State of Play is a 2009 British-French-American political thriller film. It is an adaptation of the six-part British television serial of the same name which first aired on BBC One in 2003. The plot of the six-hour serial was condensed to fit a two-hour film format, with the location changed to Washington, D.C. The film was directed by Kevin Macdonald from a screenplay written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, Peter Morgan and Billy Ray.