SCFZ

A poll to determine SCFZ's favourite Courtroom and Legal films

I'm starting this for slightly selfish reasons - I'm looking for some recommendations, and rather than just ask for some, I thought I'd hold a poll!

The rules:

• Eligible Films: This poll is meant to be of films in which legal practice or legal process plays a major role. So films where trials or similar procedures, litigation, jury deliberation, depositions, law schools, etc feature prominently.

Films should not be considered eligible for this poll if they
- feature characters who happen to be lawyers, when their legal practice is not an important part of the movie.
- happen to include a courtroom scene that is mostly incidental to the film's main focus
- are primarily about police investigation, even if they include a perfunctory courtroom scene declaring a verdict (though films about a defense attorney investigating a situation in order to exonerate a client would likely be eligible)

Of course there will be many films in a grey area, and voters can freely decide what they think fits and what doesn't, based on their understanding of the guidelines.

• Ballots can include up to 50 films. I'm expecting most ballots will be much shorter than that.

• I'd prefer ballots be (partly) ranked: to rank a ballot, divide it into up to five tiers of equal size. If equally sized tiers are impossible, then lower tiers need to be at least as big as higher tiers (so to divide a 19-film ballot into four tiers, say, the division should be 4/5/5/5, and not 5/5/4/5 or something like that). Unranked ballots award 3 points per film, two tier ballots are scored 4/2, three tier ballots 4.5/3/1.5, four tier ballots 5/3.5/2.5/1, and five-tier 5/4/3/2/1

• Ballots with less than ten films will award 1 point per film, I've settled on this rule because I'd expect short ballots to highlight only the most-seen courtroom classics, and if the ballots from voters who haven't seen many courtroom films award a lot of points, the results are essentially a foregone conclusion. I at least want good-but-obscure legal films to have a chance to fare well.

• Deadline: Christmas?

If you'd like to save me time, it is most helpful if films are listed in exactly this format:

Title (Director's full name, year)

i.e. like this:

Outrage! (Walter Grauman, 1986)

This is extremely helpful to me, so I'd be grateful if people can format their ballots as above. And for world film, please use a film's title most commonly used in English discussion, even if that is not the film's original title.

THE VERDICT (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (Billy Wilder, 1957)
WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN? (David Hand/Disney, 1935)
COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW (William Wyler, 1933)
THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
MY COUSIN VINNY (Jonathan Lynn, 1992)
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
POINT OF ORDER (de Antonio, 1964)

A first go. I may stretch a point and include WHAT'S UP DOC for including the single funniest courtroom scene in my experience, but I wouldn't include LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN which has the single unintentionally funniest courtroom scene in my experience. I could include ANATOMY OF A MURDER and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD but I don't really like either one of them very much.

Does de Antonio's POINT OF ORDER count, the assembly of footage from the Army-McCarthy hearings?

Edit to include M and MY COUSIN VINNY.
Edit to include POINT OF ORDER.

this is not even remotely a ballot (edit: now it is), i won't end up voting for several of these and it's in no kind of order, for now i just wanted to list a few films that probably fit the criteria, in case others find this kind of list helpful, along with some films i haven't seen in so long i don't know if they fit, so people can let me know they shouldn't be voted for!

Witchhammer (Otakar Vavra, 1970)
Madeleine (David Lean, 1950)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
I Just Didn't Do It (Masayuki Suo, 2006)
The Westerner (William Wyler, 1940)
The File on Thelma Jordon (Robert Siodmak, 1949)
Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1980)
...And Justice for All (Norman Jewison, 1979)
A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966)

A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
True Confession (Wesley Ruggles, 1937)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
Young Mr Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
The Trial (Eric Notarnicola, 2017)
The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
Kramer vs Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979)
Intruder in the Dust (Clarence Brown, 1949)
The Winslow Boy (David Mamet, 1999)
A Civil Action (Steven Zaillian, 1998)

