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Released
1985 · FILM

The Sure Thing

A slacker college kid teams up with a prim Ivy-League student for a cross‑country road trip to Los Angeles, hoping to meet his perfect romantic match before the holidays end—while their clashing personalities and countless mishaps threaten to derail both the journey and any chance of love.

“A sure thing comes once in a lifetime... but the real thing lasts forever.”

Directed by
Rob Reiner
Written by
Steve Bloom, Jonathan Roberts
Runtime
95 min
ComedyDramaRomance
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

Gib, a beer-guzzling slob, and Alison, an uptight Ivy-Leaguer, are an unlikely duo stuck together on a cross-country trip during Christmas break. At first they get on each other's nerves, but as time passes, they find their divergent natures complement each other. Now they need to realize what they've already found before it's too late.

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: 20

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 Robert LeightonShot by Robert ElswitScored by Tom ScottDesigned by Lilly Kilvert

Box Office

1985 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 4.0× 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

$18.1M

Budget$4.5M
Worldwide gross$18.1M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Der Volltrefferde
  • Garçon choc pour nana chicfr
  • Sacco a pelo a tre piazzeit

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