Ragtime
A young black pianist's arrival in early 1900s New York upends an affluent white family's world, as their intertwined lives unravel against a backdrop of racial tension, passion, and social upheaval.
“The passion, the violence, the birth of America's Gilded Age.”
Synopsis
A young Black pianist becomes entangled in the lives of an upper-class white family amid the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events of early 1900s New York City.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 22
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
Shot by Miroslav OndricekScored by Randy NewmanDesigned by John Graysmark
Box Office
1981 · Box office
Grossed $14.9M worldwide
Worldwide gross
$14.9M
Opening weekend: $151K — 1% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.
Opening week (7-day): $252K — 2% of its US & Canada run.
Peak 5 theaters
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Cast & Crew
22 unique people credited
Top billed cast
James Cagney
as New York Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo
Elizabeth Mcgovern
as Evelyn Nesbit
Howard E Rollins Jr
as Coalhouse Walker Jr.
Brad Dourif
as Younger Brother
Moses Gunn
as Booker T. Washington
Kenneth Mcmillan
as Willie Conklin
Pat O Brien
as Delmas
Donald O Connor
as Evelyn's Dance Instructor
James Olson
as Father
Mandy Patinkin
as Tateh
Wiley Edwards
as as Conductor
Directors
1Writers
2Producers
1Other crew
7Parents Guide
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Where to watch
Live · bot-verified- Paramount+Stream
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