The Judge and the Assassin (Bertrand Tavernier, 1976)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
The Judge (Elmer Clifton, 1949)
The Man Who Sued God (Mark Joffe, 2001)
A Cry in the Dark (Fred Schepisi, 1988)
La Verite (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960)
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
The Accused (William Dieterle, 1949)
Criminal Court (Robert Wise, 1946)
Color of Justice (Jeremy Kagan, 1997)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Illegal (Lewis Allen, 1955)
Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007)
A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992)
Twelve Angry Men (Franklin Schaffner, 1954)
The Story on Page One (Clifford Odets, 1959)
Conduct Unbecoming (Michael Anderson, 1975)
Runaway Jury (Gary Fleder, 2003)
A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, 1996)

Who Killed Cock Robin? (David Hand, 1935)
Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)
Legally Blonde (Robert Luketic, 2001)
Court (Chaitanya Tamhane, 2014)
Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947)
Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
True Believer (Joseph Ruben, 1989)
Counsellor at Law (William Wyler, 1933)
Separate but Equal (George Stevens jr, 1991)
Point of Order! (Emile de Antonio, 1964)

edit:
had i seen them on time, i would have added near to the bottom of my ballot:

It Rains on Our Love (Ingmar Bergman, 1946)
Take My Life (Ronald Neame, 1947)
Change of Mind (Robert Stevens, 1969)
The Mauritanian (Kevin Macdonald, 2021)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, 2020)
Illegally Yours (Peter Bogdanovich, 1988)
A Death in Canaan (Tony Richardson, 1978)

Roscoe wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:45 pm A first go. I may stretch a point and include WHAT'S UP DOC for including the single funniest courtroom scene in my experience

The funniest courtroom scene I know of is at the start of the screwball comedy My Favorite Wife (Garson Kanin, 1940), but the rest of that film is sadly not nearly as good

Roscoe wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:45 pm Does de Antonio's POINT OF ORDER count, the assembly of footage from the Army-McCarthy hearings?

that's a good question - i know i don't want to include tv series or episodes (but tv movies are fine), but i was really undecided about documentaries, and then forgot to make a decision about them before posting the poll.

what do scfzers think? should documentaries like the thin blue line and point of order be eligible for this poll, or should it be restricted to fictional films?

Have not seen many of this type of film, but found a bunch with adjacencies that may make your qualifications. May remove some of these after closer inspection.

Sully (Clint Eastwood, 2016)
Happy Hour (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, 2015) divorce plot somewhat secondary
The Descendants (Alexander Payne, 2011) hinges on how a will will be executed
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
How Do You Know (James L. Brooks, 2010) protagonist investigated for corporate crimes
The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski, 2010) an espionage thriller involving prosecution of war crimes
Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)
Close-up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
Aakrosh (Govind Nihalani, 1980)
Leave Her to Heaven (John M. Stahl, 1943) without any legal theme, just a single courtroom scene
Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1943)
Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)

What a great idea! I was just thinking a few days ago that maybe I should watch more courtroom dramas next year. Might as well start in December.

I'll post my provisional list soon.

Eva Koťátková – The Judicial Murder of Jakob Mohr (Tomáš Luňák, 2016) (pic ↓)
The Murer Case (Christian Frosch, 2018) (trailer ↓)
Stammheim - The Baader-Meinhof Gang on Trial (Reinhard Hauff, 1986)
Palermo Or Wolfsburg (Werner Schroeter, 1980)
I, Justice (Zbyněk Brynych, 1968)
The Mad Executioners (Edwin Zbonek, 1963)



https://youtu.be/YP9G-QL3woM

Final list:

Music Box (Costa-Gavras, 1989)
Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)
The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005)
Night Falls on Manhattan (Sidney Lumet, 1996)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)

Presumed Innocent (Alan J. Pakula, 1990)
Prince of the City (Sidney Lumet, 1981)
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Dan Gilroy, 2017)
Guilty as Sin (Sidney Lumet, 1993)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Clint Eastwood, 1997)
Find Me Guilty (Sidney Lumet, 2006)
JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)
Changeling (Clint Eastwood, 2008)
Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007)
Changing Lanes (Roger Michell, 2002)

