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Released
1979 · FILM

Breaking Away

A recent high‑school grad obsessed with Italian cycling sets his sights on beating the world’s best riders, while his tight‑knit friends and skeptical hometown push back against his lofty dreams.

“The movie that tells you exactly what you can do with your high school diploma!”

Directed by
Peter Yates
Written by
Steve Tesich
Runtime
101 min
ComedyDramaSport
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

Dave, a nineteen-year-old recent high school graduate, is accompanied by three close friends: the humorous Cyril, the warm-hearted yet easily angered Moocher, and the athletic, resentful but ultimately kind Mike. Dave is passionate about bicycle racing and dreams of one day competing against Italian riders, a goal that has led him to embrace Italian culture, a pursuit that often frustrates both his friends and his parents.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 16

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 Cynthia ScheiderShot by Matthew F Leonetti

Box Office

1979 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 8.7× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$20.0M

Budget$2.3M
Worldwide gross$20.0M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $16.4M — 82% of worldwide · International: $3.6M (18%)

Also known as

  • Vier irre Typende
  • Vier irre Typen – Wir schaffen alle, uns schafft keinerde
  • Rupturaes
  • La Bande des quatrefr
  • All American Boysit

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