JFK is a 1991 American political thriller film that examines the events leading to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and alleged cover-up through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison. Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw for his alleged participation in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, for which Lee Harvey Oswald was found responsible by the Warren Commission.

The film was directed by Oliver Stone, adapted by Stone and Zachary Sklar from the books On the Trail of the Assassins (1988) by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (1989) by Jim Marrs. Stone described this account as a "counter-myth" to the Warren Commission's "fictional myth."

The film became embroiled in controversy at the time of its release. Upon its theatrical release, many major American newspapers ran editorials accusing Stone of taking liberties with historical facts, including the film's implication that Kennedy's own vice president (and eventual successor) Lyndon B. Johnson was part of a coup d'état to kill Kennedy. Despite the controversy surrounding its historical depiction, JFK received critical praise for the performances of its cast, Stone's directing, score, editing, and cinematography. The film gradually picked up momentum at the box office after a slow start, earning over $205 million in worldwide gross, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 1991 worldwide.

DETAILED PLOT

During his farewell address in 1961, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns about the build-up of the "military-industrial complex". He is succeeded by John F. Kennedy as president, whose time in office is marked by the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis until his assassination in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Kennedy's suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit but is killed by Jack Ruby. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and his team investigate potential New Orleans links to the JFK assassination, including private pilot David Ferrie, but their investigation is publicly rebuked by the federal government and Garrison closes the investigation.

The investigation is reopened in 1966 after Garrison reads the Warren Report and notices what he believes to be multiple inaccuracies. Garrison and his staff interrogate people involved with Oswald and Ferrie. One such witness is Willie O'Keefe, a male prostitute serving five years in prison for soliciting, who says he witnessed Ferrie discussing about assassinating the President, as well as briefly meeting Oswald, and romantically involved with a man called "Clay Bertrand". Garrison and his team theorise Oswald was an agent of the Intelligence Agency and was framed for the assassination.

In 1967, Garrison and his team talk to several witnesses to the Kennedy assassination, including Jean Hill, a teacher who says she witnessed a gunman shooting from the grassy knoll, that Secret Service threatened her into saying three shots came from the book depository, and her testimony was altered by the Warren Commission. Garrison's staff also test fire an empty rifle from the Texas School Book Depository from which Oswald was alleged to have shot Kennedy and conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the shots, indicating more than one shooter were involved. Garrison comes to believe New Orleans-based international businessman Clay Shaw is the same man as Bertrand. When Shaw is interrogated, the businessman denies any knowledge of meeting Ferrie, O'Keefe or Oswald. Some key witnesses become scared and refuse to testify while others, such as Ruby and Ferrie, are killed in suspicious circumstances. Before his death, Ferrie tells Garrison that he believes people are after him, and reveals there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Garrison meets a high-level figure in Washington D.C. who identifies himself as "X". He suggests a coup d'état at the highest levels of government, implicating members of the CIA, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Secret Service, FBI, and Kennedy's vice-president and then president Lyndon Baines Johnson as either co-conspirators or as having motives to cover up the truth of the assassination. X suggests that Kennedy was killed because he wanted to pull the United States out of the Vietnam War and dismantle the CIA. X encourages Garrison to keep digging and prosecute Shaw. Shaw is soon charged with conspiring to murder the President.

Some of Garrison's staff begin to doubt his motives and disagree with his methods, and leave the investigation. Garrison's marriage is strained when his wife Liz complains that he is spending more time on the case than with his own family. After a sinister phone call is made to their daughter, Liz accuses Garrison of being selfish and attacking Shaw only because of his homosexuality. In addition, the media launches attacks on television and in newspapers attacking Garrison's character and criticizing the way his office is spending taxpayers' money. Garrison suspects a connection with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

The trial of Clay Shaw takes place in 1969. Garrison presents the court with a dismissal of the single-bullet theory, proposing a scenario involving three assassins firing six shots and framing Oswald for the murders of Kennedy and Tippit, but the jury acquits Shaw after less than one hour of deliberation. Members of that jury state publicly that they believe there was a conspiracy behind the assassination, but not enough evidence to link Shaw to that conspiracy.

JFK was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Tommy Lee Jones, and won two for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. It was the first of three films Stone made about American presidents, followed by Nixon with Anthony Hopkins in the title role and W. with Josh Brolin as George W. Bush.