Lean On Me

Lean On Me

“Eastside High was out of control...until Joe Clark took it back.”

March 3, 1989PG-131h 48mTMDB ★ 7.3
IMDb
7.4/10
23,396 votes
Rotten Tomatoes
71%
MoviesRankd
6.47/10
Solid

When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels suspected drug dealers, padlocks doors and demands effort and results from students, staff and parents. Autocratic to a fault, this real-life educator put it all on the line.

Genres

Drama

Studio

Norman Twain Productions

Language

en

Status

Released

Box Office

How Lean On Me performed

Budget

$10.0M

Worldwide Gross

$31.9M

Gross Profit

$21.9M

Return

3.2× budget

Opening Wknd (est.)

$5M

Domestic (est.)
International (est.)
$15M$17M

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.

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© 2026 MoviesRankd. Data from TMDB.