Murder on a Sunday Morning

Murder on a Sunday Morning
Directed byJean-Xavier de Lestrade
Produced byDenis Poncet
CinematographyIsabelle Razavet
Edited byPascal Vernier
Ragnar Van Leyden
Music byHélène Blazy
Distributed byPathé[1]
Direct Cinema (video)
Release dates
  • September 14, 2001 (2001-09-14) (United States)
  • February 26, 2003 (2003-02-26) (France)
Running time
111 minutes
CountriesFrance
United States
LanguageEnglish

Murder on a Sunday Morning (French: Un coupable idéal, lit. An Ideal Culprit) is a 2001 documentary film directed by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade. The documentary centers around the Brenton Butler case, in which a fifteen-year-old African-American boy was wrongfully accused of murder in Jacksonville, Florida. The film follows Butler's public defense attorneys as they piece together the narrative and how the police coerced Butler into confessing. It received critical acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002.[2]

  1. ^ "Meet the Academy Awards Nominees 2002 | International Documentary Association". April 2002.
  2. ^ "Murder on a Sunday Morning". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. 2008. Archived from the original on 2008-05-30. Retrieved 2008-11-23.