Outside America, Pacific Rim‘s Cherno Alpha is the Boba Fett of a new generation.

Last year around this time, I asked a question aloud to no one in particular: if we know the highest-grossing movies at the American box office each year, and we know the highest-grossing movies worldwide at all box offices, which movies were the year’s winners if we subtract America’s dollars? What were the rest of Planet Earth’s favorite popcorn flicks?

Box Office Mojo is a fantastic source for fans who can’t get enough number-crunching, being the premiere online source for film revenue tracking. You can check out their 2013 stats for domestic and total worldwide box office as separate lists, but if you want to know only what drove the rest of the world into their respective theaters, additional math is required to remove us from the Big Picture.

Lo and behold: I did the math for all of us. Presenting the thirty highest-grossing movies of 2013 outside the U.S.:

I expanded this year’s list from Top-20 to Top-30 for one simple reason: I was dying to know what everyone else thought about The Lone Ranger. In all, they seemed more forgiving.

Most of the conclusions are identical to last year’s, but it’s a year later and a different set of movies altogether. That means I can pretend something about this is a new discovery, especially if you never read last year’s entry. Some of those conclusions:

The Hunger Games is a tough sell overseas. Catching Fire had the same odd issues that its predecessor experienced. Have the books not yet been translated into every language? Are other countries more dismissive because they wee more aware of the Battle Royale resemblances than Americans were? Whatever the reason, some crowds out there seem to think of Katniss Everdeen as the Girl on Lukewarm.

A failed blockbuster with overseas connections can still rule. Consider some of the names that rose in the ranks. Pacific Rim is a tribute to Japanese kaiju and mech-based sci-fi. The Wolverine was even more immersed in Japan. The cast of The Smurfs 2 was big in Belgium for decades before they stormed our shores and warped our Saturday morning schedule. A Good Day to Die Hard was set in Russia and starred that one guy who used to be in all our movie exports. Simple relatability shouldn’t be discounted as an economic factor. Ties to China certainly didn’t hurt Iron Man 3, either.

Sci-fi explosions are universal. Though we saw a crowded field this year, Oblivion, Elysium, and even the future MST3K episode After Earth found their legs away from home. One could make a case for expanding this section to include G.I. Joe: Retaliation (military SF) or Hansel & Gretel (fantasy with guns).

What the heck is Lost In Thailand? Great question! I never even heard of it until tonight. From what I see online, it was a Chinese comedy whose grosses rivaled James Cameron’s Titanic in their record books. Stateside, it played for two weeks in February 2013 at a maximum of 35 screens. I rounded its final U.S. tally up to an even $60,000 so my spreadsheet could discern the difference. Perhaps one of its stars is the Chinese Will Ferrell, but I couldn’t tell you which one.

Yay cartoons! Beyond those blasted Smurfs, Turbo and the Croods apparently have secret fan bases clamoring for their sequels. Though I cut the list off at 30 to prevent overkill, rest assured Epic, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and even Disney’s Planes weren’t trailing far behind.

Boo R-rated comedy. Well, not unilaterally true this year. The Heat and We’re the Millers may not have translated well, but The Hangover Part 3 bucked the trend and proved it can be done, if not necessarily confirming if it should be done.

Thoughts on Man of Steel‘s noticeable drop? I’m open to ideas on this one. Is the old TV show’s line about “truth, justice, and the American way” still out there reverberating and alienating other viewers? Did the controversial climax bother them half as much as it bothered some of us? Did other countries forget to show it? Or do Americans simply love the big blue Boy Scout that much more?

Was this entire entry an excuse to show off yet another Pacific Rim image? Any excuse for gratuitous Jaeger shots is fine by me, but it wasn’t my primary objective. Maybe secondary, then.