The Pale Blue Eye is a 2022 American mystery thriller film written and directed by Scott Cooper,[2] adapted from the 2006 novel of the same name by Louis Bayard.

[3] The film features an ensemble cast that includes Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Timothy Spall, and Robert Duvall.

After a cow and a sheep are found butchered with their hearts removed, it is suspected that the murder could be linked to black magic rituals.

Two years earlier, Landor's daughter Mattie was raped by Fry, Ballinger, and Stoddard after attending her first ball.

After killing Ballinger, Landor mutilated his corpse to make it appear that the cadet had been murdered by the same "madman" who desecrated Fry's body.

[4] A decade later, in early 2021, it was announced that Christian Bale would star in the film, to be produced by Cross Creek Pictures.

[10] That month, additional cast members were announced, including Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Timothy Spall, Fred Hechinger, and Robert Duvall.

The website's consensus reads: "The Pale Blue Eye lacks its source material's piercing gaze, but this well-cast mystery is just intriguing enough to investigate.

[16] Matthew Monagle of The Austin Chronicle wrote, "The Pale Blue Eye holds together remarkably as a gothic piece of horror... right up to the point that it doesn't," and that it "seems to lose its nerve in its final minutes, when Cooper's script reverts to a procedural story and reshuffles our relationships to both main characters, relying too heavily on red herrings – and ugly tropes of sexual violence – to bring the narrative home.

"[17] James Verniere of the Boston Herald called it an "over-acted, badly written, murder mystery dud.

"[18] Peter Travers of ABC News wrote: "Even when the murderer kills again and characters start daubing their faces with blood and howling at the moon or whatever's handy, the film keeps circling its convoluted plot without finding a satisfying place to land.