The Professor and the Madman
A determined lexicographer races against time to finish the first Oxford English Dictionary, only to rely on a brilliant but unstable asylum inmate whose cryptic submissions could either complete his masterpiece or shatter it forever.
“The incredible true story that defined our world.”
Synopsis
In the mid-19th century, Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Minor.
Credits
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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 Dino JonsaterShot by Kasper TuxenScored by Bear MccrearyDesigned by Tom Conroy
Box Office
2019 · 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
$5.0M
Also known as
- Il professore e il pazzoit
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Cast & Crew
21 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Mel Gibson
as James Murray
Sean Penn
as Dr. William Chester Minor
Eddie Marsan
as Mr. Muncie
Natalie Dormer
as Eliza Merrett
Jennifer Ehle
as Ada Murray
Steve Coogan
as Frederick James Furnivall
Stephen Dillane
as Dr. Richard Brayn
Ioan Gruffudd
as Henry Bradley
Jeremy Irvine
as Charles Hall
Laurence Fox
as Philip Lyttelton Gell
Directors
1Writers
3Producers
2Other crew
6Parents Guide
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