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Poster for Cry Freedom
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Released
1987 · FILM

Cry Freedom

White journalist Donald Woods risks his career and life to broadcast the truth about apartheid, forging a dangerous alliance with activist Steve Biko as they confront a brutal regime determined to silence dissent.

“The true story of the friendship that shook South Africa and awakened the world.”

Directed by
Richard Attenborough
Written by
Donald Woods, John Briley
Runtime
157 min
BiographyDramaHistory

Synopsis

A dramatic film based on real events, depicting the friendship between two men opposing apartheid in South Africa during the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who starts to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken Black anti-apartheid activist.

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: 19

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 Lesley WalkerShot by Ronnie TaylorScored by George FentonDesigned by Stuart Craig

Box Office

1987 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.9× 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

$25.9M

Budget$29.0M
Worldwide gross$25.9M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $5.9M — 23% of worldwide · International: $20.0M (77%)

Opening weekend: $319K — 5% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $454K — 8% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 27 theaters

Also known as

  • Schrei nach Freiheitde
  • Le Cri de la libertéfr
  • Grido di libertàit

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