40 Fun Facts About Bringing Out the Dead

Bringing Out the Dead was the last title released in North America on which home video format?

LaserDisc bowed out with this film: the disc reached North American shops in October 2000, almost a year after the cinema release.

Which Oscar-winning actor plays burned-out paramedic Frank Pierce in Bringing Out the Dead?

Nicolas Cage later singled the film out as one of the best he ever made, even though it had flopped at the box office.

Which director of Bringing Out the Dead is also heard as the voice of the male ambulance dispatcher?

Martin Scorsese barks the radio calls himself, and he said making the film exorcised ten years of ambulances taking his parents to hospital.

The title of Bringing Out the Dead is a joking reference to a plague scene in which comedy film?

Monty Python and the Holy Grail has a collector touring a plague town for corpses; the novelist chose the title with a sense of humor.

Bringing Out the Dead reunited the director and writer of which film about a sleepless loner?

Taxi Driver came 23 years earlier, and the new film has been described as a pitch-black comic take on it, with an ambulance in place of the cab.

Which salsa star plays Noel, the addict forever being hauled to hospital, in Bringing Out the Dead?

Marc Anthony, the top-selling salsa artist of all time, is also heard singing on the film's soundtrack.

In Bringing Out the Dead, which singer's album plays while paramedics revive the dying Mr. Burke?

Frank Sinatra fills the room because the paramedic asks the family to put on something the old man liked, which also gives them a job to do.

Which Raging Bull screenwriter adapted the paramedic novel Bringing Out the Dead for the screen?

Paul Schrader was the only writer the director wanted, and he added a closing scene of forgiveness that is not in the book.

In Bringing Out the Dead, Frank Pierce is haunted by which homeless teenager he failed to save?

Rose appears to him on street corners all over the city, and only in the final scene does her ghost grant the forgiveness he craves.

Which actress, then married to the film's leading man, plays Mary Burke in Bringing Out the Dead?

Patricia Arquette had married her co-star in 1995, and he filed for divorce a few months after the film came out.

Which Big Lebowski star plays Larry, the food-obsessed first partner, in Bringing Out the Dead?

John Goodman plays the partner in the best shape of the three: to him it is only a job, and his main worry is his next meal.

Which Pulp Fiction actor plays Marcus, the gospel-preaching paramedic, in Bringing Out the Dead?

Ving Rhames plays him as a believer who presents a save as a miracle, then crashes the ambulance into a parked car and laughs it off.

Which Saving Private Ryan actor plays Wolls, the violent third partner, in Bringing Out the Dead?

Tom Sizemore plays a paramilitary type who knows exactly what to do at a scene but, in the director's words, freaks out from time to time.

Bringing Out the Dead is set in which Manhattan neighborhood beside Times Square?

Hell's Kitchen was home turf for the novel's author, who was born in a hospital there and worked its streets as a paramedic for nine years.

Which former Manhattan paramedic wrote the debut novel that became Bringing Out the Dead?

Joe Connelly spent nine years on the ambulances, and his autobiographical first novel was an immediate bestseller.

In Bringing Out the Dead, what is the street name of the heroin behind a run of overdoses?

Red Death first shows up as two vials rolling out of a shooting victim's sleeve, and later it floors a man in a nightclub.

In Bringing Out the Dead, which drug does Frank Pierce inject to revive an overdosed clubgoer?

Narcan blocks the effects of opioids within minutes, so the man sits up just as Marcus finishes leading the crowd in prayer.

In Bringing Out the Dead, what does a young woman deliver when Frank and Marcus answer a call?

Twins are rushed to hospital but only one survives, and the loss sends Frank to the bottle before the shift is over.

In Bringing Out the Dead, what does Tom Wolls use to beat Noel before Frank Pierce steps in?

A baseball bat is his weapon once the two paramedics have chased Noel down; Frank snaps out of a hallucination in time to save him.

In Bringing Out the Dead, the drug dealer Cy Coates is found impaled on what after a shooting?

