Thanks to the inherently theatrical nature of a legal trial, cinema has had a tight-knit relationship with the courtroom since its early days, utilizing (and sometimes, delightfully exaggerating) judicial fundamentals like a curious suspect, a sardonic attorney, and shouty assertions of “I object!” for stories that thrill, move, and inspire us.
We were reminded of the many slick pleasures of this subgenre recently through Clint Eastwood’s elegant and widely acclaimed legal thriller Juror #2, with a stylish premise reminiscent of a Sidney Lumet and Otto Preminger picture. And it goes like this: one of the jurors of a murder case (Nicholas Hoult’s devout family man) is the actual killer who unwittingly committed the crime in hand. But will he succeed in swaying the juror room that near-unanimously believes the suspect is guilty, without drawing attention to his own crime? And how will Toni Collette’s convincing prosecutor and Chris Messina’s resilient defense attorney shape the progression of the case?
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]A deep skeptic of governmental institutions, Eastwood’s 40th outing as a director brings us a that rare modern-day movie, one that entertains, feels mainstream, but also asks weighty questions about the true nature of justice and fairness amid a flawed system. One of the best legal dramas of this century, Juror #2 will be streaming on Max starting Dec. 20, on the heels of a small and miscalculated theatrical release plan. And it proudly belongs to the great tradition of courtroom movies throughout cinema history.
Here are 20 of the genre’s very best across different eras and continents.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Carl Theodore Dreyer’s silent-era masterpiece features one of the most unforgettably raw performances of all time. With her soul-baring eyes (and just two feature screen credits to her name), Falconetti defines fortitude, endurance, and vulnerability for the ages, as her warrior-saint Joan of Arc—a 15th-century peasant who believed she was God’s chosen one to lead France to victory over England—gets tormented by religious court interrogators in a series of trials that eventually led to her execution. Based on original court transcripts and charged by innovative camera moves that find their hypnotic power in close-ups of Falconetti’s dignified face, this nearly 100-year-old classic is just as stirring today.
A Matter of Life and Death (aka Stairway to Heaven) (1946)
A brave WWII-era British bomber (David Niven’s Peter) falls to his death after forming an intimate connection with an American ground controller (Kim Hunter’s June) through his cockpit radio. But he survives through a cosmic mistake, falling madly in love with her in reality. A disarmingly optimistic wartime melodrama in both black-and-white and glorious color from the legendary British duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s daringly strange work follows Peter’s otherworldly trial that will ultimately decide whether he lives or dies. With an idiosyncratic sense of humor (Yanks get a coke machine in heaven) and a desperately romantic heart, Powell & Pressburger tenderly suggest Heaven and love are one and the same. Who could argue against that?
Rashomon (1950)
A landmark through which Akira Kurosawa reimagined what cinematic storytelling could be, Rashomon marries form—chiefly, immersive flashbacks executed with unparalleled finesse—with narrative intentions, following four curiously unreliable narrators recounting their own viewpoints and recollections of a rape and murder case in 12th century Japan. The quartet, made up of people from different ranks of society ranging from Woodcutters to Samurais (including one who is already dead and contacted by a medium), fiercely contradict one another, underscoring the subjective nature of perspective and the vulnerability of truth when handled with a side of self-interest. Rashomon is often cited as one of the greatest films of all time, and for good reason.
12 Angry Men (1957)
Recently lending its blueprint to Eastwood’s own contemporary noir, Sidney Lumet’s immersive procedural is set almost entirely inside a New York City jury room, where the temperature outside is unbearably hot, and the mood inside is several degrees more scorching. The case? A murder trial against a young inner-city boy, with Henry Fonda’s Juror #8 as the sole holdout who maintains his “Not Guilty” stance, slowly swaying the room to the suspect’s favor. Lumet’s blistering script both exposes the deeply classist and racist attitudes of the society, and underscores one of the major tenets of our judiciary system with intention. The point isn’t simply “guilty” vs. “not guilty”—to declare the former, you have to prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Billy Wilder’s shrewdly unpredictable adaptation of Agatha Christie’s play is among the finest examples of a courtroom whodunit, with intricate plotting and vigilant character building, culminating in a rewardingly twisty ending. The story follows Charles Laughton’s London barrister who takes on a murder case despite being of retirement age and poor health. Played by Tyrone Power in his last film role, the defendant is claimed to have killed a wealthy widow. It all comes down to the testimony of his resolute war bride, played mercurially by the enigmatic Marlene Dietrich—her taking the stand is an iconic cinematic event of its own right. Lies, deceit, infidelity, and the shape-shifting nature of truth, Wilder’s Witness for the Prosecution is infinitely rewatchable.
