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Released
2010 · FILM

Buried

An American contractor buried alive in an Iraqi coffin must use limited tools and wits to survive and negotiate his release before a ruthless kidnapper’s deadline, all while the U.S. government refuses to pay ransom.

“170,000 sq miles of desert. 90 minutes of oxygen. No way out.”

Directed by
Rodrigo Cortes
Written by
Chris Sparling
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
95 min
DramaMysteryThriller

Synopsis

Paul Conroy, an American civilian truck driver working in Iraq, has his convoy attacked by a group of Iraqi insurgents. Some time later, he awakens inside a coffin, equipped only with a lighter, a cell phone, and increasingly intense anxiety. As his oxygen supply diminishes and the phone's battery runs down, he must battle panic, despair, and delirium in a desperate attempt to escape the confined space before time runs out.

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: 26

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 Rodrigo CortesShot by Eduard GrauScored by Victor Reyes

Box Office

2010 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 9.6× 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

$19.2M

Budget$2.0M
Worldwide gross$19.2M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $1.0M — 5% of worldwide · International: $18.1M (95%)

Opening weekend: $100K — 10% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $139K — 13% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 11 theaters

Full synopsis

Also known as

  • Buried - Lebend begrabende
  • Buried - Lebendig begrabende
  • Buriedes

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