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Released
1996 · FILM

Down Periscope

Maverick Navy officer Tom Dodge must transform a misfit crew and a rusted WWII submarine into a winning force in a high‑stakes war game, all while outmaneuvering his vindictive rival admiral.

“A rusty sub. A rebel commander. A renegade crew. When destiny called, they should have hung up.”

Directed by
David S Ward
Written by
Hugh Wilson, Andrew Kurtzman
Runtime
92 min
Comedy
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

Lieutenant Commander Tom Dodge, a maverick Navy officer known for his brilliance as a seaman but not for textbook behavior, has been given one final opportunity to prove himself by commanding a nuclear submarine. However, Admiral Graham, his longtime adversary, opposes this, and instead assigns Dodge to the aging diesel-powered World War II submarine Stingray, which is barely seaworthy. His crew consists of a group of troubled and error-prone individuals. To further complicate matters, Dodge is designated as the "enemy" in a critical war game and tasked with challenging the U.S. Navy's most skilled forces.

Credits

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 21

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 William M AndersonShot by Victor HammerScored by Randy EdelmanDesigned by Michael Corenblith

Box Office

1996 · Box office

Grossed $37.6M worldwide

Worldwide gross

$37.6M

Worldwide gross$37.6M

US & Canada: $25.8M — 69% of worldwide · International: $11.8M (31%)

Opening weekend: $7.2M — 28% of its US run.

Opening week (7-day): $9.0M — 35% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 2,022 theaters

Also known as

  • Mission: Rohr frei!de
  • Touche pas à mon périscopefr
  • Giù le mani dal mio periscopioit

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