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Poster for Down by Law
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Released
1986 · FILM

Down by Law

A disgraced disc jockey, a street‑smart pimp, and an eccentric Italian tourist must unite to escape a cramped New Orleans jail before the corrupt authorities seal their fate.

It's not where you start - It's where you start again.

Directed by
Written by
Rated
MPA · R
Color
Black & White
Runtime
106 min
ComedyCrimeDrama
Streaming on
  • The Criterion Channel

Synopsis

A disc jockey, a pimp, and an Italian tourist escape from jail in New Orleans.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 27

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 Melody LondonShot by Robby MullerScored by John LurieDesigned by Janet Densmore

Box Office

1986 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.4× 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$1.1M
Worldwide gross$1.5M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $1.4M 94% of worldwide · International: $94K (6%)

Also known as

  • Down by Law - Alles im Griffde
  • Daunbailòit

Community tags

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