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What

What's Eating Gilbert Grape(1993)
Released
1993 · FILM

What's Eating Gilbert Grape

A dutiful small‑town handyman struggles to keep his mentally disabled brother safe while yearning for a future of his own, all as a new supermarket threatens the community that binds them together.

“Life is a terrible thing to sleep through.”

Directed by
Lasse Hallstrom
Written by
Peter Hedges
Rated
MPA · PG-13
Runtime
118 min
Drama

Synopsis

Gilbert Grape is a young man living in a small town and shouldering significant family responsibilities. His primary concerns are his severely overweight mother, who is confined to the house, and his mentally disabled younger brother, Arnie, who frequently gets into trouble. Gilbert works at a local grocery store and is involved in an ongoing affair with Betty Carver, a local woman. His routine life is disrupted by the arrival of Becky, a free-spirited individual who brings change and challenge to his world.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

Related titles

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 40

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 Andrew MondsheinShot by Sven NykvistScored by Bjorn IsfaltDesigned by Bernt Amadeus Capra

Box Office

1993 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.9× 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

$10.0M

Budget$11.0M
Worldwide gross$10.0M
break-even (2.5×)

Full synopsis

Also known as

  • Gilbert Grape - Irgendwo in Iowade
  • ¿A quién ama Gilbert Grape?es
  • Gilbert Grapefr
  • Buon compleanno Mr. Grapeit

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