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Poster for Losing Isaiah
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Released
1995 · FILM

Losing Isaiah

Who decides what makes a mother?

Runtime
106 min
Drama

Synopsis

Khaila Richards, a single mother addicted to crack cocaine, accidentally leaves her baby in a dumpster while under the influence and returns the next day in a panic to find him missing. In reality, the baby has been found and adopted by a compassionate social worker, Margaret Lewin, and her husband, Charles. Years later, after completing rehab and securing steady employment, Khaila learns that her child is still alive and initiates a custody battle with Margaret for legal guardianship.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 19

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 Harvey RosenstockShot by Andrzej BartkowiakScored by Mark IshamDesigned by Jeannine Oppewall

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

$7.6M

Budget$17.0M
Worldwide gross$7.6M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $2.5M 33% of its US run.

Opening week (7-day): $3.3M43% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 912 theaters

Also known as

  • Die andere Mutterde
  • Instinto maternales
  • Lontano da Isaiahit

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