Pay It Forward is a 2000 American drama film based on the novel of the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde. It was directed by Mimi Leder and written by Leslie Dixon. It stars Haley Joel Osment as a boy who launches a good-will movement, Helen Hunt as his single mother, and Kevin Spacey as his social-studies teacher. When eleven and a half year old Trevor McKinney begins seventh grade in Las Vegas, Nevada, his social studies teacher Eugene Simonet gives the class an assignment to devise and put into action a plan that will change the world for the better. Trevor's plan is a charitable program... based on the networking of good deeds. He calls his plan "Pay it forward", which means the recipient of a favor does a favor for a third party rather than paying the favor back. Trevor does a favor for three people, asking each of them to "pay the favor forward" by doing favors for three other people, and so on, along a branching tree of good deeds. His first good deed is to let a homeless man named Jerry live in his garage, and Jerry pays the favor forward by doing car repairs for Trevor's mother.
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| Release date: | October 20, 2000 |
| Directed by: | Mimi Leder |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 123 Minutes |
| Producer: | Steven Reuther, Peter Abrams, Robert L. Levy |
| Editor: | David Rosenbloom |
| Music by: | Thomas Newman |
| Cinematography: | Oliver Stapleton |
| Screenplay by: | Leslie Dixon |
| Estimated budget: | $40,000,000 |
| Adapted from: | Pay It Forward |