Screenplay: A Man for All Seasons (screenplay)

Overview
Robert Bolt's screenplay adaptation of his play tells the story of Sir Thomas More, an incorruptible man whose conscience sets him at odds with King Henry VIII's political and religious ambitions. The narrative traces More's steady refusal to endorse the king's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and the subsequent break with the Catholic Church, a stance that places him on a collision course with the Tudor state. Bolt frames the drama as a moral crucible where law, power, and personal integrity converge.
Although cinematic in scope, the screenplay preserves the play's concentrated moral inquiry and courtroom intensity. Bolt uses restrained dialogue and carefully constructed scenes to turn historical events into a quiet but escalating tragedy, focusing less on spectacle than on character, principle, and the social costs of standing immovably for conscience.

Plot
The story opens amid courtly politics as Henry seeks to annul his marriage and secure a male heir, while powerful advisers maneuver to meet his desires. Thomas More, a respected lawyer and former Lord Chancellor, refuses to support the king's claim to supremacy over the Church or to lie about the legality of the divorce. His refusal is not born of ambition or defiance but of an unbending fidelity to his sense of moral and religious truth.
As More declines to take the required oath recognizing the king as head of the Church of England, he is marginalized and then arrested. Political rivals, most notably a rising manipulator in the king's service, engineer a case that relies on technicalities, pressure, and perjured testimony to secure a conviction. The trial becomes less about proof of treason than about forcing a moral compromise. Ultimately, More is condemned and executed, maintaining until the end the famous formulation, "I am the King's good servant, but God's first."

Main Characters
Sir Thomas More stands at the center as a man of intellect, wit, and an unyielding conscience; his moral clarity drives the drama. King Henry VIII is portrayed as both magnetic and capricious, a monarch whose personal desires reshape law and church. Thomas Cromwell functions as the political antagonist, a shrewd and ruthless operator who represents the pragmatic state power willing to sacrifice individuals for expediency.
Supporting figures include More's family members who urge compromise for survival, the duplicitous associate whose ambition contributes to More's downfall, and a recurring "Common Man" figure who shifts roles, boatman, jailer, emissary, to comment on and participate in events. That shifting presence underscores how ordinary people accommodate power or turn away when conscience demands courage.

Themes and Tone
The screenplay probes the conflict between private conscience and public duty, asking whether a single individual can resist the machinery of state without becoming complicit in its collapse. Bolt examines law as both shield and weapon: legalism can protect liberty, but it can also be twisted into an instrument of persecution when divorced from moral anchors. The work interrogates complicity, ambition, and the compromises that sustain corrupt systems.
The tone is austere and dignified, laced with irony and moral urgency rather than melodrama. Dialogue emphasizes wit and intellect, while staging and pacing allow the audience to dwell on the consequences of each ethical choice. The tragedy is quiet yet inexorable, the cost of integrity rendered in human, often domestic, terms.

Significance and Legacy
Bolt's adaptation brought the story to an international audience, winning critical acclaim and major awards, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film version is remembered for preserving the play's moral seriousness while using cinema to broaden its emotional and historical textures. Its portrayal of conscience as both noble and dangerous continues to resonate as a touchstone for debates about law, authority, and moral courage in public life.