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Poster for Quest for Fire
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Released
1981 · FILM

Quest for Fire

A desperate Cro‑Magnon tribe sends three warriors on a perilous quest across hostile lands to rediscover fire, racing against extinction as they confront rival tribes, monstrous beasts, and a mysterious woman who may hold the secret of flame.

“A Science Fantasy Adventure”

Directed by
Jean Jacques Annaud
Written by
Gerard Brach, J H Rosny Sr
Runtime
100 min
Language
FR
AdventureDrama
Streaming on
  • Prime Video

Synopsis

In a prehistoric world, a Cro-Magnon tribe relies on an ever-burning fire that eventually goes out. Without the knowledge to create a new fire, the tribe dispatches three warriors on a mission to find more. With the survival of their people at stake, the warriors travel through a dangerous landscape filled with hostile tribes and monstrous creatures. During their journey, they meet Ika, a woman who possesses the knowledge they need.

Credits

Actors
Editor
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 Yves LangloisShot by Claude AgostiniScored by Philippe Sarde

Box Office

1981 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 4.6× 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

$55.3M

Budget$12.0M
Worldwide gross$55.3M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Am Anfang war das Feuerde
  • Quest for fireen
  • la guerre du feufr
  • La guerra del fuocoit

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