Monster's Ball is a 2001 American romantic drama film directed by Marc Forster and written by Milo Addica and Will Rokos. The film stars Billy Bob Thornton as a widowed prison-guard, Halle Berry as a woman whose husband is on death row, and Heath Ledger as Thornton's son. Angela Bassett was originally scripted to play Leticia but later turned down the lead role because of the script's sexual content.

 

Director Marc Forster, winner of Best Feature at Slamdance for his debut film Loungers (1996) and the"Someone to Watch" Independent Spirit Award for his indie drama Everything Put Together (2000), follows up those acclaimed projects with this intense, racially charged romance. Billy Bob Thornton stars as Georgia prison guard Hank Grotowski, a hard-drinking racist ex-cop whose father, Buck (Peter Boyle), is dying of emphysema and whose son, Sonny (Heath Ledger), works the execution detail at the prison's death row. When Sonny commits suicide, Hank is devastated and quits his job, spiraling into a deep depression until, one night, he comes to the aid of Leticia (Halle Berry), a beautiful African-American woman whose son, Tyrell (Coronji Calhoun), has been hit by a car. When Tyrell dies, Leticia and Hank find themselves to be unexpected soul mates linked together by tragic grief. It's not long before Hank discovers that Leticia is the widow of Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs), the man whose execution by electric chair he and his late son helped to orchestrate.

 

Monster's Ball (2001) is based on a screenplay by actors Milo Addica and Will Rokos, who spent five years developing their script into a feature. The title of the film comes from a custom in medieval England of referring to prisoners awaiting execution as "monsters". The night before their execution, their jailers would hold a farewell feast known as a "monster's ball".

 

The prison scenes in Monster's Ball were filmed in Louisiana State Penitentiary in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.

 

The film received mostly positive reviews. Review website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 120 of the 141 reviews they tallied were positive. This resulted in a score of 85% and a certification of "Fresh". Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and stated that, "The movie has the complexity of great fiction" listing it as the best film of 2001.

 

Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and the film won a Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay (Milo Addica & Will Rokos).