The Ghost and the Darkness Michael Douglas Val Kilmer

A 1996 thriller about the Tsavo maneaters, two lions who attacked the builders of the Uganda-Mombasa Railway in 1898, killing about 35 of them, and the subsequent hunt to kill them. The attacks, which took place in Tsavo Kenya, were recounted by Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson in his book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.

The film, although based loosely on Patterson's account, romanticises his story and fictionalises important elements of the plot. William Goldman's script introduces Michael Douglas as the American big game hunter Charles Remington, a character based on Anglo-Indian big game hunter Charles Ryall. In the original script, Remington was an enigmatic figure named Redbeard, but when Douglas chose to both produce the movie and play the role of the hunter, the character was expanded; Goldman's book Which Lie Did I Tell? argues that this decision on Douglas's part ruins the mystery of the character.

The film was shot mainly on location at Songimvelo Game Reserve in South Africa, rather than Kenya, due to tax laws. Many Maasai characters in the film were actually portrayed by South African actors, although the Maasai depicted during the hunt were portrayed by real Maasai warriors who were hired for the movie.