Mo' Better Blues
Talented trumpeter Bleek Gillian strives to cement his legacy on the jazz stage, but his selfish pursuit of fame and tangled romances threaten to destroy both his music and the friendships that sustain him.
Synopsis
Bleek Gilliam is a talented but self-centered trumpeter who is deeply devoted to his music and torn between two girlfriends, Indigo and Clarke. When he is compelled to assist his manager and childhood friend, he discovers that his world is more fragile than he had ever imagined.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 16
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 Sam PollardShot by Ernest DickersonScored by Bill LeeDesigned by Wynn Thomas
Box Office
1990 · Box office
⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.6× 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
$16.2M
Opening weekend: $4.4M — 27% of its US run.
Opening week (7-day): $6.2M — 38% of its US & Canada run.
Peak 544 theaters
Also known as
- Mo’ Better Bluesde
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Cast & Crew
16 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Denzel Washington
as Bleek Gilliam
Spike Lee
as Giant
Wesley Snipes
as Shadow Henderson (Sax)
Giancarlo Esposito
as Left Hand Lacey (Piano)
Robin Harris
as Butterbean Jones
Joie Lee
as Indigo Downes
Bill Nunn
as Bottom Hammer (Bass)
John Turturro
as Moe Flatbush
Dick Anthony Williams
as Big Stop Williams
Cynda Williams
as Clarke Bentancourt
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
1Other crew
6Parents Guide
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