Skip to main content
Filmarian
All films
Poster for Halloween
Sign in to rateBe the first to rate
+ write a review

Official Arrow Trailer

Halloween(1978)
Released
1978 · FILM

Halloween

A resourceful teen must survive a relentless, masked killer who escapes a mental institution and returns to his hometown on Halloween night, turning a quiet suburban street into a deadly hunt.

“The night he came home!”

Directed by
John Carpenter, Jack De Wolf
Written by
John Carpenter, Debra Hill
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
91 min
HorrorThriller

Synopsis

Fifteen years after killing his sister on Halloween night in 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to Haddonfield, Illinois, to resume his murders.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Directors

Related titles

No curated related titles yet. Use the edit affordance to add "More from this director", "Same franchise", or "Adaptation source material" entries — every change goes through the wiki review queue.

How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

A crew of 76+ credited

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 Charles BornsteinShot by Dean CundeyScored by John CarpenterDesigned by Tommy Lee WallaceSound by Thomas Causey Nm0146600Stunts by James Winburn

Box Office

1978 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 216× 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

$70.3M

Budget$325K
Worldwide gross$70.3M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $47.0M — 67% of worldwide · International: $23.3M (33%)

Compare across the franchise →

Full synopsis

Versions & cuts

  • Extended TV Version· 101 min

Also known as

  • Halloween - Die Nacht des Grauensde
  • (Flemish)De nacht van de griezels
  • Halloween, La Nuit des masquesfr
  • (French)La nuit des masques
Release dates around the world2 countries · show
  • CanadaOct 25, 1978
  • United StatesOct 25, 1978

Companies

ProductionCompass International Pictures, Falcon International Pictures, Falcon International Productions

Community tags

Be the first to tag this page — tags appear right away. Try a theme, capability, or subject (e.g. WWII, heist, slow burn, time travel, A24).

More in Halloween

View franchise →