Lean On Me
A tough‑talking principal battles gang‑riddled chaos and bureaucratic pressure to turn around a failing inner‑city high school before it’s shut down for poor test scores.
“Eastside High was out of control...until Joe Clark took it back.”
Synopsis
When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he
Credits
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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 John G AvildsenShot by Victor HammerScored by Bill ContiDesigned by Doug Kraner
Box Office
1989 · Box office
✅ Made its money back — grossed 3.2× 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
$31.9M
Opening weekend: $5.0M — 16% of its US run.
Opening week (7-day): $6.4M — 20% of its US & Canada run.
Peak 894 theaters
Also known as
- Der knallharte Prinzipalde
- Escuela de rebeldeses
- L'Incroyable Défifr
- Conta su di meit
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Cast & Crew
21 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Morgan Freeman
as Principal Joe Clark
Beverly Todd
as Ms. Levias
Robert Guillaume
as Dr. Frank Napier
Alan North
as Mayor Don Bottman
Lynne Thigpen
as Leonna Barrett
Robin Bartlett
as Mrs. Elliott
Michael Beach
as Mr. Darnell
Ethan Phillips
as Mr. Rosenberg
Sandra Reaves Phillips
as Mrs. Powers
Sloane Shelton
as Mrs. Hamilton
Jennifer Von Mayrhauser
as … Costume Design
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
1Other crew
8Parents Guide
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