The Professor and the Madman (film)

The Professor and the Madman
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	P. B. Shemran
Screenplay by	Todd Komarnicki P. B. Shemran
Based on	The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester
Produced by	Nicolas Chartier Gastón Pavlovich Mel Gibson
Starring	Mel Gibson Sean Penn Natalie Dormer Eddie Marsan Jennifer Ehle Jeremy Irvine David O'Hara Ioan Gruffudd Stephen Dillane Steve Coogan
Cinematography	Kasper Tuxen
Edited by	Dino Jonsater
Music by	Bear McCreary
Production companies	Voltage Pictures Fábrica de Cine Definition Films 22h22 Zik Zak Filmworks Caviar Antwerp NV
Distributed by	Vertical Entertainment
Release date	May 10, 2019 (2019-05-10) (United States)
Running time	124 minutes
Countries	United States France Iceland Ireland
Language	English
Budget	$25 million[1]
Box office	$5.1 million[2]

The Professor and the Madman is a 2019 biographical drama film directed by Farhad Safinia (under the pseudonym P. B. Shemran), from a screenplay by Safinia and Todd Komarnicki based on the 1998 book The Surgeon of Crowthorne (published in the United States as The Professor and the Madman) by Simon Winchester. It stars Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Natalie Dormer, Eddie Marsan, Jennifer Ehle, Jeremy Irvine, David O'Hara, Ioan Gruffudd, Stephen Dillane, and Steve Coogan.

The film is about professor James Murray, who in 1879 became director of an Oxford University Press project, The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (now known as the Oxford English Dictionary) and the man who became his friend and colleague, W. C. Minor, a doctor who submitted more than 10,000 entries while he was confined at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Crowthorne after being found not guilty of murder due to insanity.

Shot in Dublin in 2016, the film became part of a legal battle between Gibson and Safinia against Voltage Pictures, delaying its release until 2019 and resulting in the pair disowning the final product.