A railing spears him high above the street, and when rescuers cut it away Cy becomes the first patient Frank has saved in months.

Which studio released Bringing Out the Dead in America while Touchstone handled it overseas?

Paramount saw the film open in fourth place in America, and its total takings covered only about half of the $32 million budget.

Which Chicago critic gave Bringing Out the Dead a perfect four stars despite its weak box office?

Roger Ebert called it an antidote to the immature intoxication with violence he saw in Fight Club, and ranked it with its director's best.

Which Snake Eyes director recommended his star for the lead role in Bringing Out the Dead?

Brian De Palma said the actor was great to work with, which confirmed a choice first inspired by the star's face and eyes.

Which filmmaker, an uncle of the star of Bringing Out the Dead, introduced him to the director?

Francis Ford Coppola set up the meeting a few years earlier, and the director came away thinking the polite young actor would be good company on a set.

Which composer of The Magnificent Seven wrote the original score for Bringing Out the Dead?

Elmer Bernstein had already worked with the director on Cape Fear and The Age of Innocence, making this their third film together.

Which Oscar-winning editor of Bringing Out the Dead said it was wrongly sold as a car-chase movie?

Thelma Schoonmaker called it the one film by her longtime director that has not had its due, and said its real subject is compassion.

Which producer gave the director the unpublished novel that became the film Bringing Out the Dead?

Scott Rudin handed over the galleys, and the director replied at once that only one screenwriter could turn the book into a script.

The emergency-room set for Bringing Out the Dead was built inside which famous Manhattan hospital?

Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the United States, lent the production space on its ground floor to build the set.

In Bringing Out the Dead, what is the name of the high-rise drug den run by the dealer Cy Coates?

The Oasis is where Mary goes when she cannot stand any more pain; Frank follows her in and ends up swallowing the dealer's pills himself.

Which New Zealand actor from Once Were Warriors plays the dealer Cy Coates in Bringing Out the Dead?

Cliff Curtis also appeared in Three Kings that year, and much later played Tonowari in the Avatar films.

Which rapper and actress is heard, but never seen, as Dispatcher Love in Bringing Out the Dead?

Queen Latifah supplies one of the two radio voices that send the crews out; the other belongs to the film's own director.

Which actress married to the film's screenwriter plays Nurse Constance in Bringing Out the Dead?

Mary Beth Hurt plays the receiving nurse who knows most of the regulars by name; she had already acted in her husband's own films Light Sleeper and Affliction.

Which future star of The Wire has a small early role as a drug dealer in Bringing Out the Dead?

Michael K. Williams was still three years from being cast as Omar Little, the part that made his name.

Which actress, later nurse Carla on Scrubs, plays an ICU nurse in Bringing Out the Dead?

Judy Reyes wore a nurse's uniform here two years before Scrubs began and made Carla Espinosa her signature role.

Which long-planned period epic was the next feature from the director of Bringing Out the Dead?

Gangs of New York came next: as this film opened, the director said its deal had only just become real after years of trying to get it made.

In Bringing Out the Dead, what emergency first brings Frank Pierce to the Burke family's apartment?

A cardiac arrest leaves Mr. Burke in intensive care, where he keeps dying and being shocked back to life while his daughter waits.

At the end of Bringing Out the Dead, what does Frank Pierce do for the comatose Mr. Burke?

He lets him die, removing the breathing apparatus after the old man's voice in his head has pleaded for release.

Which singer's 1967 blues song T.B. Sheets features on the soundtrack of Bringing Out the Dead?

Van Morrison is said to have broken down in tears after recording it, so the rest of the session had to be cancelled.

Which punk band has two songs, including Janie Jones, on the soundtrack of Bringing Out the Dead?

The Clash supply Janie Jones and I'm So Bored with the U.S.A., both taken from the band's 1977 debut album.

The star of Bringing Out the Dead had won his Best Actor Oscar a few years earlier for which film?

Leaving Las Vegas won him the award for playing a suicidal alcoholic, and one leading critic called the paramedic his best role since.