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Poster for The Decline of the American Empire
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Released
1986 · FILM

The Decline of the American Empire

A spontaneously funny sex comedy!

Directed by
Runtime
101 min
Language
FR
ComedyDrama

Synopsis

Four very different Montreal university professors—Remy (married), Claude (a homosexual), Pierre (involved with a girlfriend), and Alain (a bachelor)—gather at a sprawling country house to prepare a dinner. Over the course of the day, they discuss topics such as sex, the female body, and their personal relationships. Meanwhile, their four female guests—Louise (Remy's wife of 15 years), Dominique (a spinster), Diane (a divorcée), and Danielle (Pierre's girlfriend)—spend their time at a downtown health gym, where they similarly engage in conversation about sex, the female body, and their views on men. Later that evening, the two groups meet at the country house for dinner. A ninth guest, Mario, who has a past connection with Diane, unexpectedly joins the group and brings with him a surprise.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 19

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 Monique FortierShot by Guy DufauxScored by Francois DompierreDesigned by Gaudeline Sauriol

Box Office

1986 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 17× 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

$30.0M

Budget$1.8M
Worldwide gross$30.0M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $1.9M 6% of worldwide · International: $28.1M (94%)

Also known as

  • Der Untergang des amerikanischen Imperiumsde
  • The Decline of the American Empireen
  • El declive del imperio americanoes
  • Il declino dell'impero americanoit

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