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
It’s no coincidence that Justine Triet’s recent Oscar winner winks at one of the best legal dramas of all time. Otto Preminger’s procedural truly has it all: a wisecracking attorney (Jimmy Stewart with his signature alluring irritability), a cheeky judge “easily awakened by a good lawyer with a nice point of law,” Lee Remnick’s enthralling femme fatale, a canine witness, and a murder trial intertwined by a case of sexual violence, the discussion of which is ahead of its time. Even at 160 minutes, the pressure-cooker script is a breeze. And while there’s never any doubt about who committed the crime, Preminger’s masterwork of persistent camera angles and patient editing proudly lives in the gray area of a flawed justice system.
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Abby Mann’s piercing Oscar-winning screenplay formulates a fictionalized version of the third Nuremberg trial, following a group of judges and legal officials who were prosecuted for their own roles in enabling Nazi Germany’s crimes against humanity. With its all-star Hollywood cast—including the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Burt Lancaster, and Spencer Tracy—distinct visual style that navigates an exact replica of the real Nuremberg court through long takes and sharp pans, and heroic examination of political schemes with genocidal ties, Stanley Kramer’s timeless epic urgently unearths how deep the layers of culpability can run in corrupt governmental systems.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Justice inside and outside the court is pursued relentlessly in Robert Mulligan’s graceful adaptation of Harper Lee’s literary masterwork. The story’s about a principled white attorney (Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch) defending a black man (Brock Peters’ Tom Robinson) tried on false and slanderously bigoted sexual assault charges in front of an all-white jury. The whole affair is remembered by the mature Scout Finch, who takes us to her childhood (Mary Badham) in the segregated South of the 30s, when her young eyes witnessed both the worst of humanity through the racism of Tom’s accusers, and the best, through her upstanding dad. It’s a timeless heart tugger at the thorny intersection of morality and fairness.
…And Justice For All (1979)
An incisive satire of the American legal system that’s more dramatic than funny, Norman Jewison’s fiery picture earned Al Pacino his first Oscar nomination as a hotheaded Baltimore lawyer who’d rather punch a judge (and go to jail) than abandon the truth. But what happens when such a fair-minded public servant perennially on the side of innocent underdogs finds himself as the defense attorney of a judge who might be guilty of rape and assault? Well, you get one hell of a sequence with Pacino declaring, “You’re out of order! The whole trial is out of order!” Slightly overwrought (and much spoofed) it may be, but this is also the exact kind of rebellion one cheers for in cinematic tales of heroism.
The Verdict (1982)
A sophisticated character study interlaced with a courtroom case, Sidney Lumet and legendary playwright David Mamet give a washed-up Boston attorney—Paul Newman’s pinball-playing alcoholic, recently fallen from professional grace—a chance to bring the medical and religious perpetrators of a healthcare malpractice to justice, as well as clean up his own act in the process. The whole movie is touched by a ’70s residue of studiously brooding rhythms, grimy interiors, and sleazy characters—one, played by a razor-sharp Charlotte Rampling—and elevated by one of Newman’s career-best performances. Arriving on the heels of an intense and desperate pursuit, the victorious verdict resolves into a deeply human downbeat note in Lumet’s hands, one that rings as persistently as Galvin’s phone.
JFK (1991)
JFK is the Oppenheimer of the ‘90s with its paranoid nature, well-calibrated cuts, brainy exposition and the fact that everyone who’s anyone is in it: Donald Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones, Sissy Spacek, John Candy, Gary Oldman, and more. The film’s over-40-minute trial scene doesn’t arrive until the end (the whole conspiracy-filled affair runs at a whopping 189 mins), but it’s instantly legendary, with Kevin Costner’s ardent attorney Jim Garrison arguing there was intelligence agency involvement in Kennedy’s assassination. More than 50 years after that devastating day, the sensational JFK is still a sensation. Hearts swell when Costner’s voice cracks while passionately defending the value of truth. And your blood freezes at the sound of “magic bullet,” and that stunning catchphrase: “Back, and to the left.”
A Few Good Men (1992)
Featuring one of the most quotable lines of all courtroom-centric films—“You can’t handle the truth”—the multi-Oscar-nominated A Few Good Men is among the crown jewels of films with crackling Aaron Sorkin dialogue: fast, sizzling, confident. Among the film’s many pleasures is watching Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise face off, with the latter playing a green Navy attorney who reports into Demi Moore’s Lieutenant and pursues a murder case involving two marines tried for killing a fellow soldier. A mazy and talky procedural with mainstream Hollywood sheen, A Few Good Men smartly interrogates the intersection of law, ethics, and personal honor, raising powerful questions about the ways in which they troublingly clash.
My Cousin Vinny (1992)
Courtroom movies aren’t a rare breed, but those that are this hilarious are. Jonathan Lynn’s infinitely quotable Alabama-set flick follows an idiosyncratic and heavily-accented Brooklyn couple—Joe Pesci’s cheeky attorney with no real courtroom experience and a severe dress code problem, and Marissa Tomei’s sassy hairdresser with an encyclopedic knowledge of automobiles—arriving at a Southern small town to help two youts falsely accused of murder. Every witness interrogation scene is a laugh riot of culture clash and colorful personalities. Featuring a clever smoking gun, an unsympathetic judge, the coziness of a classically wood-paneled courtroom and a grits recipe for the ages, My Cousin Vinny earned Tomei a well-deserved Oscar.
