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Released
1999 · FILM

A Lesson Before Dying

A young man's destiny becomes a teacher's journey.

Directed by
Runtime
101 min
Drama

Synopsis

In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of killing a white store owner. During the trial, his white attorney degrades him by comparing him to a hog, suggesting he lacks the intelligence to understand his actions. Despite this, the man is convicted and sentenced to death. His godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher then persuade the schoolteacher to visit the convicted man in his cell each day, in an effort to remind him of his humanity and dignity.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 20

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Michael BrownShot by Donald M MorganScored by Ernest TroostDesigned by Charles C Bennett

Also known as

  • A Lesson Before Dying - Nachhilfestunden in der Todeszellede
  • Lección antes de morires

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