The Professor and the Madman

This historical drama-thriller tells the first attempts on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Starring actors as prolific as Mel Gibson and Sean Peen, 'The Professor and the Madman' is set in London in the 19th Century and it tells the story of Professor James Murray (Mel Gibson) and Dr. William Chester Minor (Sean Penn). Murray is set with the colossal task of reuniting every single word from the English language and their meaning. Then, he starts getting letters with more than 10.000 entries, all sent from the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, a mental institution that has a patient, inmate 742 that has being helping: William Minor. This unlikely couple of investigators start working together on a search for words and meanings.

The film is based on the book 'The Surgeon of Crowthorne: a Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words', by Simon Winchester.