Sling Blade won the 1997 Academy Award for best original screenplay

Karl has just been released from an asylum some twenty-five years after he committed a gruesome murder, returns to the town of his youth. His gentle manner and simple charm land him a job, and lead him into an unlikely friendship with a young boy and his widowed mother. But when the mother's abusive boyfriend appears, this simple man is thrust into a combustible situation that could have powerful, moving consequences for all.

Billy Bob Thornton is one of Hollywood's most promising writer/directors, and Sling Blade was shown at the 1998 London Film Festival to great acclaim