What Happens to Hollywood When the U.S. Is No Longer the Good Guy?

From postwar liberation to Cold War supremacy, U.S. soft power has never been more potent than when projected onto a movie screen. For decades, Hollywood cast the American hero — from Rick Blaine to John McClane, Rocky Balboa, Ethan Hunt and Captain America — as the planet’s natural protagonist: the first responder to global chaos, the last line of defense against tyranny. But as Pax Americana begins to wane, with Donald Trump undercutting allies, eroding the rule of law and cozying up to autocrats, the studios face a question novel to their long history: Are American heroes still appealing — or even plausible — to vast swaths of the world?

“The Trump administration has initiated a shock and awe campaign — only this time, against our allies. Has it changed the minds of many around the world about us? Yes, and justifiably,” says Kal Raustiala, a professor of law and international relations at UCLA. “Allies are stunned, confused and much more wary of us today — and that is likely to translate into how their euros or yen are spent in their downtime. We are already seeing this in tourism. It would be a surprise if it didn’t also create some blowback toward the screen.”

In its most recent quarterly survey, published March 4, research firm YouGov found that opinion of the U.S. in Europe since Trump’s election had plummeted to its lowest level on record — and this was before the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs escalated aggression toward the bloc’s economies. There’s currently no country in Europe where more than half of the population has a positive attitude toward the U.S. From August 2024 to February 2025, favorability in Germany fell from 52 percent to 32 percent, and in Denmark — amid Trump’s threats to overtake Greenland by force — positive views of the U.S. slid to 20 percent.

“Historically, Hollywood has played a double role in U.S. soft power: It gave the country global relevance as a source of popular culture that was attractive in its own right, and it also presented an attractive ethical system and way of life that was distinct from that experienced elsewhere,” says Nicholas Cull, a professor of public diplomacy at USC’s Annenberg School. “Hollywood told the world about the importance of democracy and the rule of law even as it showcased the prosperity that American-style capitalism delivered to ordinary citizens.”

Notes a veteran European producer, “Most Europeans grew up on these images of the heroic cowboy or American soldier coming to the rescue, but that looks quite a bit different with a Trump government that is cuddling up with Russia.”

As with the full impact of Trump’s tariffs in other sectors, it will take some time to assess the damage his administration’s hostile actions and rhetoric have wrought on American content’s appeal across borders. The studios’ slow start to 2025 offers limited benchmarks so far.

Disney and Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World had problems more urgent than the geopolitical context of its release (as indicated by its B- CinemaScore), but its namesake certainly didn’t help it in territories around the world, industry insiders say. Since its Feb. 14 release, Brave New World has earned 51.7 percent of its $415 million worldwide box office total overseas, compared to an average of 60.7 percent from offshore sales for the first three films in the franchise.

“There’s going to be some discounting, which is not good for a business that’s already very challenged,” says Noah Segal, co-president of Elevation Pictures, a leading Canadian indie distributor. “I certainly don’t think we’ll see a heroic U.S. war film right now — and if we do, it’s probably going to be divisive,” he adds.

How much interest international viewers will continue to have in popular streaming series about the sacrifices of U.S. spies and diplomats who are dedicated to upholding democratic ideals — like Netflix’s The Diplomat and The Night Agent or Michael Fassbender’s The Agency for Paramount+ — remains to be seen.

“International buyers might begin to become wary of the Yellowstone-style, all-American series and films,” notes an exec at a leading European film sales company, adding: “Buyers in a number of countries are more critical of America and American culture than I’ve ever seen.”

The U.S. film industry, of course, isn’t in the business of propaganda. Many of the most treasured classics of 20th century American filmmaking were explicit critiques of U.S. foreign policy, from Dr. Strangelove to The Deer Hunter. Somewhat paradoxically, though, such works simultaneously enhanced international admiration for the American way of life.

Explains UCLA’s Raustiala: “When Hollywood began to more directly criticize U.S. foreign policy — films like Apocalypse Now or Coming Home, which both tackled Vietnam — they bolstered American soft power by showing that open dissent and critique were possible. This was something the Soviets, for instance, would never permit. Our relatively free society was on display for all to see in these films.”

The studios haven’t made dramas that take on overtly political themes for the better part of a generation, though. The unfortunate fate of last year’s Trump biopic The Apprentice speaks to the genre’s challenges.

The film premiered to rave reviews and an eight-minute standing ovation in Cannes on its way to becoming an awards-season breakout, scoring two Oscar nominations — for Sebastian Stan, playing Trump, and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn. But no major studio or streamer stepped up to distribute the movie. Those close to the film alleged the majors had succumbed to self-censorship, fearful that putting The Apprentice in theaters worldwide might invite an angry reprisal of some kind from weaponized Trump administration regulators or investigators. In any case, few doubted that the movie would have driven massive global engagement had it been picked up by Netflix (which passed on the film) and made available in the midst of the 2024 U.S. election. There was also decidedly little for the world to admire about the U.S. and its vaunted ideals in the episode.

In truth, the U.S. studios’ aversion to political nerve or principle is nothing new. They began scrubbing their biggest films of discernible American nationalism and explicit commitments to human rights and democracy more than a decade ago. The goal was pragmatic: to ensure smooth access to China’s once-booming but tightly controlled theatrical market. But the subtle kowtowing nonetheless proved insufficient when geopolitical tensions intensified. After Trump launched his first trade war with China in 2017 — just as Chinese commercial filmmaking was rapidly improving — local audiences began turning away from U.S. blockbusters. Today, Marvel tentpoles earn about one-tenth of what they once did in the country.

Ironically, from one point of view, the studios’ internalized institutional practice of keeping their escapist product ideologically neutral at all costs could serve them well in the current, fraught moment. As long as it doesn’t have “America” in the title, the superhero film will likely remain relatively easy for global viewers to disassociate from Trump’s America First movement. Even Tom Cruise’s final outing as American spy Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible— The Final Reckoning is expected to trade more on global nostalgia than on any reflection of today’s geopolitical reality — or so many industry insiders seem to hope and believe.

But as Hollywood largely avoids the visceral emotions elicited by Trumpism, international industries are leaning into it.

Elevation Pictures is doubling down on homegrown Canadian storytelling, looking to harness the rising “elbows up” sentiment provoked by Trump’s tariffs and his insulting “51st state” remarks. “There’s definitely going to be a lift in Canadian content — and I assume something similar will happen across other international markets,” says Segal, noting that the company is even considering adding a “Made in Canada” label to all of its local film marketing.

Trump’s disdain for classic neoliberal U.S. soft power — and for the values and institutions that uphold it — is likely to hurt American interests in just the same way his tariff regime and utter ignorance of real-world trade theory do.

“The movie business is always looking for something new, and this sensation of global outrage is very real,” says Segal. “It’s not going to help the U.S. industry. Others around the world are going to seize the opportunity. It’s going to internationalize the film business.”

Adds Sabine de Mardt, president of the German division of French studio Gaumont, in a recent interview with THR: “A certain narrative — the great American dream narrative, the one that we in Western Europe used to so closely identify with — is being questioned and reconsidered. There’s a new opportunity to strengthen our European identity, and I am really looking forward to that.”

This story appeared in the May 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.