Poltergeist
A suburban mother must protect her children when their youngest begins communicating with a malevolent force trapped inside their television, turning harmless glitches into deadly hauntings that threaten to consume the entire family.
“They're here.”
Synopsis
The Freelings' suburban home becomes the center of paranormal activity that opens a portal to the "other side." With help, they must cross over to get their daughter back.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 35
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 KahnShot by Matthew F LeonettiScored by Jerry GoldsmithDesigned by James H Spencer
Box Office
1982 · Box office
💰 Box-office hit — grossed 11× 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
$121.7M
US & Canada: $76.6M — 63% of worldwide · International: $45.1M (37%)
Re-release box office
- 1983593 theaters
- $1.1M($3.6M today)
Domestic gross earned in theatrical re-release, by year · adjusted for inflation
Full synopsis
Also known as
- Poltergeist - Demoniache presenzeit
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Cast & Crew
35 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Jobeth Williams
as Diane Freeling
Heather O Rourke
as Carol Anne Freeling
Craig T Nelson
as Steve Freeling
Beatrice Straight
as Dr. Lesh
Dominique Dunne
as Dana Freeling
Oliver Robins
as Robbie Freeling
Michael Mcmanus
as Ben Tuthill
Virginia Kiser
as Mrs. Tuthill
Martin Casella
as Marty
Richard Lawson
as Ryan
Zelda Rubinstein
as Tangina
James Karen
as Mr. Teague
Supporting cast
6Directors
1Writers
3Producers
4Other crew
11Parents Guide
AI Personalities
Advisory Bot AI
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Ratings & reviews
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Where to watch
Not currently streaming on any platform we track.
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