Real to Reel: Truth and Trickery in Courtroom Movies

Abstract

This book is about courtroom movies. These films are eternally popular with filmmakers and audiences because they combine great storytelling with abundant conflict and suspense. We never know whether the jury will send the defendants to the chair or allow them to walk out the courtroom door to freedom. Courtroom films often wrestle with the eternal conflicts between law and justice and between truth and falsehood. Often the jury verdict is based not on truth but on lawyer trickery. Courtroom movies delve deeply into hot button issues like the death penalty, inter-racial adoption, discrimination based on race or gender, political protest, or military justice, and so many others.

The book reviews almost 200 courtroom movies, going back to the early 1930s and continuing to the present. It can serve as a video guide to help you discover trial films you haven’t seen and rediscover the ones you have. To help you make your selection, the book assigns gavel ratings to each film, with four gavels reserved for the classics.

But the book is much more than a video guide. It’s intended to answer the questions that viewers might ask after they see the film. If the film is based on a true story, how closely does it follow the historical facts? What is hearsay evidence, manslaughter, libel, community property or a peremptory challenge? Can lawyers really pull off dramatic courtroom stunts? Watch the films and then enjoy our discussion.

Keywords: Movies, courtroom movies, lawyers in film, legal ethics, film history, censorship, video guide