Intolerable Cruelty (Coen brothers, 2003)
Sweet Country (Warwick Thornton, 2017)
A Civil Action (Steven Zaillian, 1998)
The Onion Field (Harold Becker, 1979)
Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
Reversal of Fortune (Barbet Schroeder, 1990)
Jagged Edge (Richard Marquand, 1985)
Dark Waters (Todd Haynes, 2019)
The Rainmaker (Francis Ford Coppola, 1997)
Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit, 1996)

Fracture (Gregory Hoblit, 2007)
And Justice for All (Norman Jewison, 1979)
A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992)
The Merchant of Venice (Michael Radford, 2004)
High Crimes (Carl Franklin, 2002)
True Believer (Joseph Ruben, 1989)
Arbitrage (Nicholas Jarecki, 2012)
Snow Falling on Cedars (Scott Hicks, 1999)
The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, 2017)
The Judge (David Dobkin, 2014)

Runaway Jury (Gary Fleder, 2003)
A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, 1996)
My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn, 1992)
Suspect (Peter Yates, 1987)
The Bedroom Window (Curtis Hanson, 1987)
Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
The Conspirator (Robert Redford, 2010)
The Lincoln Lawyer (Brad Furman, 2011)
Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997)

Some titles from my watchlist:

The Accused, To Kill a Mockingbird, Kramer vs. Kramer, In the Name of the Father, Witness, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Clemency, The Hurricane, In The Bedroom, Inherit the Wind, The Caine Mutiny, 12 Angry Men (1997), The Paradine Case, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, The Gingerbread Man, The Juror, Intruder in the Dust, Illegal, The Winslow Boy, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Libel, Separate but Equal, The Story on Page One, Roe vs. Wade.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928)
Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)

Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1965)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)
The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)
The Winslow Boy (Anthony Asquith, 1948)

12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Boomerang! (Elia Kazan, 1947)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn, 1992)
Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1948)

The Paradine Case (Alfred Hitchcock, 1947)
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
Young Man With Ideas (Mitchell Leisen, 1952)
Dream/Killer (Andrew Jenks, 2015)

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
The Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk, 1954)
The Client (Joel Schumacher, 1994)
Liar Liar (Tom Shadyac, 1997)

this isn't a genre i've every really sought out and i don't think i've enough favorites to actually make much of a list. but then i realized that there are some films that aren't quite in the spirit of things but that feel like courtroom dramas in more of a figurative sense, or that have some memorable court-like scenes but aren't quite the same as a courtroom film. so not a ballot, but just a mention of some that i like:

m (lang)
the draughtsman's contract, the baby of mâcon, nightwatching (greenaway)
successive slidings of pleasure (robbe-grillet)
the gang of four, noroît (rivette)
mother joan of the angels (kawalerowicz)

this is tough, trying to keep it to things where the court room itself is a major part of the proceedings, which makes it tough since there are films like freda's roger la honte or parasakthi where the courtroom scenes are highlights, but not necessarily the totality of the genre...not nearly a finished ballot yet

i just didn't do it (masayuki suo)
ace attorney (takashi miike)
shantata! court chalu ahe (satyadev dubey)
aakrosh (govind nihalani)*
jolly llb (subhash kapoor)
court (chaitanya tamhane)**
pink (anirudha roy chaudhuri)**
damini (rajkumar santoshi)
the traitor (marco bellocchio)
compulsion (richard fleischer)
anatomy of a murder (otto preminger)


*the court itself doesn't really appear but the apparatus of the judicial system is so central i think it fits...might be kind of tenuous though
**i have serious issues with these films but is essential as a courtroom movie

ooh, thought of a good one that i'd definitely recommend and that fits the bill, though on the avant-garde side. maybe i will try to come up with a ballot after all:

the authentic trial of carl emmanuel jung (marcel hanoun)

love courtroom movies and have seen many, but not sure about thinking up a list... maybe...... will point out that i saw Music Box the other day though, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was not merely a holocaust movie but also a courtroom drama! two of my primary interests in one

unranked

Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)
Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson, 1962)
Hang ’em High (Ted Post, 1968)
Mark of the Devil (Michael Armstrong/Adrian Hoven, 1970)
Witchhammer (Otakar Vavra, 1970)
The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971)

