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Poster for The Panic in Needle Park
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Released
1971 · FILM

The Panic in Needle Park

A young heroin addict hustles for his next fix while yearning to protect a fragile romance with a homeless girl, only to have their desperate quest for stability clash with the brutal grip of Needle Park’s drug‑fueled underworld.

God help Bobby and Helen, they're in love in Needle Park

Directed by
Runtime
110 min
Drama
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

*The Panic in Needle Park* is a stark portrayal of life among a group of heroin addicts who gather in Needle Park in New York City. Set against this backdrop is a low-key love story between Bobby, a young addict and small-time hustler, and Helen, a homeless girl who finds in her relationship with Bobby the stability she craves.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 18

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 Evan A LottmanShot by Adam Holender

Box Office

1971 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.3× 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

$2.2M

Budget$1.6M
Worldwide gross$2.2M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Panik im Needle Parkde
  • Panic in Needle Parken
  • Panique à Needle Parkfr
  • Panico a Needle Parkit

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