The Freshman
A naive film student teams up with a charismatic mobster to secure a rare Komodo dragon for an elite restaurant, only to discover he’s caught in a deadly underworld of endangered‑animal smuggling and high‑stakes deception.
“He was on his way to the Dean's List, but he wound up on the hit list.”
Synopsis
A film student whose belongings are stolen encounters a mobster who bears an uncanny resemblance to a famous cinematic godfather. He soon becomes entangled in a scheme involving endangered animals and high-end cuisine.
Credits
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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 Barry MalkinShot by William A FrakerScored by David NewmanDesigned by Ken Adam
Box Office
1990 · Box office
Grossed $21.5M worldwide
Worldwide gross
$21.5M
Also known as
- Freshmande
- El novatoes
- Premiers pas dans la mafiafr
- Il boss e la matricolait
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Cast & Crew
20 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Marlon Brando
as Carmine Sabatini
Matthew Broderick
as Clark Kellogg
Bruno Kirby
as Victor Ray
Penelope Ann Miller
as Tina Sabatini
Frank Whaley
as Steve Bushak
Jon Polito
as Chuck Greenwald
Paul Benedict
as Arthur Fleeber
Richard Gant
as Lloyd Simpson
Kenneth Welsh
as Dwight Armstrong
Pamela Payton Wright
as Liz Armstrong
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
1Other crew
8Parents Guide
AI Personalities
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Where to watch
Live · bot-verified- The Criterion ChannelStream
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