Two Men in Town (Jose Giovanni,1973)
The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
The Bedroom Window (Curtis Hanson, 1987)
Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
Hidden Agenda (Ken Loach, 1990)
Presumed Innocent (Alan J. Pakula, 1990)
Guilty as Sin (Sidney Lumet, 1993)
Sommersby (Jon Amiel, 1993)
It Could Happen To You! (Andrew Bergman, 1994)
Changing Lanes (Roger Michell, 2002)

Beyond Hatred (Olivier Meyrou, 2005)
Bamako (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2006)

I like this genre. I will post my preliminary list of 100 films.
The most difficult work will be editing this big list till final 50.
------------
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
Kramer vs Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979)
A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984)
The People vs Larry Flynt (Milos Forman, 1996)
A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)
JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)
Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)
Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)
-------
Conduct Unbecoming (Michael Anderson, 1975)
King and Country (Joseph Losey, 1964)
Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961)
La Verite (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960)
Prince of the City (Sidney Lumet, 1981)
The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
The Paradine Case (Alfred Hitchcock,1947)
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio, 2019)
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 1956)
---------------
The Winslow Boy (David Mamet, 1999)
Let Him Have It (Peter Medak, 1991)
My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn, 1992)
I Want to Live (Robert Wise, 1958)
A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, 1996)
A Cry in the Dark (Fred Schepisi, 1988)
Are we all Murderers? (Andre Cayatte, 1952)
A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992)
Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
Guilty as Sin (Sidney Lumet, 1993)
-----------
The Lincoln Lawyer (Brad Furman, 2011)
Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)
Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947)
Sully (Clint Eastwood, 2016)
A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, 2017)
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Marc Rothemund,2005)
Suspect (Peter Yates, 1987)
-------
The Client (Joel Schumacher,1994)
The Trial Of The Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, 2020)
Justice is Done (Andre Cayatte,1950)
Hostile Witness (Ray Milland, 1969)
The Boys (Sidney J. Furie, 1962)
The Divided Heart (Charles Crighton, 1954)
Dr. Crippen (Robert Lynn, 1963)
Home Before Midnight (Peter Walker, 1979)
Term of Trial (Peter Glenville, 1962)
Music Box (Costa-Gavras, 1989)
----
Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005)
The Juror (Brian Gibson, 1996)
Disclosure (Barry Levinson,1994)
Sleepers (Barry Levinson, 1996)
I, The Jury (Richard T. Heffron, 1982)
I, The Jury (Harry Essex, 1953)
Trial by Jury (Heywood Gould, 1994)
Marshall (Reginald Hudlin, 2017)
Night Falls on Manhattan (Sidney Lumet, 1996)
Find Me Guilty (Sidney Lumet, 2006)
--------
In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan, 1993)
Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007)
Arbitrage (Nicholas Jarecki, 2012)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)
Presumed Innocent (Alan J. Pakula, 1990)
Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Dan Gilroy, 2017)
Changeling (Clint Eastwood, 2008)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Clint Eastwood, 1997)
------
Life.Love.Death. (Claude Lelouch, 1969)
Intolerable Cruelty (Coen brothers, 2003)
A Civil Action (Steven Zaillian, 1998)
The Onion Field (Harold Becker, 1979)
Reversal of Fortune (Barbet Schroeder, 1990)
Jagged Edge (Richard Marquand, 1985)
Dark Waters (Todd Haynes, 2019)
The Rainmaker (Francis Ford Coppola, 1997)
Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit, 1996)
Two Men in Town (Jose Giovanni,1973)
-------
Fracture (Gregory Hoblit, 2007)
And Justice for All (Norman Jewison, 1979)
The Merchant of Venice (Michael Radford, 2004)
High Crimes (Carl Franklin, 2002)
True Believer (Joseph Ruben, 1989)
Snow Falling on Cedars (Scott Hicks, 1999)
The Judge (David Dobkin, 2014)
Under Suspicion (Simon Moore, 1991)
Runaway Jury (Gary Fleder, 2003)
Le Pull -Over Rouge (Michel Drach, 1979)
----------
The Bedroom Window (Curtis Hanson, 1987)
The Conspirator (Robert Redford, 2010)
Blind Justice (Harald Philip,1961)
The Last Witness (Wolfgang Staudte, 1960)
The Conviction (Marco Bellocchio, 1991)
Who Killed Pasolini? (Marco Tullio Giordana,1995)
Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1948)
Agnes of God (Norman Jewison,1985)
Hidden Agenda (Ken Loach, 1990)
The lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Volker Schlondorff, Margarethe von Trotta, 1975)

