Murder to Movies

The Real Stories Behind Hollywood's Darkest Films

Advance Reader Copy

Genres

Pop Culture, Cultural Nonfiction, Movies & Films, American Nonfiction, Murder Nonfiction, and True Crime

Trigger Warnings

Abuse, Violence, Sex, and Death

Type of Ending

Series

Not part of a series

Author Prefers A Review On

Goodreads or Amazon

Reader Spots Remaining

100

Number of days to read

Publication Date

May 14, 2026

Page Length

188 pages

Available Formats

ePub and PDF

Murder to Movies

The Real Stories Behind Hollywood's Darkest Films

Advance Reader Copy

Blurb

Find out the real story behind your favorite movies!

Murder to Movies The Real Story Behind Hollywood’s Darkest Films reveals the true story behind such movies as Zodiac, Killing of the Flower Moon, and I Want to Live. Was Barbara Graham, executed in a gas chamber, really guilty of murder? And who was the Korean Zodiac, the most famous serial killer in Korean history? The criminals and victims are of all ages and from all economic classes. They include a Japanese prostitute, a Scottish aristocrat, fifth in line to the throne, the Jamaican outlaw who inspired The Harder They Come, the teenage psychopath behind James Cagney’s most famous roles, and the most infamous unsolved case of the 20th century.

Details

Genres

Pop Culture, Cultural Nonfiction, Movies & Films, American Nonfiction, Murder Nonfiction, and True Crime

Trigger Warnings

Abuse, Violence, Sex, and Death

Type of Ending

Series

Not part of a series

Author Prefers A Review On

Goodreads or Amazon

Reader Spots Remaining

100

Number of days to read

Publication Date

May 14, 2026

Page Length

188 pages

Available Formats

ePub and PDF

Author

Paul Drexler is the author of "Murder to Movies: The Real Story Behind Hollywood's Darkest Films," which will be published in May 2026. He was born in Brooklyn in 1947 and received a BS degree from Cornell University in 1968. He has been writing about crime since 1984 and is the author of "Notorious San Francisco: True tales of Crime, Passion, and Murder" published in 2019 Paul designed and co-produced SFPD Homicide, the interactive award-winning true crime video game that has been used to teach police procedures. His column, “Notorious Crooks,” appeared regularly in the Sunday San Francisco Examiner.

He has taught crime history at San Francisco State,and appeared on the Discovery ID Network show Deadly Women as an expert on San Francisco murderesses, and on Spike TV as an expert on the Zodiac Killer. Paul also directs Crooks Tours of San Francisco, which offers walking crime tours of Chinatown and the Barbary Coast. In July 2017 Paul received the Oscar Lewis Award from the San Francisco History Association for his writing on San Francisco.