# What motion picture had the largest cast

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-motion-picture-had-the-largest-cast/317889>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [August 20, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-motion-picture-had-the-largest-cast/317889 "2005-08-20T16:33:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-motion-picture-had-the-largest-cast/317889/1 "2005-08-20T16:33:10Z")

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Inspired by [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=331006), I’m curious about the movie with the largest cast.

By that I mean the movie with the highest number of individually credited actors (whether it’s by name or something like, “Man in blue suit”) who have at least one spoken line of dialogue (even if it’s just one word). Crowds and background extras don’t count for the purposes of this thread.

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**Author:** ![cruel\_butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@cruel\_butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cruel_butterfly)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-motion-picture-had-the-largest-cast/317889/2 "2005-08-20T16:36:22Z")

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Could it be any of Robert Altman’s movies? Pret a Porter, for instance, featured many celebrities who appeared as themselves. They were mentioned in the credits though.

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**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-motion-picture-had-the-largest-cast/317889/3 "2005-08-20T16:38:14Z")

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> [@cruel butterfly](#):
>
> Could it be any of Robert Altman’s movies? Pret a Porter, for instance, featured many celebrities who appeared as themselves. They were mentioned in the credits though.

How many of them have dialogue?

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-motion-picture-had-the-largest-cast/317889/4 "2005-08-20T16:44:37Z")

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[Voyna i Mir](http://imdb.com/title/tt0063794/), a Soviet government financed adaptation of Tolstoy’s _War and Peace_, had more than 200,000 extras and dozens of individually credited roles.

For something more mainstream, the 1956 version of [Around the World in 80 Days](http://imdb.com/title/tt0048960/fullcredits) had dozens of individually credited parts with name actors because of its many cameos.

I don’t know that either of the above has the record.

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**Author:** ![marque\_elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71c47a/32.png) [@marque\_elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marque_elf)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-motion-picture-had-the-largest-cast/317889/5 "2005-08-20T19:36:33Z")

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Any discussion of movies with large casts has to include D.W. Griffith’s **Birth Of A Nation.** There were thousands of people in the film, but no speaking roles of course.

Surely war movies like **The Longest Day** , \*\*Tora, Tora , Tora \*\* and **Midway** are contenders for the largest casts. The credits for the cast of The **Longest Day** are nearly as long as the movie.