And here is my edited final 50:
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
Kramer vs Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979)
A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984)
The People vs Larry Flynt (Milos Forman, 1996)
A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)
JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)
Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)
Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)
-------
Conduct Unbecoming (Michael Anderson, 1975)
King and Country (Joseph Losey, 1964)
Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961)
La Verite (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960)
Prince of the City (Sidney Lumet, 1981)
The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
The Paradine Case (Alfred Hitchcock,1947)
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio, 2019)
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 1956)
---------------
The Winslow Boy (David Mamet, 1999)
Let Him Have It (Peter Medak, 1991)
My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn, 1992)
I Want to Live (Robert Wise, 1958)
A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, 1996)
A Cry in the Dark (Fred Schepisi, 1988)
Are we all Murderers? (Andre Cayatte, 1952)
A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992)
Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
Guilty as Sin (Sidney Lumet, 1993)
-----------
The Lincoln Lawyer (Brad Furman, 2011)
Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)
Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947)
Sully (Clint Eastwood, 2016)
A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, 2017)
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (Marc Rothemund,2005)
Suspect (Peter Yates, 1987)
-------
The Client (Joel Schumacher,1994)
The Trial Of The Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin, 2020)
Justice is Done (Andre Cayatte,1950)
Hostile Witness (Ray Milland, 1969)
The Boys (Sidney J. Furie, 1962)
The Divided Heart (Charles Crighton, 1954)
Dr. Crippen (Robert Lynn, 1963)
Home Before Midnight (Peter Walker, 1979)
Term of Trial (Peter Glenville, 1962)
Music Box (Costa-Gavras, 1989)

----
I tried to escape films about trial of Joan , Jesus...Traditional courtroom isn`t the main topic here...

can't recall much...

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Young Mr. Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
A Matter of Life and Death (Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, 1946)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)
The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)
The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)

Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Clint Eastwood, 1997)
Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005)
Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007)
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
Flight (Robert Zemeckis, 2012)
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz, 2014)
Dark Waters (Todd Haynes, 2019)
Mangrove (Steve Mcqueen, 2020)

reminder this poll is still open! i haven't even finished my ballot yet, and since we just had the xmas poll, kanafani is doing end-of-year stats, and bure is compiling the favourite directors list, i think i'll wait until somewhere in the jan 4-7 range to close this poll down, so not to distract from the other cool things that are going on.

i'm thinking of tallying this in the next 24-48 hours, so anyone who wants to post or update a ballot, now is the time!

Five ranked tiers, seven films per tier

The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)
M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)

The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
A Matter of Life and Death (Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, 1946)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Th, Dreyer, 1928)
Chicago 10 (Brett Morgen, 2007)
The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)

Close-up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
The Winslow Boy (David Mamet, 1999)
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
Fury (Fritz Lang, 1936)
A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989)
Inherit the Wind (Stanley Kramer, 1960)
King and Country (Joseph Losey, 1964)

Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1980)
A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984)
A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966)
Mangrove (Steve McQueen, 2020)
The Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk, 1954)
The Westerner (William Wyler, 1940)
Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961)

Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 1956)
Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)
A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd, 1935)
Dark Waters (Todd Haynes, 2019)

I have tiers of 5/4/5/4/5 is that chill

i have no chance of coming up with a decent list here, but i do love me some hanoun, so i guess i'll just go with this, for minimal points no doubt:

The Authentic Trial of Carl Emmanuel Jung (Marcel Hanoun, 1967)

SAD_SCROOGE wrote: ↑Fri Jan 08, 2021 5:15 am I have tiers of 5/4/5/4/5 is that chill

yeah i'll make that work, it seems like a fair breakdown

I'm in the middle of tallying this, so if anyone wants to edit a ballot, please quote it, so I know what I tabulated already, and post the new edited ballot underneath. New ballots still welcome! I don't expect to finish tallying before tomorrow, so at least 18 hours or so for edits or new ballots, maybe longer.

And I decided to abandon this rule:

flip wrote: ↑Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:16 pm • Ballots with less than ten films will award 1 point per film, I've settled on this rule because I'd expect short ballots to highlight only the most-seen courtroom classics, and if the ballots from voters who haven't seen many courtroom films award a lot of points, the results are essentially a foregone conclusion. I at least want good-but-obscure legal films to have a chance to fare well.

I was concerned there might be a lot of three-film ballots with 12 Angry Men and To Kill a Mockingbird and not much else, but that didn't turn out to be the case at all, and some of the short ballots were the most interesting, so I don't want to discount them.

we had a clearcut winner, won by a full six points (more than one first place vote). i'll probably post the top 100 to letterboxd (and break ties by views, fewer views ranks higher), but it takes a while to figure that out so i'll do it later:


Results

1. Anatomy of a Murder (Otto Preminger, 1959)
2. The Verdict (Sidney Lumet, 1982)
2. 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
4. Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957)
4. Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)
6. The Ox-Bow Incident (William Wellman, 1943)
7. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
8. Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
9. Young Mr Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
9. To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962)
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
12. The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
13. The Trial (Orson Welles, 1962)
14. A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966)
14. The Insider (Michael Mann, 1999)
14. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
17. JFK (Oliver Stone, 1991)
17. Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
19. Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)
19. Guilty as Sin (Sidney Lumet, 1993)
19. The Winslow Boy (David Mamet, 1999)
19. My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn, 1992)
23. A Place in the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
23. Kramer vs Kramer (Robert Benton, 1979)
23. Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961)
26. Witchhammer (Otakar Vavra, 1970)
26. I Just Didn't Do It (Masayuki Suo, 2006)
26. Prince of the City (Sidney Lumet, 1981)
26. The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971)
26. A Matter of Life and Death (Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell, 1946)
26. Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy, 2007)
26. Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)
33. The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio, 2019)
33. King and Country (Joseph Losey, 1964)
33. La Verite (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960)
33. Changing Lanes (Roger Michell, 2002)
33. The Westerner (William Wyler, 1940)
33. A Civil Action (Steven Zaillian, 1998)
33. Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1980)
33. ...And Justice for All (Norman Jewison, 1979)
33. Presumed Innocent (Alan Pakula, 1990)
33. A Passage to India (David Lean, 1984)
33. Capote (Bennett Miller, 2005)
33. A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992)
45. Aakrosh (Govind Nihalani, 1980)
45. Conduct Unbecoming (Michael Anderson, 1975)
45. A Cry in the Dark (Fred Schepisi, 1988)
45. The Paradine Case (Alfred Hitchcock, 1947)
45. Music Box (Constantin Costa-Gavras, 1989)
45. Dark Waters (Todd Haynes, 2019)
45. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Clint Eastwood, 1997)
45. A Time to Kill (Joel Schumacher, 1996)
53. Madeleine (David Lean, 1950)
53. The File on Thelma Jordon (Robert Siodmak, 1949)
53. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 1956)
53. Night Falls on Manhattan (Sidney Lumet, 1996)
53. Sully (Clint Eastwood, 2016)
58. Court (Chaitanya Tamhane, 2014)
58. The Trial (Eric Notarnicola, 2017)
58. Counsellor at Law (William Wyler, 1933)
58. True Confession (Wesley Ruggles, 1937)
58. The Winslow Boy (Anthony Asquith, 1948)
58. The People vs Larry Flynt (Milos Forman, 1996)
58. Intruder in the Dust (Clarence Brown, 1949)
58. Who Killed Cock Robin? (David Hand, 1935)
58. Chicago 10 (Brett Morgen, 2007)
58. Point of Order! (Emile de Antonio, 1964)
58. The Insult (Ziad Doueiri, 2017)
58. Find Me Guilty (Sidney Lumet, 2006)
58. The Bedroom Window (Curtis Hanson, 1987)
58. The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)
58. Changeling (Clint Eastwood, 2008)
58. Mangrove (Steve McQueen, 2020)
58. Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Dan Gilroy, 2017)
58. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)

