Paul Muni was the king of screen biographies in Hollywood's Golden Era, creating a gallery of great lives. Warner Bros. was the studio most in touch with the common clay, striking a public nerve with films of social protest. These forces of star and humanism converged in a 1937 movie landmark: The Life of Emile Zola was the studio's first Best Picture Academy Award winner (10 nominations and three wins).

This powerful film about the activist French author also won the New York Film Critics Best Picture prize. And Muni won that group's Best Actor honors for his towering portrayal of Zola, France's champion of the oppressed, whose relentless campaign to free the wrongly convicted Captain Dreyfus (Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner Joseph Schildkraut) will forever shine as "a moment in the conscience of man."