Synopsis

Over three increasingly chaotic night shifts, burned-out New York paramedic Frank Pierce struggles with exhaustion, guilt, and visions of a teenage patient he failed to save. As he responds to overdoses, shootings, and desperate calls across Manhattan, his volatile partners and a troubled woman connected to one of his patients force him to confront his obsession with death, compassion, and the possibility of forgiveness.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film adapts Joe Connelly's 1998 novel, which drew on the author's experience working as a New York City paramedic.

• Martin Scorsese and Nicolas Cage rode along with real New York paramedics to prepare for the production. The experience helped ground the ambulance calls in the routines and pressures of emergency medical work.

• Much of the movie was filmed at night in mid-December, making the cold, long shooting schedule especially difficult.

• The sequence in which Frank tries to revive Rose was performed in reverse by the actors and then played backward. This creates the striking image of snow appearing to rise around them.

• Scorsese provided the voice of the male dispatcher heard during the ambulance calls.

• The emergency-room scenes were filmed on a set built on the ground floor of Bellevue Hospital. A real impalement case reportedly helped inspire one of the movie's hospital incidents.

• The title refers to the "Bring out your dead" routine from the 1975 comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

• The film marked another collaboration between Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader, whose earlier work together included Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ.

• Released in the United States on October 22, 1999, the film earned about $16.7 million against a reported $32 million production budget. Its reputation has since improved, and it is often discussed as one of Scorsese's overlooked films.

• Bringing Out the Dead was the final film released on LaserDisc in the United States.