The 12 Best Trial Movies

Patric M. Verrone, a lawyer, is a comedy writer for "The Tonight Show." Reprinted from the ABA Journal/November 1989. Used with permission.

The ancient Romans had two chief sources of entertainment: The gladiator match and the trial. Today we have at least one additional choice--the movie. Although few films deal with the more physical of the ancients' enthusiasms, there has been considerable film exposure for the more intellectual. In fact, as the Motion Picture Code of 1930 put it, "So long as motion pictures [are] produced, there will always be a considerable number which will deal with lawyers and courtroom scenes."

Trials appeal to film makers because of their theatrical trappings. Nor is it a surprise that actors are anxious to be called to the bar. Virtually every great actor has performed on the courtroom stage sometime in his career (including unlikely litigators such as Humphrey Bogart in "Knock on Any Door" or John Wayne in "A Man Betrayed"), and many received favorable judicial reviews. In fact, during the height of American trial films, 1954 through 1966, 19 Academy Award nominations went to trial performers.

Over the years, certain plot trends have developed in Hollywood trial films. Most involve a criminal trial for murder or rape or both, ending with the defendant acquitted, and depicting the victorious defense attorneys as troubled men or women whose redemption is tied directly to the verdict of the trial.

But the most attractive cinematic elements of trial films are the heady themes and profound questions of guilt and innocence they present. Often the conflict of these films develops because the viewers know that the defendant is not guilty and want the correct verdict entered. Another theme is murky moral corruption in a system where one individual shines incorruptible.

Another theme is redemption or the lack of it. On one side, there is non-salvation from the pervasive feelings of guilt for Joseph K in "The Trial" or Hans Beckert in "M." On the other, there is the fulfillment of a personal goal, whether it be healing a wounded reputation (as in "The Verdict"), fixing a past legal indiscretion ("True Believer") or even curing ill health ("Witness for the Prosecution"). Even comedies tend to deal with substantial themes, like the chaotic toppling of the scales of justice in "You Can't Take It With You" or "Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street." or teaching a populist lesson to the powerful and corrupt as in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" or "The Front."

Thomas More, unswayed by the temptations of power; Atticus Finch, the sole nobleman in the racist South; and the Henry Fonda juror in "Twelve Angry Men," the only skeptical (and rational) man in jury room.

The following 12 trial films are among the best ever made. Each consists of a bloody but socially profound battle between two-worthy adversaries in a life-and-death arena. Maybe we are more like the gladiator-worshiping Romans than we think.
 
 

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Perhaps the most notable trial of all time was that of Jesus Christ, yet it has eluded screen immortality. Many of the themes that encompass the passion of Jesus reoccurred in the ordeal of Joan of Arc--corruption, betrayal, martyrdom and sacred redemption.

Carl Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" captures these themes with relentless visual power. Herman Warm's cold, bleak sets, Rudolph Mate's harsh photography, and Falconetti's performance all provoke primitive urges in fulfilling Dreyer's vision of Joan as the solitary, sole incorruptible figure in a world littered by injustice. Shot almost exclusively in close-ups, this film gives the viewer an unforgettable image of how it feels to stand accused. Unfortunately, Dreyer made only five films in the 40 years to follow, and never completed his most eagerly awaited work, "The Life of Christ."

"M" (1931)

When "M" was made, at the end of the Weimer Republic, it was disconcerting and politically volatile (director Fritz Lang was forced to change the title from "Murderer Among Us"). Today it is a great work of art and a prophetic indictment of the Germany that was yet to come.

The trial in "M" take place not in a courtroom before a judge and jury but in a warehouse before the city's crime syndicate leaders and subterranean elements. Still, it is one of the most effective trials ever filmed, questioning our notions of justice and revenge, mob rule and order, power and responsibility. Our social orientation is flip-flopped. Criminals become judges (wear long leather coats as robes), the killer becomes the victim, and the forces of order rely on chance.

If we sympathize with anyone, it is with the psychopathic child killer Hans Becker (played with bug-eyed brilliance by Peter Lore) who is caught between the underworld and the established order and is made a scapegoat by both. An impervious crime boss/judge chillingly echoes Nazi propaganda when he says, " The beast has no right to exist." With its Brechtian grotesqueries, "M" is a stinging expression of just how elusive and complicated justice really is.
 

