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Released
2019 · FILM

The Art of Self-Defense

A timid office worker joins a mysterious martial arts dojo to learn self-defense after a violent attack, but soon finds himself trapped in a toxic world of male aggression and dangerous secrets.

Directed by
Riley Stearns, Siena Brown
Written by
Riley Stearns
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
104 min
ActionComedyCrime

Synopsis

After being randomly attacked on the street, Casey joins a local dojo led by a charismatic and enigmatic Sensei to learn self-defense. There, he discovers a dark undercurrent of brotherhood, violence, and hypermasculinity, and becomes aware of a woman's struggle to assert her position within the group.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Directors

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 21

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 Sarah Beth ShapiroShot by Michael RagenScored by Heather McintoshDesigned by Charlotte Royer

Box Office

2019 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.3× 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

$2.4M

Budget$1.8M
Worldwide gross$2.4M
break-even (2.5×)

Peak 7 theaters

Also known as

  • The Art of Self-Defensede
  • L'arte della difesa personaleit

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