Richard Jewell

Clint Eastwood sets the bomb off early and spends the film on the weeks in which the guard who cleared the park becomes the suspect. Paul Walter Hauser plays Jewell as a man sunk by his own deference to law enforcement: every attempt to be helpful in an interview room is turned against him. Hauser put on about 11 kilos and says Eastwood told him not to exercise. Jewell died in 2007, so Hauser worked from his mother Bobi instead; Kathy Bates plays her. Announced in 2014 with Jonah Hill in the lead, the project reached Eastwood only in 2019. The National Board of Review named Bates best supporting actress and Hauser its breakthrough performance, and listed the film in its top ten. Bates was then nominated for the Oscar and the Golden Globe in that category, the only one in which either body named the film. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution objected publicly to one of its reporters being shown trading sex for information and asked for a disclaimer up front; Warner Bros. pointed to the note already in the end credits and refused. A good fit if you want the tension to come from how fast institutions close around one man. Not for anyone who will take the account as a record; the reporter strand is undocumented.