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Poster for Like Water for Chocolate
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Released
1992 · FILM

Like Water for Chocolate

Tita, a passionate young chef forbidden from marrying her true love, must harness the mystical power of her cuisine to fight her tyrannical mother's control and win a chance at happiness.

“In Tita's kitchen, ordinary spices become a recipe for passion.”

Directed by
Alfonso Arau
Written by
Laura Esquivel
Runtime
105 min
Language
ES
DramaRomance

Synopsis

Tita is deeply in love with Pedro, but her domineering mother prevents her from marrying him. When Pedro ends up marrying Tita's sister, she channels her emotions into her cooking, discovering that she can transfer her feelings through the food she prepares, affecting all who consume it with the depth of her heartbreak.

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: 24

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 Carlos BoladoShot by Steven BernsteinScored by Leo BrouwerDesigned by Marco Antonio Arteaga

Box Office

1992 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 11× 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

$21.7M

Budget$2.0M
Worldwide gross$21.7M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Bittersüsse Schokoladede
  • Bittersüße Schokoladede
  • Like Water for Chocolateen
  • Les Épices de la passionfr
  • Come l'acqua per il cioccolatoit

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