Dirty Rotten Scoundrels backdrop
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels poster
#3,732 All-time worldwide
#33 1988 releases

Movie profile

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

1988 · 110 min · Orion Pictures

Box office snapshot

Financial performance

Reference figures based on available reported data.
Worldwide gross $42.0M
Budget $6.5M
Gross minus budget $35.5M
ROI 6.46x

Domestic gross

$16.8M

Estimated from worldwide gross

International gross

$25.2M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Opening weekend

$4.7M

Estimated from worldwide gross

Ranking context

Where Dirty Rotten Scoundrels ranks

Positioned across the all-time chart, release year, studio, franchise and genre indexes where enough mapped data exists.
Open rankings

Quick answer

How did Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) perform at the box office?

High confidence

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) earned a reported $42.0M worldwide against a reported $6.5M production budget. Its gross-minus-budget figure is about $35.5M. The current gross-to-budget multiple is 6.46x. In this database it currently ranks #3,732 in the current all-time worldwide chart set and #33 among 1988 releases.

Worldwide gross
$42,000,000
Budget
$6,500,000
Gross minus budget
$35,500,000
ROI
6.46x
Source: TMDb. Last updated: Jul 13, 2026. View source Gross-minus-budget is not studio net profit. It excludes marketing, distribution fees, revenue splits, tax incentives and later home/streaming revenue.

Synopsis

Story

Con artist Lawrence Jamieson is a longtime resident of a luxurious coastal resort, where he enjoys the lavish fruits of his deceptions -- that is, until a competitor, Freddy Benson, shows up. When the new guy's lowbrow tactics impinge on his own sophisticated work and believing him to be the infamous conman 'The Jackal', Lawrence resolves to get rid of him. Confident of his own duplicitous talents, he challenges Freddy to a winner-takes-all competition: whoever swindles their latest mark, American heiress Janet Colgate, out of $50,000 first can stay, while the other must leave town.

Movie facts

Production details

Release date
Dec 14, 1988
Production
Orion Pictures
Countries
US

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AI summary

Why this movie matters

Released in 1988, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is positioned in this dataset as a Comedy, Crime title from Orion Pictures. Its box office profile shows that available worldwide gross is $42.0M, reported production budget is $6.5M, gross-minus-budget is $35.5M, ROI is 6.46x. For comparison, it currently sits #3,732 all-time in the current chart set and #33 among 1988 releases. Streaming availability should be checked against the selected United States region because provider rights can change.

AI-generated contextual summary based on available movie, genre, ranking and box office data. It does not replace official distributor notes or financial reporting.
Data noteGross minus budget is not studio net profit. It excludes marketing, distribution fees, revenue splits, tax incentives and downstream revenue. Domestic, international and opening weekend figures marked as estimated are modelled estimates.