High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Oxford Murders is a 2008 thriller film adapted from an award-winning novel of the same name by the Argentine mathematician and writer Guillermo Martínez, directed by Álex de la Iglesia and starring Elijah Wood, John Hurt and Leonor Watling.November 1993. Wood plays Martin, an American student at the University of Oxford who wants Arthur Seldom (Hurt) as his thesis supervisor. He idolises Seldom and has learned all about him. He takes rooms in Oxford at the house of an old lady who is an old friend of Seldom. Also in the house is the old lady's daughter, who is her full time caregiver which she resents bitterly and a musician by occupation.