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Poster for Kiss of Death
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Released
1995 · FILM

Kiss of Death

An ex‑con desperate to rebuild his life takes a high‑stakes driving job for a ruthless mobster, only to be framed, imprisoned, and then hunted by both police and the criminal he crossed.

“Little Junior Brown. He rules the streets. He owns the game. But he doesn't own all of the players.”

Directed by
Barbet Schroeder
Written by
Eleazar Lipsky, Ben Hecht
Runtime
101 min
CrimeDramaThriller

Synopsis

Jimmy Kilmartin is an ex-con trying to rebuild his life on the straight and narrow. However, when his friend is threatened, he reluctantly agrees to a dangerous driving job. The job is arranged by Little Junior Brown, a violent and influential criminal. When the operation goes awry, Jimmy is arrested and forced to serve time, shattering the stability he had begun to regain. Upon his release, he finds himself pursued by the police, who continue to seek Little Junior Brown.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
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 Lee PercyShot by Luciano TovoliScored by Trevor JonesDesigned by Mel Bourne

Box Office

1995 · 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

$14.9M

Budget$40.0M
Worldwide gross$14.9M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $5.3M — 36% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $7.0M — 47% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 1,623 theaters

Also known as

  • El sabor de la muertees
  • Il bacio della morteit

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