Twelve Angry Men (1957)

No Hollywood film took a close look at the American justice system until the late 1950s, and yet many of the most memorable trial films were made in the 10 years that followed. (It is no coincidence that these years led up to the civil-rights and liberties revolution of the 1960s.) Curiously, this film, which opened the floodgates, examined the system not through lawyers or the other traditional cinematic trappings, but through its very heart--the jury.

Twelve men are put in a hot, crowded room and asked to decide the fate of an accused murderer. In doing so they also return a verdict on the system itself. The script is fluid, the direction taut, and the ensemble cast (led by Henry Ford) remarkable, filling the screen emotionally and also physically. (Director Sidney Lumet admits that "The Passion of Joan of Arc" is one of this favorite films, and the influence is clear here.) But the civil-liberty bell is clearly rung by the film's moral: As Paul Newman put it years later in Lumet's "The Verdict," "The weak have got to have somebody to fight for them." No film has made that point quite so vividly as "Twelve Angry Men."
 

The Wrong Man (1957)

Alfred Hitchcock's entry in this list is the nightmare of a musician (Henry Fonda) who is arrested for a crime he did not commit. We follow him with numbing detail through the labyrinths of justice--interrogation, arrest, fingerprinting, lineup, arraignment, and a grueling proceeding that ends in a mistrial. We experience the claustrophobia of isolation in a small cell and Fonda's subjective bewilderment. (The scene in the jail when the camera spins around and around has often been imitated but never so dramatically.)

Hitchcock presents a skewed critique of the justice system, influenced by coincidence, bad luck and a kind of divine intervention. Hitchcock was clearly influenced by the oft-told incident in which he was locked in a jail cell at the age of 6 at the direction of his father, who wanted to show him "what they do to bad little boys."

Unlike other trial films, "The Wrong Man" does not condemn the system as a whole but reveals that the terrors of tedium in the bureaucracy of justice can be as psychologically damaging as outright injustice. It attempts to lead the viewer into an acute awareness of redemption and guilt. Perhaps this is Hitchcock's revenge for his 10-minute childhood internment.
 

Paths of Glory (1958)

Banned in France (where it takes place) for 15 years, this film is among the best anti-war films. It presents a bleak vision of violence and hypocrisy while asking if "military justice" isn't just a contradiction in terms. Samuel Johnson's observation, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," is quoted in this film, which examines the power gained by the scoundrel through making the powerless into scapegoats.

Kirk Douglas plays Colonel Dax, a front-line officer who defends three of his men on a charge of cowardice when they retreat from a futile mission. The geometrical arrangement of the courtroom shows the hierarchy of power and provides an appropriate arena for Dax's condemnation of a legal system that is itself a crime.

To convict men of cowardice under these circumstances is to condone a system which favors scheming generals living in palatial chateaus rather than the men in the trenches who die because of their decisions and take the blame for their failures. Perhaps in the extreme circumstances of war, there can be no justice, there are no heroes, and words like "glory" can only be used with irony.
 

Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

As in many of the soapier trial films of the fifties, we are presented here with a sleepy town awakened by a gruesome crime, and a sleepier attorney (Jimmy Stewart, who is shown tying flies during the coroner's testimony). He is called upon to win over the jury and win back his own self-esteem. Since the movie is directed by Otto Preminger, the formula is spiced up a bit by controversial facts (although the term "soiled panties" may not elicit quite the response today as it did in 1959).

But the film's real highlight is its ability to demonstrate how a legal defense is developed in a difficult case. How many trial films would dare spend so much time watching lawyers do what many lawyers do most (and enjoy least)--research? Also notable are the music of Duke Ellington, the stark photography of Sam Leavitt, and the delightful presence of real-life Judge Joseph N. Welch (who gained notoriety at the McCarthy hearings in 1953).
 

Inherit the Wind (1960)

This is Stanley Kramer's fictionalized account of the Scopes Monkey Trial. More festive than fiery in presentation, it is a star vehicle for Spencer Tracy as the Clarence Darrow-type defense attorney and Fredric March as the William Jennings Bryan--inspired prosecutor.

Due to Jerome Laurence and Robert E. Lee's original play, not to mention Bryan and Darrow's original words, the film is quite clever in its ability to show just how tough it is to be a litigator. It depicts the efforts involved in preparing for trial, the strategies which must be considered in presenting a case, and the pressures of the courtroom itself. (It is no slight metaphor that many of these trial films take place during intense heat waves.)

The viewer cannot help but be impressed by these super lawyers and their prowess at public speaking, their ability to think on their feet, and their conviction in representing their clients and their cases. When reminded that "Inherit the Wind" is based on fact and that real people go through these mental gymnastics all the time, one almost might forget that this picture is just plain good entertainment.
 

