The film is primarily based on the first, third, and fourth books in Miller's original comic series. The Hard Goodbye: About a man who embarks on a brutal rampage in search of his one-time sweetheart's killer, killing anyone, even the police, that gets in his way of finding and killing her murderer; The Big Fat Kill: Focuses on a street war between a group of prostitutes and a group of mercenaries, the police, and the mob; and That Yellow Bastard: Follows an aging police officer who protects a young woman from a grotesquely disfigured serial killer. The intro of the film is based on the short story "The Customer is Always Right", which is collected in Booze, Broads & Bullets, the fifth book in the comic series.
The film stars an ensemble cast including Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Benicio del Toro, Carla Gugino, Rutger Hauer, Jaime King, Michael Madsen, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Nick Stahl, Bruce Willis and Elijah Wood, among others.
Sin City opened to wide critical and commercial success, gathering particular recognition for the film's unique color processing, which rendered most of the film in black and white but retained or added coloring for select objects. The film was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in-competition and won the Technical Grand Prize for the film's "visual shaping".
