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Poster for The Battle of Algiers
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Released
1966 · FILM

The Battle of Algiers

A French paratrooper commander races to crush an escalating urban insurgency in Algiers, but faces a cunning guerrilla leader whose ruthless tactics threaten to ignite a full‑scale war of terror.

“The Revolt that Stirred the World!”

Directed by
Gillo Pontecorvo
Written by
Franco Solinas, Gillo Pontecorvo
Rated
MPA · NR
Color
Black & White
Runtime
122 min
Language
IT
DramaWar
Streaming on
  • The Criterion Channel

Synopsis

Colonel Mathieu, a paratrooper commander and former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is deployed to Algeria to bolster efforts to suppress the uprisings of the Algerian War. There, he confronts Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who has become the leader of the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale and is orchestrating terrorist tactics against the French colonial government. As both sides escalate their violence, they resort to increasingly brutal and unthinkable acts.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 27

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 Mario MorraShot by Marcello GattiScored by Ennio MorriconeDesigned by Sergio Canevari

Box Office

1966 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.2× 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

$964K

Budget$800K
Worldwide gross$964K
break-even (2.5×)

Re-release box office

20172 theaters
$3K($4K today)
20167 theaters
$84K($116K today)
20049 theaters
$1.2M($2.1M today)
Total re-release
$1.3M

Domestic gross earned in theatrical re-release, by year · adjusted for inflation

Also known as

  • Der Kampf um Algierde
  • Schlacht um Algierde
  • The Battle of Algiersen
  • La batalla de Argeles
  • La Bataille d'Algerfr

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