59 Fun Facts About Killers of the Flower Moon

Killers of the Flower Moon was DiCaprio's sixth Scorsese feature; which 2010 thriller was their fourth?

Shutter Island cast him as a US marshal in an island asylum. Not until Killers of the Flower Moon did Scorsese direct DiCaprio and De Niro in the same feature; before it, the three had shared only a 2015 short, The Audition.

Who co-wrote the Killers of the Flower Moon screenplay with Martin Scorsese?

Eric Roth and Scorsese spent two years on a first version, then decided it repeated Hollywood's old habits and rebuilt the script around the marriage of Ernest and Mollie.

Which New Yorker staff writer wrote the 2017 nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon?

David Grann had already seen his book The Lost City of Z filmed, and before this film was even released Scorsese and DiCaprio had signed on to film his next one too, the shipwreck story The Wager.

Killers of the Flower Moon let Scorsese finally make a film in which genre, one he had loved since childhood?

The Western was the genre he grew up watching and had always wanted to make; when his first script felt like a film he had already seen, he threw it out and started again.

The "flower moon" of Killers of the Flower Moon is a traditional name for the full moon of which month?

May is when taller plants crowd out the small April flowers on the Osage hills, stealing their light and water, which is the image the book opens with; the almanac name simply marks the month's blooms.

After the Osage case, agent Tom White became warden of which prison, where William Hale soon arrived as an inmate?

Leavenworth: White was Hale's warden there until 1931, when he was shot and badly wounded during a prisoners' escape attempt.

Ernest Burkhart, DiCaprio's character, is what relation to De Niro's William Hale?

Nephew: Hale was Ernest's uncle, and he encouraged the younger man to marry Mollie Kyle, whose Osage family held valuable oil headrights.

Which role, eventually played by Jesse Plemons, was originally written for DiCaprio?

BOI agent Tom White was DiCaprio's part until he pushed to play Ernest Burkhart, so the writers rebuilt the script around the Burkhart marriage instead of the investigation.

De Niro's William Hale was known locally by what nickname?

The King of Osage, or King of the Osage Hills, was a wealthy rancher who passed as a friend of the tribe while masterminding the murders of Mollie's family for their oil money.

Lily Gladstone was raised on which reservation in Montana?

Blackfeet land was her childhood home; she has said she became an actor because, after seeing Return of the Jedi, she wanted to be an Ewok.

Casting director Ellen Lewis tipped Scorsese off to Lily Gladstone by showing him which 2016 film?

Certain Women cast Gladstone as a lonely ranch hand who drives through the night to find the night-class teacher she is drawn to, a role that won her the Los Angeles critics' supporting-actress prize.

Lily Gladstone won the role after a Zoom call with Scorsese in which they bonded over what?

Catholicism was common ground, Gladstone said: Scorsese once studied for the priesthood, and she saw Mollie as an Osage woman also shaped by the church and its boarding schools.

Lily Gladstone won the Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actress but lost the Oscar to whom?

Emma Stone won for Poor Things and told reporters "I think I blacked out"; Gladstone had been the first Native American nominated for Best Actress.

Killers of the Flower Moon went 0 for 10 as which film won Best Picture?

Oppenheimer won seven Oscars that night and beat Scorsese's film in six of its ten categories.

Which Scorsese film, like Gangs of New York, was shut out at the Oscars despite 10+ nominations?

Billboard called the repeat "hard to explain" for a director it described as a legend.

In 2024 Scorsese, 81, became the oldest Best Director nominee ever, eclipsing which director?

John Huston was 79 when Prizzi's Honor brought him a directing nomination and won his daughter Anjelica an Oscar; Scorsese's nod at 81 was his tenth for directing.

Which longtime Scorsese editor earned a record ninth Best Film Editing nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon?

Thelma Schoonmaker, who has cut every Scorsese film since 1980, publicly defended this one's three-and-a-half-hour running time when some critics called it too long.

Who composed the score for Killers of the Flower Moon, his last before his death two months before release?

Robbie Robertson's work with Scorsese went back to The Last Waltz, the director's film of his group's farewell concert; this final score brought him a posthumous Oscar nomination.

The Killers of the Flower Moon composer's mother, from Ontario's Six Nations reserve, belonged to which two nations?

Cayuga and Mohawk through his mother, he spent time with her family on the reserve, hearing the campfire stories that he later said shaped his songwriting.

