Movies - Home Page
"A to
Z" List of Law-Related Movies
Movies Organized by
Substantive Law Subject
Comedies
Court Martial Movies
Courtroom Dramas
Documentaries
Inspirational Lawyer
Movies
Prison-Related Movies
Top 10
Anatomy
of a Murder (1959). Starring
Jimmy Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara,
directed by Otto Preminger. A courtroom drama
involving a murder trial where the accused, a
lieutenant in the army, is charged with
murdering a bar owner who had raped his wife.
Will the defence of temporary insanity
prevail? Multiple Academy Award nominations.
Read an
online review from Time Magazine.
Available
here on Netflix.
Billy
Budd (1962). Starring Peter
Ustinov, Terence Stamp. The story, based on
Melville's novel, of Billy Budd, accused of
mutiny on the high seas of the murder of the
ship's Master-of-Arms. Read the original New
York Times review
here.
Breaker
Morant (1980). Starring
Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson. An excellent
Australian court-martial movie set in the time
of the Boer War. Three Australian lieutenants
are treated as scapegoats when prosecuted for
executing prisoners of war. Strong performance
by their defence lawyer. Read the original New
York Times review
here. Available
here on Netflix.
Caine Mutiny
(1954). Starring Humphrey Bogart, Jose Ferrer,
Van Johnson, and Fred MacMurray. Based on the
novel by Herman Wouk. This movie tells the
story of an alleged mutiny aboard a Navy
destroyer—minesweeper in the Pacific in World
War II, with Humphrey Bogart playing Captain
Queeg. Read the original New York Times review
here. Also made into a "made
for TV movie" in 1988 directed by Robert
Altman and starring Eric Bogosian, Jeff
Daniels and Brad Davis.
Court Martial of Billy
Mitchell (1955). Otto
Preminger directs an all-star cast led by Gary
Cooper and including
Hawaii Five-O notable Jack Lord and
Elizabeth Montgomery from Bewitched. Tells the
true story of
General Billy Mitchell, a Word War I air
combat commander who was court-martialed for
criticizing those in the military elite for
incompetence. Read the original New York
Times review here.
A
Few Good Men (1992).
Starring Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Demi
Moore, many others. Tom Cruise plays a Navy
lawyer charged with the duty of defending two
Marines charged with murder who say they were
acting under orders of a colonel (played by
Jack Nicholson). Good court room and trial
prep scenes. Read Roger
Ebert's review (2.5 stars out of 4).
Hart's War
(2002). Stars Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell and
Terrence Howard. A military court martial
movie set in a POW camp during World War II in
Germany, with Bruce Willis as a senior officer
in the US army and Colin Farrell, a lawyer and
lieutenant, assigned to defend a black officer
accused of murder. Ostensibly the movie is
more about the actions of Bruce Willis's
character and concepts of duty, valour and
justice, than pure military justice. Read
Roger Ebert's review (3 out of 4 stars).
Judgment
at Nuremberg (1961). Spencer
Tracy, Burt Lancaster. A strong dramatization
of the Nazi war crime trials. Maximilian
Schell won the Oscar for his portrayal of the
defence lawyer. Read the original New York
Times movie review
here.
Paths of Glory
(1957). This Stanley Kubrick film stars Kirk
Douglas as a colonel serving in the French
Army in World War I who, as a defense lawyer
prior to the war, defends three of his men
unfairly charged with cowardice in the face of
the enemy regarding the refusal of the troops
to proceed against enemy gunfire in what would
have been a suicide mission for all concerned.
Read Roger Ebert's review
here. Available
here on Netflix.
Rules
of Engagement (2000).
Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson. A
court-martial drama in which a lawyer/military
man (played by Tommy Lee Jones) agrees to
defend his colleague (played by Jackson) who
is charged of breach of duty for a botched
embassy rescue mission. At issue in the trial
are the "rules of engagement" and the
pressures that soldiers face when under enemy
fire. Read Roger
Ebert's review (2.5 out of 4 stars).
A Soldier's Story
(1984). Directed by Canadian Norman Jewison
and starring Howard E. Rollins, Adolph Caesar,
Robert Townsend and, in one of his earlier
roles, Denzel Washington. Although the movie
is a military criminal investigation, I have
included it here (and under "Court Martial
movies, even though it is not really a court
martial movie). The movie, set in a military
barracks in Arkansas during World War II,
tells the story of a black Sergeant (played by
Adolph Caesar) killed one evening outside of
the base and the black Captain (Howard E.
Rollins) put in charge of the investigation.
Read the original New York Times
review
here. Available
here at Netflix.
Last updated:
January 2016
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