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

This film deserves attention more for the questions which it leaves open than for its aesthetic qualities. It is original in that it assumes the judge's point of view; it is about a judge judging judges. Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) comes to Nuremberg after the major Nazi trials are over and is asked to judge the lesser Nazis, including Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), a once liberal judge who, with hypocritical justification, enforced Nazi laws.

The film draws a parallel between the two men. Just as Janning was subjected to political pressure by the Nazis, Haywood is pressured to go easy on the judge because, politically, convicting Nazis was equated with helping Communists. The questions raised by this movie are interesting if unexplored: by what right does a judge have power over the accused? Is a judge who upholds unjust laws guilty of a crime? Who can judge the judges? Stanley Kramer directed from a script by Abby Mann.
 

The Trial (1962)

This is not your average trial film. No more than five minutes are spent in the courtroom, judges and prosecutors are not heard from, and conversations between client and attorney confuse more than enlighten. The whole work is riddled with double-talking police, sexual red herrings, victimized persecutors, vanquished victims and a defendant, Joseph K. (Anthony Perkins), slowly driven mad (is this his penance for Psycho?) in this Orwellian Orson Wellesian nightmare.

The metaphors for injustice, corruption and sloth are far more heavy-handed than even Kafka could have concocted (but he didn't have "ovular dentist chairs"), and the broad cynicism of the work is not for everyone. As with many of Welles' later works, the picture is grainy and the sound is post-dubbed, but this actually adds to the nightmarish quality. After all, the trial by ordeal depicted here is meant not only for Joseph K. but for the viewer as well.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1963)

This movie was made during the rise of the civil-rights movement and is usually interpreted through this social prism. Racial injustice is often viewed as its core, but its real power is in its narrative viewpoint through the eyes of a child.

We see the children of the dignified and noble lawyer Atticus Finch learning a sense of social right and wrong, justice and injustice, the cruelty of the world, and how to be courageous in the face of it all. The courtroom scene is presented as a morality play for the children. The lawyer is presented as a saintly man, but his saintliness is a reflection of the idealism of a child.

Robert Mulligan directed the movie and deserves much of the credit for eliciting naturalistic performances from two non-professional child actors. Horton Foote's Academy Award-winning script follows Harper Lee's novel faithfully. But by far the greatest delight of the movie is Gregory Peck's performance as Atticus Finch, for which he also won an Oscar. This movie gives you the feel of what it is like to be a small-town lawyer and to be a child awakening to the problems of justice in an often unjust world.

A Man For All Seasons (1966)

It is fitting that a film about the patron saint of lawyers should be on this list. Like Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch, Paul Scofield's Thomas More is noble and restrained. What makes a man so scrupulous that he risks prison and death rather than compromise his principles? More explains himself by saying, "But what matters to me is not whether it's true but that I believe it to be true, or rather, not that I believe it to be true but that I believe it to be true. I trust I make myself obscure."

Perhaps it is only the jaundiced color of the times (both More's and ours) which makes such moral courage seem beyond explanation. More enters his trial as if entering an arena where lions are to be unleashed before a hostile crowd. He is convicted on the evidence of a perjurer by a jury which does not even deliberate. But he remains unbowed.

Like Joan of Arc, More cannot be redeemed until condemned, and it is only through the ritual of the trial that he can be martyred. And only through martyrdom do we learn the appropriate lessons about justice. The movie won the best picture Oscar in 1966, and Oscars also went to Scofield, director Fred Zinnemann and screenwriter Robert Bolt.


The Verdict (1982)

Any time a film lawyer's self-esteem is on trial, redemption is usually tied directly to the verdict. This is the case for down and out barroom barrister Frank Galvin (Paul Newman). He is called upon to handle a wrongful-death action against two famous doctors. Convinced that his whole sense of self is at stake, Galvin takes the case head-on, despite a huge settlement offer, a vicious mega-sized law-firm opponent and an unfriendly judge.

Numerous unsavory and unethical tricks abound, but Galvin prevails and wins back his self-esteem, thanks to ceaseless devotion, sincerity, luck, and a sympathetic jury (director Sidney Lument's trademark). As with many trial films, "The Verdict" is more interested in injustice than justice. Power and powerlessness, personal caprice and corruption, condemnation of the system, and its eventual affirmation are the poles around which it revolves and through which, like all good trial films, it is ultimately resolved.