Film

The Life of Emile Zola

Name: The Life of Emile Zola
Genre: Drama, History
Released: 1937
Cast: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden, Donald Crisp

A Warner Bros. prestige biopic that spends its first half building Emile Zola's career as a scandalous, then celebrated, novelist, then pivots into a full courtroom drama once he takes up the wrongly convicted Alfred Dreyfus's cause. Paul Muni won an Oscar nomination and the film took Best Picture. It's stately, earnest, occasionally hagiographic old Hollywood — best for lovers of classic biopics and moral-courage stories.

TMDb rating

6.7

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The wildcard

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