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Poster for The Good Lie
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Released
2014 · FILM

The Good Lie

A Sudanese war survivor wins a chance to start anew in America and must navigate the bewildering modern world while confronting haunting guilt over the brother he left behind, forging an unlikely bond with a brash aid worker who pushes him toward hope.

“Miracles are made by people who refuse to stop believing.”

Directed by
Philippe Falardeau
Written by
Margaret Nagle
Runtime
110 min
BiographyDrama

Synopsis

A young refugee of the Sudanese Civil War wins a lottery for relocation to the United States along with three other lost boys. Experiencing the modern world for the first time, they form an unexpected bond with a brash American woman tasked with assisting them. However, the young man finds it difficult to adjust to his new life and is haunted by feelings of guilt over the brother he was forced to leave behind.

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: 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 ComeauShot by Ronald PlanteScored by Martin LeonDesigned by Aaron Osborne

Box Office

2014 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.2× 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

$3.4M

Budget$20.0M
Worldwide gross$3.4M
break-even (2.5×)

Opening week (7-day): $1.2M

Peak 461 theaters

Also known as

  • The Good Liede
  • The Good Lie - Der Preis der Freiheitde

Companies

ProductionImagine Entertainment

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