IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/ Rotten Tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lives_of_others/
(yarr!)
In the Dutch speaking part of Belgium we try to refer to most movies in their original language (Das Leben Der Anderen, Cidade De Deus, ...), though we do seem to have trouble with Asian titles where we for some obscure reason default to using the English title. Edit: We do translate children's movies.
Now I live in Paris, every time I get in touch with my old buddies they make fun of me for referring to movies by their French titles. Sucks big time ...
We subtitle everything, it's quite handy. I learned a great part of my English by watching English language shows with Dutch subtitles.
Because in big countries like Germany, France or Spain people could survive without speaking another language, so they do not understand those names and can't remember them. In super-countries like China, USA or Russia this effect is even stronger.
Belgium is a small country linked to commerce in the world, and is fairly typical to have normal people speak 3-4 languages.
An American could die speaking only her native tongue without the need to learn anything else being able to work over an extension that is bigger than Europe, or just ask for using it whenever in the world she is.
It irritates me when Europeans get upset about American lack of "worldliness" (for lack of a better term). The US is bigger than the entire European Union, has only one de facto language, and is removed from the rest of the world by 3,000 miles of water on each side. Of course Americans aren't constantly running into people from other countries/cultures, we have states that are bigger than many European sovereign nations. I can drive 3000 miles (~5000km) from New York to LA and encounter nothing but America and English.
In Europe, that would get you from Brugge to Burgas and back, going through Belgium, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. And back. Lisbon is closer to Helsinki than New York is to LA.
Really? Not to sound like a prick but you must live in the middle of nowhere. I live in LA (santa monica, to be exact). I live next to an eastern European deli, kosher jewish, multiple Chinese restaurants, sushi, ramen, and yaki joints, thai, Peruvian, Mexican, Korean, Caribbean/Jamaican/Cuban Vietnamese, French, German, Ethiopian, Greek, Italian, "middle eastern", persian, mediterranean, russian restaurants / groceries / communities / -owned businesses/ the list goes on and on and on. And of course good ol' american BBQ, burgers and beer, standard fast food, ice cream, southern soul food, tex mex, east coast seafood, southern creole, ...
Many people come here from around the world to work in professional jobs, also. And many students and faculty at UCLA, LMU, USC, SMC, etc, etc.
It's just that many of those people all speak English, can act 100% "American" when they need to, and their cultures have become a seamless part of American culture. This is something else many non-Americans don't understand (and Americans don't see even though it's right under their noses).
In fact, if you count the languages that "Americans" including 1st and 2nd generation immigrants speak, it's vast.
Ugly truth: It's just that a lot of Europeans don't count asians, hispanics, blacks, as Americans, so you hear this crap all the time on the internet due to racism and stereotypes of what America is and isn't.
Trying to define the racial "identity" of what's American and who consider it such is a slight straw man. Regardless of who is or isn't American, and what languages they speak, we're discussing the need for "original" titles.
Here in France, referring to the movie by its title "Das Leben Der Anderen" would raise eyebrows at best, it would often get you dismissed as pedantic douche. In other parts of the world, it's a given that you just don't translate titles.
Think of it in this context: when I travel to Illinois, the people there are still American and still speak English. When a Danish person travels to Belgium (same distance, ~400 miles), they are now in a country where they speak Dutch/German/French and have a Belgian culture. There are almost 10 million Belgians in Belgium, there are just over 350,000 in the US. Of those, how many speak French, how many speak Dutch, and how many speak German? I'll bet almost all of them speak English.
So while your experience is common for the larger cities and urbanized areas of the US, I would wager for vast swathes of the rural areas of the country the experience is more like my time in Arkansas.
The US has a wide variety of American cultures, and only a small disparate minority of foreign cultures.
We don't need to learn a foreign language, because a large number of non-English people speak English anyway.
This is why a lot of native-english-speaking Californians speak at least a cursory amount of spanish, but nothing else. (unless they specifically took courses in high school or college, but thats a small amount of people)
Interestingly enough, you will sometimes see latin-american movie titles in spanish (eg El Norte, Y tu madre tambien). I'm sure it doesn't happen as often as in Europe, but it still relates to the original point.
Then again, if you're white... you may not have been around during those times.
But you may be right about me not being there. Latin-americans may be more willing to speak spanish around non-spanish speakers. The numbers just work out that way.
Although ... Asian language speakers never feel the need for linguistic inclusion when hispanics are around. Not sure about the dynamics on that one. Might just be good ol' fashioned racism.
Beware over-extrapolation of your personal experiences.