tied for 76th (3 points each):
Eva Kotatkova - The Judicial Murder of Jakob Mohr (Tomas Lunak, 2016)
The Murer Case (Christian Frosch, 2018)
Stammheim - The Baader-Meinhof Gang on Trial (Reinhard Hauff, 1986)
Palermo Or Wolfsburg (Werner Schroeter, 1980)
I, Justice (Zbynek Brynych, 1968)
The Mad Executioners (Edwin Zbonek, 1963)
Suspect (Peter Yates, 1987)
The Judge and the Assassin (Bertrand Tavernier, 1976)
The Judge (Elmer Clifton, 1949)
Intolerable Cruelty (Coen Brothers, 2003)
Sweet Country (Warwick Thornton, 2017)
The Onion Field (Harold Becker, 1979)
Reversal of Fortune (Barbet Schroeder, 1990)
Jagged Edge (Richard Marquand, 1985)
The Rainmaker (Francis Ford Coppola, 1997)
Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit, 1996)
True Believer (Joseph Ruben, 1989)
The Man Who Sued God (Mark Joffe, 2001)
Runaway Jury (Gary Fleder, 2003)
The Accused (William Dieterle, 1949)
Boomerang! (Elia Kazan, 1947)
Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1948)
Criminal Court (Robert Wise, 1946)
Let Him Have It (Peter Medak, 1991)
I Want to Live (Robert Wise, 1958)
Are We all Murderers? (Andre Cayatte, 1952)
Color of Justice (Jeremy Kagan, 1997)
Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947)
Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1943)
Beyond Hatred (Olivier Meyrou, 2005)
Bamako (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2006)
The Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk, 1954)
Sommersby (Jon Amiel, 1993)
Fury (Fritz Lang, 1936)
A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989)
Inherit the Wind (Stanley Kramer, 1960)
It Could Happen To You! (Andrew Bergman, 1994)
Ace Attorney (Takashi Miike, 2012)
Shantata! Court Chalu Ahe (Satyadev Dubey, 1968)
Jolly LLB (Subhash Kapoor, 2013)
Pink (Anirudha Roy Chaudhuri, 2016)
Damini (Rajkumar Santoshi, 1993)
Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997)
The Authentic Trial of Carl Emmanuel Jung (Marcel Hanoun, 1967)
The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Hidden Agenda (Ken Loach, 1990)
The Lincoln Lawyer (Brad Furman, 2011)
Hang ‘em High (Ted Post, 1968)
Mark of the Devil (Michael Armstrong/Adrian Hoven, 1970)
The Trial of Joan of Arc (Robert Bresson, 1962)
Two Men in Town (Jose Giovanni, 1973)

surprised wiseman's juvenile court didn't get a vote, but i suppose that would've depended on peoples' willingness to include dox. raymond depardon's 10th district court is another one

Mamet's Winslow Boy but not Asquith's? #wewillpayforoursins

SAD_SCROOGE wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 9:22 pm Mamet's Winslow Boy but not Asquith's? #wewillpayforoursins

they both made the top 75 (the asquith one is in a tie for 59th)

i should see the asquith version, the mamet one is pretty good