and US as well as other territories where the sitcom was a success.