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Poster for Urban Cowboy
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Released
1980 · FILM

Urban Cowboy

Country barroom regular Bud Davis must conquer the mechanical bull at Gilley's and prove his worth before his love for independent cowgirl Sissy rides off forever.

Hard Hat Days And Honky-Tonk Nights.

Directed by
Runtime
132 min
DramaRomanceWestern

Synopsis

After moving to Pasadena, Texas, country boy Bud Davis begins frequenting a bar called Gilley's, where he meets and falls in love with Sissy, a cowgirl who believes in gender equality. The two eventually marry, though their relationship faces challenges due to Bud's traditional views on gender roles. A conflict involving jealousy over a rival leads to their separation. In an effort to win Sissy back, Bud participates in and aims to win the mechanical bull-riding competition at Gilley's.

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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 David RawlinsShot by Reynaldo VillalobosScored by Ralph BurnsDesigned by Stephen B Grimes

Box Office

1980 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 5.3× 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

$53.3M

Budget$10.0M
Worldwide gross$53.3M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $46.9M 88% of worldwide · International: $6.4M (12%)

Also known as

  • Urban Cowboyde
  • Cowboy de ciudades

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