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Released
1987 · FILM

Law of Desire

Successful director Pablo sets out to stage a daring monologue starring his transgender sister, only to have his fragile relationship and a dangerously obsessive admirer threaten both his art and his sanity.

“An Outrageously Funny Tale of Lust, Passion and Jealousy!”

Directed by
Pedro Almodovar
Written by
Pedro Almodovar
Runtime
102 min
Language
ES
ComedyDramaThriller

Synopsis

Pablo, a successful film director, becomes disillusioned with his relationship with his young lover, Juan, and turns his focus to a new project: a monologue starring his transgender sister, Tina. Antonio, a reserved young man, develops an intense and possessive infatuation with the director, and in his obsessive pursuit, is willing to go to any lengths to claim him.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 13

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 Jose SalcedoShot by Angel Luis Fernandez

Box Office

1987 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.3× 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

$1.4M

Budget$600K
Worldwide gross$1.4M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Das Gesetz der Begierdede
  • Law of Desireen
  • La Loi du désirfr
  • La legge del desiderioit

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