Limelight
A washed‑up music‑hall comic races against his own decline to teach a broken ballerina how to walk again, hoping to restore her confidence before both their lives fall into obscurity.
“The masterpiece of laughter and tears from the master of comedy!”
Synopsis
A fading music hall comedian attempts to assist a despondent ballet dancer in learning to walk and regaining confidence in life.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 15
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 Joe IngeShot by Karl StrussScored by Charles Chaplin
Box Office
1952 · Box office
⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.1× 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
$1.0M
Also known as
- Rampenlichtde
- Candilejases
- Les Feux de la rampefr
- Luci della ribaltait
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Cast & Crew
15 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Charles Chaplin
as Calvero
Claire Bloom
as Thereza 'Terry' Ambrose
Nigel Bruce
as Postant
Buster Keaton
as Calvero's Partner
Sydney Chaplin
as Neville
Norman Lloyd
as Bodalink
Andre Eglevsky
as Dancer - Harlequin
Melissa Hayden
as Dancer - Columbine
Marjorie Bennett
as Mrs. Sybil Alsop
Wheeler Dryden
as Thereza's Doctor
Directors
1Writers
1Other crew
6Parents Guide
AI Personalities
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Where to watch
Live · bot-verified- The Criterion ChannelStream
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