Who shot Killers of the Flower Moon, having been Scorsese's cinematographer since The Wolf of Wall Street?

Rodrigo Prieto shot mostly on film and, as the story darkens, imitated ENR, a Technicolor process that hardens contrast and drains colour; that year he also shot Barbie.

Scorsese cited which director's Midsommar and Beau Is Afraid as inspirations for Killers of the Flower Moon's slower pacing?

Ari Aster already had Scorsese's admiration: months earlier the veteran interviewed him about Beau Is Afraid and called him one of the most extraordinary new voices in cinema.

Scorsese himself appears in Killers of the Flower Moon's final scene as what?

A radio show producer: Scorsese reads Mollie's obituary himself because, he said, he did not know how to direct another actor to deliver it.

Which rock musician acts in Killers of the Flower Moon's final scene?

Jack White had been on a Scorsese set before, joining the Rolling Stones on stage in the director's concert film Shine a Light; here he is one of several musicians in small roles.

Which Americana singer-songwriter plays Bill Smith, who marries two of Mollie's sisters in turn?

Jason Isbell plays Smith, the man whose killing brought Ernest Burkhart a life sentence; fellow singer Sturgill Simpson is in the cast too, as bootlegger Henry Grammer.

Brendan Fraser plays W. S. Hamilton, who is what in Killers of the Flower Moon?

Hale's attorney: Hamilton pressures Ernest to recant by claiming that agents tortured the confession out of him.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, John Lithgow's Peter Leaward fills what role at the trials?

Lead prosecutor Leaward's case turns on Ernest, who wavers under pressure to recant and then testifies against Hale.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, Tantoo Cardinal's Lizzie Q is what to Mollie?

Her mother Lizzie dies welcomed by her ancestors in the film; in reality she died two months after her daughter Anna Brown was killed, and foul play was suspected.

Hale orders Ernest to poison the medicine Mollie takes for which condition?

Diabetes meant regular insulin shots for Mollie, and in the film Ernest laces them with poison until he falls ill himself after swallowing some.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, Mollie travels to Washington to plead for help from which president?

Calvin Coolidge hears Mollie's plea in the film; in reality it was the Osage Tribal Council that asked Washington to send investigators, in 1923.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, Ernest agrees to testify against Hale after his daughter dies of which illness?

Whooping cough killed the couple's daughter Anna, and in the film the loss moves Ernest to testify; Mollie still leaves him when he will not admit to poisoning her.

Which real 1921 event, referenced in Killers of the Flower Moon, deepens the Osage's fear of white violence?

The Tulsa race massacre destroyed more than a thousand homes and businesses in the Black district of Greenwood, and in the film the news leaves the Osage fearing they could be next.

De Niro's Oscar nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon came 49 years after his first, for which film?

The Godfather Part II brought De Niro an Oscar at his first try; 49 years on, his nomination as Hale ended in a loss to Robert Downey Jr.

Killers of the Flower Moon ends by noting Mollie's obituary never mentioned what?

The murders went unmentioned in the notice, and Scorsese stepped on screen to read those closing lines himself.

With Killers of the Flower Moon's budget nearing $200 million, Scorsese courted the eventual backer and which rival streamer?

Netflix had bankrolled Scorsese's previous film but lost out this time, after the original studio grew nervous about a price tag of up to $200 million.

Which company co-financed Killers of the Flower Moon and streamed it from January 2024?

Apple TV+ paid for the film yet sent it on a full worldwide cinema run first, a hybrid deal struck after the original studio grew nervous about the cost.

Which studio handled Killers of the Flower Moon's theatrical release?

Paramount Pictures was the project's first home but grew nervous about the cost, so it kept only the worldwide cinema release while a streamer paid for the production.

At which film festival did Killers of the Flower Moon premiere to a nine-minute standing ovation?

Cannes rose for nine minutes after the 206-minute screening, and Scorsese took the microphone to say "Thank you to the Osages" while cast members wiped their eyes.

Whose concert film kept Killers of the Flower Moon off the top of the North American box office on its opening weekend?

Taylor Swift's Eras Tour film took $33 million in its second weekend against $23 million for the Scorsese epic, though worldwide the newcomer came out ahead.

Some cinemas in Europe and the US angered the studios by doing what to Killers of the Flower Moon?

Inserting their own intermission broke the cinemas' contracts, the distributors said, and they told them to show the 206-minute film as intended; its editor called the breaks "a violation".

