The Ref
A charismatic cat burglar hides from police by holding a constantly fighting couple hostage on Christmas Eve—only to become an unwilling referee as their volatile family drama spirals out of control, threatening his freedom and sanity.
“They might be his hostages but what they're doing to this guy is criminal.”
Synopsis
A cat burglar finds themselves in an unexpected situation when they must take a bickering, dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.
Credits
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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 Jeffrey WolfShot by Adam John KimmelScored by David A StewartDesigned by Dan Davis
Box Office
1994 · Box office
⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.0× 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
$11.4M
Opening weekend: $3.0M — 27% of its US run.
Peak 701 theaters
Also known as
- No Panic - Gute Geiseln sind seltende
- Tel est pris qui croyait prendrefr
- C'eravamo tanto odiatiit
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Cast & Crew
21 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Directors
1Writers
2Producers
3Other crew
5Parents Guide
AI Personalities
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