In 2019, six of the top ten films at the Dutch box office were from Disney – The Lion King, Avengers: Endgame, Aladdin, Frozen II, Captain Marvel and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The other four, as well as the next ten, are all Hollywood releases. The top five of 2020 so far are also US films led by 1917, whose Golden Globe win helped propel its box office around the world. It’s made $8.9 million so far, the fifth top market for the film.

The total box office in the Netherlands for 2019 was $Bohemian Rhapsody led the list. The trend has been upward over the past five years with Hollywood films leading the box office every year.

While the common theme in these reports of international territories is the domination of Hollywood and Netflix (more on Netflix later) over the local industry, the film industry in the Netherlands is relatively small and does not have much of an international market. So, expatriates like director Paul Verhoeven have gone to Hollywood to make careers there. In an interview with Screen Daily in 2016, Verhoeven said, “I really fled Holland in 1985 because the committees that give you money didn’t want to give it to me anymore because they thought I made ‘entertainment movies,’ low level, disgusting, perverted and portraying Dutch society in the wrong way.” (He was the director of Basic Instinct and Showgirls, winner of seven Razzies, fans will remember. In 2006 he did return to his homeland where he made the critically acclaimed Elle, another Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 2016.)

But in recent years, the country has tried to attract international co-productions with a variety of incentives. In 2014, a 30% cash rebate on spending was offered to both movie and TV production (now it’s 35%) with a minimum spend of €1 million and 75% of production costs incurred in the country. The annual rebate budget is about €31 million. Stunning locations encompassing canals, windmills and tulip fields, cosmopolitan cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, and easy proximity to the UK and rest of Europe led tens of productions to flock to the Netherlands. Over 200 co-productions have availed of the rebate.

Christopher Nolan was one filmmaker to take advantage of the incentives offered. He shot Dunkirk there in 2016 for over a month in the fishing village of Urk, and received the full million-euro rebate as well as permission to use the air space for his aerial shots. It helped that his cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, was Dutch.

The Lionsgate film The Hitman’s Bodyguard with Ryan Reynolds and Salma Hayek, was shot in Amsterdam and took advantage of the rebate, regaining €857,000. (It was reported the locals were not pleased with the diverted traffic and closed-off roads for three weeks.) According to Variety, the Western Brimstone starring Dakota Fanning, also received a rebate though it wasn’t shot in the Netherlands because its writer-director and most of its crew were Dutch.

Other well-known films shot in the Netherlands include 2003’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.  Featuring the life of Dutch master Vermeer, it starred Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson and was filmed in Delft. 2004’s Ocean’s Twelve used Amsterdam as a location and so did 2014’s The Fault in Our Stars, which did good business in the country.

Several Dutch actors have been featured in Hollywood productions, most recently Famke Janssen in two X-Men movies; Carice van Houten, best known as Melisandre in Game of ThronesLotte Verbeek in The Fault in Our Stars; Silvia Hoeks in Blade Runner 2049; and Michiel Huisman in The Age of Adaline and Game of Thrones. Best known of course are old-timers like Rutger Hauer (dubbed the Dutch Paul Newman) for the original Blade Runner and Jeroen Krabbé for The Fugitive and The Living Daylights. Director Jan de Bont is another Dutchman who made action movies like Speed and Twister in Hollywood.