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Poster for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
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Released
1958 · FILM

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

A tormented former football star, drowning in alcoholism and haunted by his dead teammate’s secret, must confront his repressed desires and a crumbling marriage when his terminally ill father returns, forcing a painful reckoning that could either shatter or save them all.

“Just one pillow on her bed... and just one desire in her heart.”

Directed by
Richard Brooks, Richard Brooks Nm0112218
Written by
Richard Brooks, James Poe
Rated
MPA · NR
Runtime
108 min
Drama

Synopsis

A former football player, now an alcoholic, spends his days in self-destruction, unable to reconcile his sexuality and his true feelings for his deceased football teammate, whose death resulted from an ambiguous accident. His wife suffers from her desperation to rekindle his interest in her, but he continues to reject her affections. A reunion with his father, who is terminally ill with cancer, triggers a series of memories and revelations for both of them.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Directors

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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 Ferris WebsterShot by William H Daniels

Box Office

1958 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 5.9× 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

$17.6M

Budget$3.0M
Worldwide gross$17.6M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Die Katze auf dem heißen Blechdachde
  • La gata sobre el tejado de zinces
  • La Chatte sur un toit brûlantfr
  • La gatta sul tetto che scottait

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