The Professor and the Madman
Directed by Farhad Safinia
Where to Watch The Professor and the Madman
- DisentJanuary 1, 2026Really enjoyed the first 3/4 of the film, a very interesting historical tale about language and crowd sourcing words, seems relevant especially now with Large Language models dominating our lives...but the last 1/4 of this film felt off, from the moment the 'madmen' castrated himself, i felt something was off, so googled the real reasons why William Chester Minor did so, and err, kind of wish i didn't. But it makes sense why they changed it, suffice to say he didn't do so because the much younger widow of the guy he murdered wanted to bone him, that made no sense and threw the rest of the movie into question...interesting historic piece ruined by fiction, the truth would've been far more interesting despite how dark it is.
- Viktor AharonMay 13, 2025I fail to see why the RT score is so low. Sean Penn once again purveys excellence in his character. Rest of the cast does a great job, he just has a knack for moving characters. The story is well developed and eye opening to a world we don't think of. Great on screen dynamics.
The Professor and the Madman Trivia
The Professor and the Madman was released on March 15, 2019.
The Professor and the Madman was directed by Farhad Safinia.
The Professor and the Madman has a runtime of 2h 4m.
The Professor and the Madman was produced by Bruce Davey, Mel Gibson, Gastón Pavlovich.
Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the 19th century, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Chester Minor.
The key characters in The Professor and the Madman are James Murray (Mel Gibson), Dr. William Chester Minor (Sean Penn), Eliza Merrett (Natalie Dormer).
The Professor and the Madman is rated Not Rated.
The Professor and the Madman is a Drama, History, Biography film.
The Professor and the Madman has an audience rating of 8 out of 10.
The Professor and the Madman had a budget of $25M.
The Professor and the Madman has made $5M at the box office.