Production Budget Analysis

What was the production budget for Persepolis?

Directed by Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi, with Chiara Mastroianni, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve leading the cast, Persepolis was produced by Société des Producteurs de L'Angoa with a confirmed budget of $7,300,000, placing it in the micro-budget category for animation films.

At $7,300,000, Persepolis was produced on a modest budget. Lower-budget films benefit from reduced break-even thresholds, with profitability achievable at approximately $18,250,000.

Budget Comparison — Similar Productions

• Fitzcarraldo (1982): Budget $7,362,000 | Gross N/A • The Bye Bye Man (2017): Budget $7,400,000 | Gross $26,700,000 → ROI: 261% • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966): Budget $7,500,000 | Gross $33,736,689 → ROI: 350% • Your Name. (2016): Budget $7,500,000 | Gross $405,320,132 → ROI: 5304% • Breaking the Waves (1996): Budget $7,500,000 | Gross $23,000,000 → ROI: 207%

Key Budget Allocation Categories

▸ Animation Production Pipeline The bulk of an animated film's budget funds the multi-year production pipeline: storyboarding, character modeling, rigging, animation, lighting, rendering, and compositing. Major studio animated features employ 300–600 artists over 3–5 years.

▸ Voice Talent Celebrity voice casting has become standard for studio animation, with A-list actors earning $5–15 million for voice roles.

▸ Music, Songs & Sound Design Original songs and orchestral scores are central to animated storytelling. Sound design for animated worlds must be created entirely from scratch.

Key Production Personnel

CAST: Chiara Mastroianni, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Simon Abkarian, Gabrielle Lopes Benites Key roles: Chiara Mastroianni as Marjane (voice); Danielle Darrieux as Marjane's Grandmother (voice); Catherine Deneuve as Marjane's Mother (voice); Simon Abkarian as Marjane's Father (voice)

DIRECTOR: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi MUSIC: Olivier Bernet EDITING: Stéphane Roche PRODUCTION: Société des Producteurs de L'Angoa, Sony Pictures Classics, PROCIREP, Soficinéma, France 3 Cinéma, Diaphana Films, Sofica EuropaCorp, Celluloid Dreams, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, La Région Île-de-France, Fondation GAN pour le Cinéma, 2.4.7. Films, French Connection Animations, CNC FILMED IN: France, United States of America

Box Office Performance

Theatrical box office data is not publicly available for Persepolis (2007). This may indicate a limited release, direct-to-streaming, or a release predating modern box office tracking.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 30 wins & 58 nominations total

Nominations: ○ Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (80th Academy Awards) ○ European Film Award for Best Film (20th European Film Awards) ○ International Submission to the Academy Awards

Additional Recognition: ; 80th Academy Awards * Nominated: Best Animated Feature. Additionally, it is the first traditionally animated nominee since 2005's Howl's Moving Castle. It was also France's Best Foreign Language Film entry, but was not nominated.

; 65th Golden Globe Awards * Nominated: Best Foreign Language Film ; 62nd British Academy Film Awards * Nominated: Best Film Not in the English Language * Nominated: Best Animated Film ; 35th Annie Awards * Nominated: Best Animated Feature * Nominated: Directing in an Animated Feature Production * Nominated: Music in an Animated Feature Production * Nominated: Writing in an Animated Feature Production ; 33rd César Awards * Won: Best First Feature Film (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi) * Won: Best Adaptation (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi) * Nominated: Best Editing (Stéphane Roche) * Nominated: Best Film * Nominated: Best Music Written for a Film (Olivier Bernet) * Nominated: Best Sound (Samy Bardet, Eric Chevallier and Thierry Lebon)

;2007 Cannes Film Festival * Tied: Jury Prize * Nominated: Palme d'Or

;20th European Film Awards * Nominated: Best Film

;3rd Globes de Cristal Award * Won: Best Film

;2007 London Film Festival * Southerland Trophy (Grand prize of the festival)

;2007 Cinemanila International Film Festival * Special Jury Prize

;2007 São Paulo International Film Festival * Won: Best Foreign Language Film

;2007 Vancouver International Film Festival * Won: Rogers People's Choice Award for Most Popular International Fil...

CRITICAL RECEPTION

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 164 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Persepolis is an emotionally powerful, dramatically enthralling autobiographical gem, and the film's simple black-and-white images are effective and bold." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 90 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four, writing that although its black and white animation "may sound Spartan", it is "surprisingly involving" and that Satrapi's story is told "caringly, lovingly and with great style". He added, "while so many films about coming of age involve manufactured dilemmas, here is one about a woman who indeed does come of age, and magnificently."

Time Richard Corliss ranked the film sixth on his list of the "Top 10 Movies" of 2007, calling it "a coming-of-age tale that manages to be both harrowing and exuberant".

The film was ranked number 58 on Empire "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. In 2024, Looper ranked it 30th on its list of the "50 Best PG-13 Movies of All Time", writing: "Adapting a graphic novel into a feature film can be a bittersweet experience, as often these properties are translated into live-action films that erase the distinctive hand-drawn artwork of their source material. Thankfully, author Marjane Satrapi adapts her work Persepolis into a film of the same name through hand-drawn animation, which maintains the wonderfully idiosyncratic imagery of her original work."