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Better Off Dead...

1985 · directed by Savage Steve Holland · 97 min
22,859 feet · Prominence
1,491st of 24,106 films scored
Not coveredNo Rewatchables episode on file.

How this film scores

Draw45

Lifetime worldwide gross $10m, re-releases included; about $32m in 2026 money.

Rank5,147 of 11,051In 198577 of 123

How Draw works

Inflation-adjusted worldwide box office, on one global curve, and nothing else. It does not know whether a film was good.

Praise63

Awards claim half the headroom above the critics' score.

Critics63 baseAwards0 signal → +0 lift

No award rows on file, usually missing data rather than missing honours. Wikidata is thin for older and non-English films.

How Praise works

Critics set the score; a tiered award record, Picture and Directing carrying the most weight, claims half the headroom above it. Praise is the verdict at the time; Legacy is the verdict since.

Legacy54

Judged directly: Eighties teen cult, endlessly quoted lines.

Verdict54 of 100IMDb7.1 from 53kWikipedia12k views a monthAge41 years

Scored beside it · 886 of 4,039 films judged

If it does not belong in this company, the number is wrong.

How Legacy works

Legacy is a judgment, not a formula. A film can be adored by critics and culturally quiet, or lightly reviewed and permanently lodged in the culture, and no arithmetic over IMDb numbers tells the difference. Every signal behind it keeps updating.

draw 45 praise 63 legacy 54averages 54, placing it at22,859 ft
How the three become one number

Added, not multiplied, so a film transcendent on one pillar and weak on another is not zeroed out. A compression curve then squeezes the top, because the seven greatest films ever made should not be four thousand feet apart.

Whose apex this is

▲ Curtis Armstrong▲ Amanda Wyss

In these careers — elevation for this film

John Cusack19,845 ftCurtis Armstrong18,281 ftDavid Ogden Stiers18,059 ftKim Darby17,965 ftAmanda Wyss17,944 ftE. G. Daily17,641 ft