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Poster for Cross of Iron
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Released
1977 · FILM

Cross of Iron

A battle‑hardened German sergeant fights to keep his squad alive while clashing with a aristocratic, cowardly officer desperate for glory amid the chaotic Soviet onslaught on the Eastern Front.

“On the Eastern front in 1943, the German soldiers no longer had any ideals. They were not fighting for the Party—but for their lives!”

Directed by
Sam Peckinpah
Written by
Julius J Epstein, Walter Kelley
Runtime
133 min
DramaWar

Synopsis

It is 1943, and the German army—ravaged and demoralized—is hastily retreating from the Russian front. In the midst of the chaos, conflict arises between the aristocratic yet ultimately cowardly Captain Stransky and the courageous Corporal Steiner. Stransky is the only man who believes that the Third Reich is still vastly superior to the Russian army. However, within his pompous persona lies a quivering coward who longs for the Iron Cross so that he can return to Berlin a hero. Steiner, on the other hand, is cynical, defiantly non-conformist, and more concerned with the safety of his own men rather than the horde of military decorations offered to him by his superiors.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 25

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 EllisShot by John CoquillonScored by Ernest GoldDesigned by Brian Ackland Snow

Box Office

1977 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.3× 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

$1.5M

Budget$6.0M
Worldwide gross$1.5M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Das Eiserne Kreuzde
  • Steiner - Das Eiserne Kreuzde
  • Steiner - Das Eiserne Kreuzde
  • Steiner - Das Eiserne Kreuzde
  • La cruz de hierroes
  • Croix de ferfr
  • La croce di ferroit

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