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Poster for Happy-Go-Lucky
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Released
2008 · FILM

Happy-Go-Lucky

Cheerful London teacher Poppy strives to spread boundless optimism in her classroom, but her relentless positivity collides with the cynicism of colleagues and students, testing whether joy can survive a world bent on dampening it.

“The one movie this fall that will put a smile on your face.”

Directed by
Mike Leigh
Written by
Mike Leigh
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
118 min
ComedyDramaRomance

Synopsis

A look at a few chapters in the life of Poppy, a cheery, colorful North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

Related titles

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 18

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 Jim ClarkShot by Dick PopeScored by Gary YershonDesigned by Mark Tildesley

Box Office

2008 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 4.6× 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

$18.7M

Budget$4.1M
Worldwide gross$18.7M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening week (7-day): $109K

Peak 4 theaters

Also known as

  • Happy-go-lucky: Gute Laune ist ansteckend!de
  • Happy Go Luckyen
  • Be Happyfr
  • La felicità porta fortuna - Happy Go Luckyit

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