Killers of the Flower Moon was De Niro's tenth Scorsese film, released 50 years after which first one?

Mean Streets began the partnership after Brian De Palma, who had directed De Niro's early films, introduced the actor to Scorsese.

Which of Killers of the Flower Moon's Oscar nominations was the first ever for a member of the Osage Nation?

Best Original Song was the category: Osage composer Scott George wrote "Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)" for the film's closing moments and performed it at the ceremony with Osage singers and dancers.

Scorsese first met the Osage principal chief in which town, where much of Killers of the Flower Moon was then shot?

Pawhuska, home of the Osage tribal government, also played the story's real setting: the crew repainted its old buildings to recreate 1920s Fairfax, 30 miles away.

The Kyle family murders were dramatised decades earlier in which 1959 James Stewart film?

The FBI Story handed the case to James Stewart's fictional agent Chip Hardesty; Scorsese considered ending his own film on the shooting of a Hollywood movie much like it.

Newspapers of the day gave the wave of Osage deaths what name?

The Reign of Terror has no agreed toll: official counts ran to about two dozen deaths, while later research suggests the real number may have been in the hundreds.

The Osage were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma in the 1870s from which state?

Kansas was not the first home the Osage were pushed out of, but this time they bought their new reservation outright instead of being granted it.

After oil was struck on their land, the Osage of the early 1920s were widely described as the world's what?

Richest people per capita was the label of the early 1920s, and the money drew swindlers and killers to Osage County.

In Killers of the Flower Moon, Mollie must ask a guardian for her own money because the law labels her what?

Incompetent was the legal label that put an Osage's money under a white guardian, who oversaw spending down to the toothpaste; many guardians overcharged their wards or simply stole from them.

Local authorities at first blamed Anna Brown's 1921 death in a ravine on what?

Alcohol poisoning was the first explanation, since she had been drinking heavily before she vanished; then an undertaker found a bullet hole in the back of her head.

Which petty criminal admitted shooting Anna Brown and testified that Hale had asked him to do it?

Kelsie Morrison was already in prison on another charge when he drew a life sentence for the murder; his accomplice Byron Burkhart turned state's evidence and went free.

Mollie's sister Reta and her husband died in March 1923 when their Fairfax home was destroyed by what?

A bomb levelled the house, killing her and the servant Nettie Brookshire and fatally injuring her husband; the outrage helped push Washington into opening an investigation.

Henry Roan's killing on restricted Osage land made it what kind of crime?

Federal, because Roan died on restricted Indian land, which gave the Bureau of Investigation jurisdiction; Hale, a pallbearer at the funeral, was convicted of this killing.

When their reservation was divided into allotments in 1906, what did the Osage insist on keeping in common?

The mineral rights stayed communal, so every member on the tribal roll received an equal, inheritable share of the oil money: the headright that the killers were after.

Oilman Barney McBride went to Washington in 1922 to seek help for the Osage; how did his trip end?

Stabbed to death: McBride was stabbed and beaten during his visit to the capital, and his killing, like those of Whitehorn and Vaughan, was never solved.

After being paroled in 1937, Ernest Burkhart was sent back to prison for what crime?

Burglary: he and an accomplice broke into the home of his former sister-in-law; he was later paroled again, and Oklahoma's governor pardoned him in the 1960s.

Before leading the Osage murders investigation, Bureau agent Tom White had served in which famous law-enforcement outfit?

The Texas Rangers gave White his start; J. Edgar Hoover asked him to take over the stalled case in 1925, and he cracked it by sending most of his agents in undercover.

A 1925 law barred whom from inheriting a full-blood Osage's headright?

Anyone outside the tribe lost the right to inherit, which removed the motive for marrying into a family and then killing it; Washington kept managing the oil leases.

Henry Roan, the Osage man shot for his life insurance, had what earlier tie to Mollie?

Her first husband: the two were joined as teenagers in an arranged Osage marriage, then sent away to boarding school, and each later married someone else.

Which body named Killers of the Flower Moon Best Film and Scorsese Best Director for 2023?

National Board of Review voters gave it both prizes in December 2023; New York's critics had named it Best Film days earlier but chose a different director, and the Oscars then gave it nothing.

Killers of the Flower Moon opened bigger than any earlier Scorsese–De Niro film, passing which 1991 release?

Cape Fear had opened to $10.2 million; the new film's $23 million start more than doubled it, yet against a budget of about $200 million the cinema run still lost money.