The Butler is a 2013 American historical drama film directed and co-produced by Lee Daniels and with a screenplay by Danny Strong. It is inspired by Wil Haygood's Washington Post article "A Butler Well Served by This Election".

Lee Daniels is an American film and television producer, director and screenwriter. His first producer credit was Monster's Ball (2001), for which Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Best Actress, making Daniels the first African-American film producer to solely produce an Oscar-winning film. He made his directorial debut with Shadowboxer in 2005 and has since then directed the films Precious (2009), The Paperboy, The Butler (2013) and The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021). Of these, Precious was the most critically acclaimed, and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including two nominations for Daniels, for Best Director and Best Picture. Other films he has produced include The Woodsman (2004), Tennessee (2008), Pimp (2018) and Concrete Cowboy (2020).