Chariots of Fire

Chariots of Fire

“This is the story of two men who run, not to run, but to prove something to the world. They will sacrifice anything to achieve their goals... except their honor.”

Best Picture Winner
May 15, 1981PG2h 3mTMDB ★ 6.8
Letterboxd
3.38/5
48665 reviews

In the class-obsessed and religiously divided UK of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries in China, sees running as part of his worship of God's glory and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath. Harold Abrahams overcomes anti-Semitism and class bias, but neglects his beloved sweetheart in his single-minded quest.

Genres

Drama, History

Studio

Enigma Productions

Language

en

Status

Released

Box Office

How Chariots of Fire performed

Budget

$5.5M

Worldwide Gross

$59.0M

Gross Profit

$53.5M

Return

10.7× budget

Opening Wknd (est.)

$8M

Domestic (est.)
International (est.)
$28M$31M

Source: TMDB. Domestic/international split (~48/52, genre-typical) and the opening-weekend figure (30% of the domestic run, typical for Drama) are MoviesRankd estimates. Profit is gross revenue minus production budget and excludes marketing — studios typically need ~2–2.5× budget to break even.

Where to Watch

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© 2026 MoviesRankd. Data from TMDB.