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Released
1999 · FILM

Instinct

Ambitious psychiatrist Theo Caulder risks his career and sanity as he delves into the mind of deranged inmate Ethan Powell, hoping to unlock a terrifying truth before the madman's deadly instincts consume them both.

“Nothing is more savage than civilization.”

Directed by
Jon Turteltaub
Written by
Gerald Di Pego, Daniel Quinn
Runtime
124 min
DramaThriller
Streaming on
  • Paramount+
  • The Criterion Channel

Synopsis

Ethan Powell, a deranged anthropologist, is confined in a prison for the criminally insane and is about to be examined by Theo Caulder, a young and ambitious psychiatrist. Motivated by a desire for truth and professional success, Caulder becomes increasingly invested in unraveling the strange behavior of Powell. As he delves deeper, Caulder finds himself risking everything, including his own life, in a desperate effort to understand the madman's bizarre actions.

Credits

Actors
Editor
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Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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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 Richard Francis BruceShot by Philippe RousselotScored by Danny ElfmanDesigned by Garreth Stover

Box Office

1999 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.4× 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

$34.1M

Budget$80.0M
Worldwide gross$34.1M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $10.4M — 30% of its US run.

Opening week (7-day): $14.4M — 42% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 2,059 theaters

Also known as

  • Instinktde
  • Instintoes
  • Instinct - Istinto primordialeit

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