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Released
1981 · FILM

Whose Life Is It Anyway?

“The ultimate drama in the human comedy.”

Directed by
John Badham
Written by
Brian Clark, Reginald Rose
Runtime
119 min
ComedyDrama

Synopsis

Ken Harrison is an artist known for creating sculptures. One day, he is involved in a car accident that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down. As a result, he is only able to speak and move his head, and he expresses a desire to die. While in the hospital, he forms friendships with some of the staff, who support him when he proceeds to court to seek the legal right to end his life.

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: 22

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 Frank MorrissShot by Mario TosiScored by Arthur B RubinsteinDesigned by Gene Callahan

Box Office

1981 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.5× 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

$6.1M

Budget$11.5M
Worldwide gross$6.1M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Ist das nicht mein Leben?de
  • Mi vida es míaes
  • C'est ma vie, après tout !fr
  • Di chi è la mia vita?it

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