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Poster for River's Edge
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Released
1987 · FILM

River's Edge

A disaffected teen confesses a shocking crime to his closest friends, thrusting them into a night of moral turmoil where their bewildered reactions could either conceal or unravel the deadly secret.

Which was worse? The murder or what came after?

Directed by
Written by
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
99 min
CrimeDrama
Streaming on
  • Prime Video

Synopsis

A high school slacker commits a shocking act and reveals the secret to his friends. However, the friends' reaction is almost as ambiguous and perplexing as the crime itself.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 20

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 Howard E SmithShot by Frederick ElmesScored by Jurgen KnieperDesigned by John Muto

Box Office

1987 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.4× 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

$4.6M

Budget$1.9M
Worldwide gross$4.6M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $68K 1% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Also known as

  • Das Messer am Uferde
  • Instinto sádicoes
  • Le Fleuve de la mortfr
  • I ragazzi del fiumeit

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