Sea of Love (1989)

Sea of Love is a 1989 American neo-noir thriller film directed by Harold Becker, written by Richard Price and starring Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin and John Goodman. The story concerns a New York City detective trying to catch a serial killer who finds victims through the singles column in a newspaper.

It is inspired by Price's 1978 novel Ladies' Man. The film does not credit the novel as source material because the novel shares only a similar main idea, while having different characters, a different plot and a different theme. Writer Richard Price said that he wanted to explore the same idea as Ladies' Man, but that he wanted to make the protagonist cooler to an audience (by making him a police officer and giving him a gun).

The film involves the investigation of a serial killer that is nonexistent in the book. Dustin Hoffman was originally in negotiations to star before Pacino became interested in the project. It was Pacino's first film after a four-year hiatus following the critical and commercial failure of Revolution. Sea of Love was a box-office success, grossing more than $110 million.