Why it’s one of Billy Bob Thornton’s best movies: Billy Bob Thornton not only starred in Sling Blade but he also directed and wrote the 1996 drama, taking home an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his efforts.
The film was based on a short called Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade that Thornton wrote and directed two years earlier.
When Karl Childers (Billy Bob Thornton) is released from a mental hospital decades after killing his mother, he forms an unlikely bond with Frank Wheatley (Lucas Black), a young boy still coming to terms with his father’s suicide.
On top of that, Sling Blade also tells a beautiful and at times harrowing story about second chances and understanding set in the American South.