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Poster for Poetic Justice
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Released
1993 · FILM

Poetic Justice

Grieving poet Justice embarks on a cross‑state road trip that forces her to confront lingering trauma and choose between staying locked in sorrow or opening her heart to a new love amidst the chaos of friends and danger.

“'Cause nobody, but nobody can make it out here alone.”

Directed by
John Singleton, John Singleton Nm0005436
Written by
John Singleton, John Singleton Nm0005436
Runtime
109 min
DramaRomance
Streaming on
  • The Criterion Channel

Synopsis

Justice, a hairdresser still grieving the murder of her boyfriend, turns to writing poetry as a way to cope with her loss. When her car breaks down, she is unable to travel to Oakland for a convention and instead joins her friend Iesha and Iesha's postal worker boyfriend, Chicago, for the ride. Chicago's co-worker, Lucky, also accompanies them, and despite some initial difficulties, Justice begins to grow close to him. The question remains, however, whether she is emotionally ready to open her heart again.

Credits

Actors
Editor
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Director of Photography
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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 Bruce CannonShot by Peter Lyons CollisterScored by Stanley ClarkeDesigned by Keith Brian Burns

Box Office

1993 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.0× 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

$27.5M

Budget$14.0M
Worldwide gross$27.5M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $11.7M — 43% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $15.9M — 58% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 1,273 theaters

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