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Poster for The Greatest Show on Earth
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Released
1952 · FILM

The Greatest Show on Earth

Circus manager Brad Braden hires star trapeze artist The Great Sebastian to rescue his struggling season, igniting a lethal rivalry with his own girlfriend Holly for the coveted center ring and endangering both their careers and hearts.

“The Heartbeat Story of Circus People, Filmed with the Cooperation of Ringling Bros. - Barnum and Bailey Circus!”

Directed by
Cecil B Demille
Written by
Fredric M Frank, Barre Lyndon
Runtime
152 min
DramaFamilyRomance
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

Circus manager Brad Braden brings in The Great Sebastian to ensure a profitable season, a move that displaces his girlfriend Holly from her recently earned position on the center trapeze. As Holly and Sebastian engage in a competitive and increasingly perilous rivalry during performances, Brad also pursues Holly romantically.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

A crew of 61+ credited

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 Anne BauchensShot by George BarnesScored by Victor Young

Box Office

1952 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 9.0× 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

$36.0M

Budget$4.0M
Worldwide gross$36.0M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Die größte Schau der Weltde
  • El mayor espectáculo del mundoes
  • Sous le plus grand chapiteau du mondefr
  • Il più grande spettacolo del mondoit

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