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Released
1959 · FILM

On the Beach

American submarine commander Jack Towers races against a creeping radioactive apocalypse to protect his crew and find humanity’s last chance for redemption in a desolate world on the brink of extinction.

“The Biggest Story of Our Time!”

Directed by
Stanley Kramer
Written by
John Paxton, Nevil Shute
Runtime
134 min
DramaRomanceSci-Fi

Synopsis

In 1964, an atomic war devastates humanity in the northern hemisphere, and an American submarine finds temporary refuge in Australia, where life continues on the surface despite growing despair. Struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife and children in the catastrophe, American Captain Towers meets the weary but attractive Moira Davidson, who begins to develop feelings for him. The submarine returns after a reconnaissance mission, a month or less before the end; will Towers and Moira find solace in each other?

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 18

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 Frederic KnudtsonShot by Giuseppe RotunnoScored by Ernest GoldDesigned by Rudolph Sternad

Box Office

1959 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.8× 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

$2.2M

Budget$2.9M
Worldwide gross$2.2M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Das letzte Uferde
  • La hora finales
  • Le Dernier Rivagefr
  • L'ultima spiaggiait

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