Bernie (2012)

Bernie is a 2012 comedic film directed by Richard Linklater, and written by Linklater and Skip Hollandsworth. The film stars Jack Black as Bernie Tiede, Shirley MacLaine as the elderly widow, Marjorie Nugent, and Matthew McConaughey as the local District Attorney. It made its world premiere as the opening night film of the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival. The film's distributor, Millennium Entertainment, plans to release the film on April 27, 2012.

Synopsis: Local mortician Bernie Tiede (Black) befriends a rich widow (MacLaine) in a small Texas town. He murders Nugent after growing weary of her persistent nagging and non-stop put downs, but no one misses her for months until the local district attorney (McConaughey) begins to investigate. In the meantime, many citizens of the small, East Texas town of Carthage rally to the murderer's defense, and demand that the authorities go easy on Tiede for the killing of the elderly Nugent.

Bernie is based on a 1998 Texas Monthly magazine article by Hollandsworth, "Midnight in the Garden of East Texas," that chronicles the 1996 murder of 81-year-old millionaire Marjorie Nugent in Carthage, Texas by her 39-year-old homosexual companion, Bernhardt "Bernie" Tiede. Nugent was shot in the back four times with a rifle by Tiede, who confessed to the 1996 murder. According to the Amarillo Globe-News, police searched Tiede's home and found videotapes showing Tiede "engaging in homosexual acts" with local married men. Tiede admitted the murder to police in August, 1997 and was sentenced to life in prison.