Philadelphia (1993)
Winning Tom Hanks the first of his two consecutive Oscars, Philadelphia traces the story of Andrew Beckett, an accomplished attorney who gets wrongfully terminated from his job, and sues his former employers for discriminating against him as a gay man with AIDS. Hardly the first film to confront AIDS-related injustices and biases against the LGBTQ community, but the first major Hollywood production to do so, certain aspects of Jonathan Demme’s absorbing drama might feel too coy and hetero-normative for contemporary times. But it was nevertheless a significant and deeply empathetic mainstream step that helped reshape the broad cultural understanding of HIV at the time. And it still packs a punch.
Primal Fear (1996)
This one’s got one of the most memorable twist endings of the ‘90s, and we’re talking about the era that gave us The Sixth Sense. Gregory Hoblit’s drama trails a murder case involving young Edward Norton’s shy, stuttering altar boy, accused of butchering the respected Archbishop of Chicago’s Catholic Church. The legal team? A sly Richard Gere’s arrogant defense attorney, and Laura Linney’s headstrong, principled prosecutor who happens to be his ex—a formula that is fit for screwballs and legal thrillers in equal measure. The trial scenes are bravura and intensely satisfying. And Norton’s flawless portrayal of a guileless kid who might be suffering from multiple personality disorder is worth the admission price alone.
Amistad (1997)
Trust the most disarmingly sentimental major American filmmaker to make a killer period courtroom drama, featuring one of cinema’s favorite attorneys—Matthew McConaughey, also of The Lincoln Lawyer and A Time to Kill. But the show here doesn’t belong to his Baldwin, defending—but for a while, failing to see the humanity of—a group of African men abducted for slavery. It instead belongs to a formidable Djimon Hounsou, playing one of the kidnapped men who revolted against their captors in 1839, and found themselves on an enraging trial. While Steven Spielberg masterfully orchestrates the zippy courtroom scenes with purposeful reaction shots, the real pay-off is Hounsou unforgettably rising to his feet: “Give us free.” It’s a gut punch.
Mangrove (2020)
While technically a chapter of Steve McQueen’s straight-to-streaming Small Axe, few recent-era courtroom dramas feel as cinematic, getting its name from the titular Notting Hill restaurant in London—a hub for activists in the late 60s. The passionate film follows 1970’s Mangrove Nine case, where Black activists protesting repeated instances of police harassment were tried on the false pretense of inciting a riot. Before he reaches the courtroom almost halfway through the film, McQueen lovingly invests time in the Black community he depicts, leaving us with an enduring portrait of defiance against the racist systems of injustice that rings true today. Vital, angry, and ultimately optimistic, Mangrove quietly soars with its well-earned tears and not-guilty conclusion.
Saint Omer (2022)
Alice Diop’s documentary filmmaking instincts thoroughly inform her stunning narrative feature debut, based on a real-life court case of a Senegalese immigrant, admitting to murdering her 15-month-old daughter on a beach in France without articulating a reason for it. Two lead performances are the anchor of Diop’s meticulous script—Guslagie Malanda, playing the quietly tormented mom tried in the titular French city, and Kayije Kagame, a writer observing the proceedings (and serving as a Diop surrogate). As the story unfolds in thoughtful long-takes, unraveling well-crafted details that the filmmaker pieced together from actual court transcripts, Saint Omer depicts the notions of motherhood, daughterhood, race, and shifty societal norms through moments talky and defiantly silent. A truly one-of-a-kind experience.
Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Did she push her husband to his death, or did she not? That’s the question at the heart of this recent Oscar winner that puts a troubled French marriage on trial when Sandra’s (a terrific Sandra Hüller) husband fatally falls from the couple’s attic window, through a mysterious incident that could be premeditated, a suicide, or simply a freak accident. Justine Triet is a virtuoso of high-wired courtroom sequences charged by fury and apprehension, made all the more complex through various languages spoken during the investigative process and a truly soul-wrenching flashback scene that lays bare one of the most realistic marital fights seen on the screen. It’s a new classic of the legal thriller subgenre that forever redefined the way we’ll hear Fifty Cent’s “P.I.M.P.”
The Burial (2023)
In this truth-based crowd-pleaser, Maggie Betts injected new life into the entertaining courtroom formula through a textbook David-vs-Goliath story that pits an independent funeral home owner (Tommy Lee Jones) against a massive “death care” corporation set to put him out of his proud business. Playing Jones’ attorney is a perfectly costumed Jamie Foxx in one of the actor’s most vibrant and loose-limbed performances. But don’t be fooled by his lighthearted, wise-cracking mode and Betts’ flawless handle on humor—the comedy here eventually darkens, exposing a broken capitalistic system of deeply rooted racism. Fast on its feet, often laugh-out-loud funny and gradually heartrending, this underseen gem is a perfect thing.
