Two Brilliant Courtroom Dramas
All rise! Billy and Drew testify about a couple of the best movies set in a courtroom.
One of the highest-stakes settings a movie can show us is a courtroom. Truth, justice, ethics, and the law all get hashed out in one space. That’s why great courtroom scenes are some of the most memorable in cinema history. From To Kill a Mockingbird to A Few Good Men to My Cousin Vinny, there’s many to choose from.
Two new, and very different, legal courtroom dramas are coming out this week: The Burial starring Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones (streaming on Amazon Prime) and this year’s Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall (in theaters this weekend with a limited release). With the courtroom movie on our minds, we’re recommending two exemplary examples of the genre today. Read, watch, and enjoy!
And in case you missed the podcast this week, we did quick spoiler-free reviews of The Creator and The Exorcist: Believer before talking about the top 3 scariest movies we’ve ever seen.
Billy recommends…
Small Axe: Mangrove
Courtroom dramas, when done well, show high intensity and passion in the midst of litigation. The focus of emotion on the lawyers fighting for their clients or the person being defended or prosecuted. Where Mangrove differentiates itself is by showing the direct impact this process, when prejudice, discrimination, and injustice is the driving force, devastates an entire community.
Director Steve McQueen masterfully showcases the sanctuary that was The Mangrove restaurant, a safe haven that threatened authority by just being around. We see impactful snippets into the Mangrove Nine’s minute moments in life. Activist Darcus Howe and his significant other Barbara arguing about a messy kitchen. Old-school owner of The Mangrove, Frank, being concerned that his own and his restaurant’s image needs to be perfect as to not attract any authority to wrongly invade his space.
These examples quickly bring us an attachment to the Mangrove Nine. The circumstance of the trial is enough, but these personal touches are what open the audience’s heart and eyes to the true destruction. McQueen often uses this template in his movies to deepen the devastation. High moments of smiles early on in Mangrove bring us deep into the destruction. An emotion that is so hard to revisit, but extremely worthwhile surrendering yourself to.
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video
Drew recommends…
12 Angry Men
Perhaps the greatest courtroom drama of all-time takes place almost entirely inside a muggy, smoke-filled jury room. Over 96 riveting minutes, 12 Angry Men takes us through a New York City jury’s deliberation of a murder trial. All the jurors vote to convict, except Juror #8 (Henry Fonda), and the stage is set for a film that thoughtfully wrestles with reasonable doubt, prejudice, and justice.
If you’ve seen 12 Angry Men, director Sidney Lumet’s 1957 adaptation of Reginald Rose’s teleplay, chances are the first time was in school. It’s certainly an educational watch, but it never feels like homework. Thanks to the lively performances and crackling screenplay, 12 Angry Men is no boring lecture. With Fonda anchoring a tremendous cast, each character around him feels finely sketched. And Lumet – in his first feature film, no less! – orchestrates it all with a masterpiece of editing, framing, and blocking. Classics like this simply don’t age.
Streaming for free with ads on Freevee, Tubi, and Pluto