Drama is intrinsic to the courtroom, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy getting its dramatic interpretation right, no matter what the current trend of gangbuster crime drama dominating televisions may have you believe. But despite their current dominance, today’s crime crush didn’t invent the medium; far from it. Long before The People vs. O.J. Simpson, before Making a Murderer, Night Of and even all those Law & Orders (dun dun), there was Otto Preminger’s spellbinding Anatomy of a Murder, a groundbreaking 1959 film that would garner seven Academy Award nominations and become the standard against which all future courtroom dramas would be measured.
Based on the best-selling novel by Robert Traver (the nom de plume of Michigan Supreme Court justice John D. Voelker, whose second side hustle was, fascinatingly, trout fishing), Anatomy of a Murder stars Jimmy Stewart in what the New York Times called “one of the finest performances of his career” as small-town Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler, who came out of semi-retirement to defend a young army lieutenant accused of murdering a local bar owner whom the soldier believes raped his wife. (Temporary insanity, you see.) But despite the salacious subject matter, the narrative does not succumb to melodrama, opting instead to focus on presenting a masterful showcase of just how, exactly, the legal system maneuvers around ambiguity.
And the material was indeed considered quite salacious at the time: Preminger’s film was groundbreaking for its frank discussion of sex, including the first big screen usage of technical terminology referring to sexual penetration and trial banter that included the gasp-inducing words “panties” and “semen.”
The supporting cast was sharp, too: among them, a young George C. Scott plays the prosecutor, and amateur actor/famous real-life attorney Joseph N. Welch (of the Army-McCarthy hearings) winningly dabbles with acting in the role of the judge.
Yes, Anatomy of a Murder did itself have precursors. Henry Fonda bookended the better part of two decades of Hollywood power plays with iconic dramas Young Mr. Lincoln in 1939 and 12 Angry Men in ’57. But the story of Fonda’s newly-minted-lawyer-Lincoln is more beautiful mythology than trial procedural. And those angry men? They were relegated almost entirely to the jury room, far from the pomp and circumstance of court. Gregory Peck cut his legal teeth, so to speak, under no less a savant than Alfred Hitchcock in 1947’s The Paradine Case, but his onscreen portrayal of the ultimate lawyer archetype, the man who launched a thousand law school application essays, would come later.
Anatomy of a Murder gave us the template for a quality courtroom character study, and the films below follow and expand upon that shining precedent.
Inherit the Wind (1960) & Judgement at Nuremburg (1961)
Spencer Tracy dominates both sides of the bench in a pair of landmark early-60s courtroom dramas. In Inherit the Wind, he plays Henry Drummond, a fictionalized version of grand ole lawyer Clarence Darrow, who famously defended a man arrested for teaching evolution instead of creationism in the historic 1925 “monkey trial” of Tennessee — a trial whose transcript found itself adapted word for word into much of the courtroom testimony seen on screen. And lest you think this is an outdated issue, rest assured: it’s still very much up for debate. (Sigh.)
One year later, Tracy jumped to the bench in Judgement at Nuremberg as American judge Dan Haywood. While presiding over the trial of four German judges who served during the Nazi regime and now face charges of crimes against humanity, Haywood finds himself struggling to parse the legacy of a violent war and understand how a personal sense of right and wrong can go out the window when you’re “just following orders.”
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Enter the man who inspired generations to study for the LSAT: Harper Lee’s iconic crusading barrister, Atticus Finch, the ultimate lawyer as hero (Go Set a Watchmen’s aging racist notwithstanding; sorry grumpy namesakes of the world; and hey, some very educated people say he’s been that way all along).
Gregory Peck’s timeless portrayal of the lawyer with the (yes, supposedly) heart of gold who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in the Jim Crow era deep south even tops American Film Institute’s roster of 100 greatest movie heroes — and slots two and three on said list are filled by the likes of Indiana Jones and James Bond, if you’re looking for a scale on which to properly gauge your hero-worship. Plus, in the fun fact department, Robert Duvall makes his film debut as misunderstood recluse Boo Radley.
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman face off as an estranged couple fighting over their son in the film whose title has pretty much become synonymous with “custody battle.” Hoffman (Ted Kramer) is forced to step up as a father for the first time when his Streep (Joanna Kramer) leaves him. But when she resurfaces, newly gainfully employed and seeking full custody of their son, a heart wrenching custody battle ensues.
The Verdict (1982)
Alcoholic attorney Frank Galvin, played by a boldly bone-tired, anxiety-ridden Paul Newman, is handed a supposedly open-and-shut malpractice case by a sympathetic colleague. But instead of settling out of court, Galvin visits the young victim, who is alive but in a coma, and becomes determined to take the case to trial, as much to prove the accused doctor’s incompetence as to prove himself worthy of redemption.
The Accused (1988)
Jodie Foster won her first Academy Award in the first trial film to gut-wrenchingly illustrate how rape victims are more often than not treated as suspects in their own cases. After fighting with her live-in boyfriend, Foster’s Sarah Tobias goes to a local bar to blow off some steam … and instead finds herself being brutally gang raped atop a pinball machine while drunken patrons stand around cheering. We first meet Tobias in the immediate aftermath of the rape, as she shuttles numbly through emergency medical care and into the office of the assistant district attorney, played by Kelly McGillis, who takes her case. But when Tobias’ past is revealed as less than perfect, she must defend herself against those who want to dismiss her claims altogether.
My Cousin Vinny (1992)
Time for some trial by comedy. Brash Brooklyn attorney Vincent “Vinny” Gambini (a perfectly cast Joe Pesci) took six tries to pass the bar exam and has never won an actual case. But when his young cousin, played by a post-Karate Kid Ralph Macchio, is accused of murder in rural Alabama, the loudmouthed first-time lawyer rides into town with long suffering yet consummately hilarious fiancée Marissa Tomei at his side. Pesci gives us a comedian’s play-by-play intro to criminal trial procedure, with highlights including the world’s shortest opening argument (“everything he just said is bullshit”), the precise cooking time of quality grits, and the small but crucial differences between a 1964 Buick Skylark and 1963 Pontiac Tempest (both metallic mint green, of course).
A Few Good Men (1992)
You can’t handle the truth? Maybe you can’t handle that we’ve been talking about the atrocities of Guantanamo Bay since 1992. (America takes time to process, okay?) A ready for primetime, pre-couch-jumping, charismatic Tom Cruise has energy to spare as a reluctant Navy prosecutor whose questioning of Jack Nicholson’s unapologetic commander Colonel Nathan Jessup resulted in what just might be one of the most quoted movie trial lines of all time.
Philadelphia (1993)
Tom Hanks won the first of back-to-back Academy Awards for his moving portrayal of Andrew Beckett, an Ivy League-educated attorney who sues his former firm when they fire him after discovering that he has HIV/AIDS. One of the first mainstream Hollywood movies to acknowledge the disease, Philadelphia expertly sidesteps melodrama thanks to the sheer talent of its cast, including Denzel Washington as the only lawyer Beckett could find to take his controversial case.
Chicago (2002)
Sure, it’s a musical. But it’s also one hell of an excuse to watch lawyers sing and [tap] dance. Thanks, Richard Gere. We don’t deserve you.
