Skip to main content
Filmarian
All films
Poster for The Falcon and the Snowman
Sign in to rateBe the first to rate
+ write a review
Released
1985 · FILM

The Falcon and the Snowman

A disillusioned military contractor and his drug-dealing childhood friend betray the U.S. by selling top-secret intelligence to the Soviet Union, risking everything in a dangerous game of espionage and greed.

“They came from the best of families. And they committed the worst of crimes.”

Directed by
John Schlesinger
Written by
Robert Lindsey, Steven Zaillian
Runtime
132 min
BiographyCrimeDrama

Synopsis

A true story about a disillusioned military contractor employee and his childhood friend, a drug pusher, who both became walk-in spies for the Soviet Union.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

Related titles

No curated related titles yet. Use the edit affordance to add "More from this director", "Same franchise", or "Adaptation source material" entries — every change goes through the wiki review queue.

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 Richard MardenShot by Allen DaviauScored by Lyle MaysDesigned by Jim Bissell

Box Office

1985 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.4× 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

$17.1M

Budget$12.0M
Worldwide gross$17.1M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening weekend: $2.4M — 14% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.

Opening week (7-day): $2.4M — 14% of its US & Canada run.

Peak 265 theaters

Also known as

  • Der Falke und der Schneemannde
  • Le Jeu du fauconfr
  • Il gioco del falcoit

Community tags

Be the first to tag this page — tags appear right away. Try a theme, capability, or subject (e.g. WWII, heist, slow burn, time travel, A24).

Help complete this page

We’re missing mpaa rating. Sign in to add what you know.