Once Were Warriors
A resilient Māori mother fights to shield her children from her violent ex‑husband’s brutal grip, risking everything to break free from the cycle of abuse that threatens to destroy their family.
“Their People Once Were Warriors. But Once... Was a Long Time Ago”
Synopsis
*Once Were Warriors* is a violent love story set against a contemporary urban backdrop, depicting a tumultuous relationship in which a mother must use her strength to save herself and her children from the man she once loved.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 28
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 Michael HortonShot by Stuart DryburghScored by Murray GrindlayDesigned by Michael Kane
Box Office
1994 · Box office
💰 Box-office hit — grossed 7.1× 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
$6.7M
Also known as
- Die Letzte Kriegerinde
- Die letzte Kriegerin: Once Were Warriorsde
- L'Âme des guerriersfr
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Cast & Crew
28 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Supporting cast
5Directors
1Writers
2Producers
2Other crew
6Parents Guide
AI Personalities
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Ratings & reviews
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