GREATEST COURTROOM MOVIES- PART 4

There is nothing new under the sun, everything a person does has been done by someone before, and another person will do it. So then, what can help what a person does remain outstanding? It's simple; being unique. What a person does, he should make it unique, and it will still stand out among the rest. That's what the entertainment industry does. There are tons of movies available, and each is unique from the other. Biographical movies and courtroom films are two movie genres that uniquely demonstrate uniqueness. This makes courtroom films stand out and stay at the top of the greatest movies of all time. How the production team twists the plots in different courtroom movies is quite riveting. Watching a courtroom movie, a person transitions from moments that are quite sensational to situations that prove very tricky. And that's what makes these films worth the watch. As a person goes through this entire journey, he can't help but remain glued to the screen. Here are seven examples of the best courtroom a person can opt for.

The Children’s Hour (1961)

Plot: the film follows two ladies who have been friends for a long time. In their adulthood, the two run a boarding school together. Then it happens that one of the students is caught lying and gets punished. Not impressed by the punishment, she creates stories and purports that the two ladies who head the school have a lesbian relationship. The story goes viral, and many parents withdraw their kids from the school. In the court, the two ladies lack enough evidence and witness. This goes downstream and gets into the ladies’ personal lives, including the engagement one of the two already has.

Director: the movie was directed by William Wyler.

Main Cast: The Children’s Hour cast includes Audrey Hepburn (as Karen Wright), Shirley MacLaine (as Martha Dobie), James Garner (as Dr. Joseph ‘Joe’ Cardin), and Miriam Hopkins (as Lily Mortar, Martha's aunt whom she nicknames ‘the duchess’)

Commercial Performance: the film did not do well commercially. Its production budget amounted to $3.6million. On premiering, the movie grossed $3million.

Awards and Nominations: The Children’s Hour film received five Academy Awards nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Fay Bainter), Best Black-and-White Cinematography (Franz Planer), Best Black-and-White Costume Design (Dorothy Jeakins), Best Black-and-White Art Direction (Fernando Carrere and Edward G. Boyle), and Best Sound (Gordon E. Sawyer). The Golden Globe Awards also nominated the film for three awards for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama (Shirley MacLaine), Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture (Fay Bainter), and Best Director. The Directors Guild of America Awards nominated the film for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film. The records do not reveal any wins by The Children’s Hour.

Trivia: In 1934, Lilian Hellman wrote a play which she named The Children’s Hour. Unknown to many, the play would attract so much audience and popularity that film directors would come over to make adaptations from it.  More than two decades later, John Michael Hayes adapted a screenplay used to make The Children's Hour film.

Advise and Consent (1962)

Plot: the film is political in nature. It focuses on a presidential nomination that turns out to be controversial and acts as a threat to many political figures in the USA. It all starts when one candidate is nominated as the U.S. Secretary of State. Following this nomination, the candidate in question has to be looked at, and his background explored. A committee is formed to do this job. As the committee investigates the nominee's qualifications, the controversy escalates, and the arguments get hotter and hotter. The head of the committee feels challenged since it's clear that each of the committee members is after his own agenda.

Director: Otto Preminger directed the movie.

Main Cast: Advise and Consent film’s principal cast includes Henry Fonda (as Robert A. Leffingwell), Charles Laughton (as Senator Seabright ‘Seab’ Cooley of South Carolina and President pro tempore of the United States Senate), Don Murray (as Senator Brigham ‘Brig’ Anderson of Utah), and Walter Pidgeon (as Senate Majority Leader Robert ‘Bob’ Munson of Michigan).

Commercial Performance: there is no information about how much the movie took for production or how much it grossed after premiering.

Awards and Nominations: the film was critically acclaimed. In 1962, Burgess Meredith won the National Board of Review’s NBR Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film also received several nominations; the 1962 Cannes Film Festival: Palme d'Or and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, including BAFTA Film Award, Best Foreign Actor, Charles Laughton.

Trivia: Allen Drury worked hard to produce his novel, Advise and Consent, over the 1950s. In 1959, he finally published it. Of course, he knew the novel would do well in the market. What was unknown to him is that the novel would become one of the best-selling and even win the Pulitzer Prize.

Molly’s Game (2017)

Plot: the film is based on Molly Bloom’s 2014 Molly’s Game memoir. Molly runs an underground poker empire that helps many celebrities, athletes, the Russian mob, and even business tycoons. This remains unknown to many, but finally, the big secret is exposed to the FBI. After this exposure, Molly Bloom becomes the target of an FBI investigation. One night, the young and beautiful skier falls in the hands of seventeen FBI agents with massive weapons. Charlie Jeffey, a criminal defense lawyer, becomes the only ally Moly has. Charlie soon learns that not so much is known about Molly, and the tabloids have been misleading.

Director: the movie was written and directed by Aaron Sorkin.

Main Cast: Molly’s Game film includes the following principal actors Jessica Chastain (as Molly Bloom), Idris Elba (as Charlie Jaffey, Molly's lawyer), and Kevin Costner (as Larry Bloom, Molly's father. He works as a clinical psychologist).

Commercial Performance: Molly's Game movie did well commercially. The preparatory budget for the film was $30million. After premiering, the movie grossed $59.6 million, almost twice as much as the budgetary quotations.

Awards and Nominations: many critics praised the film, which ended up winning six awards. Aaron Sorkin won the Best Screenwriter Award from AARP's Movies for Grownups Awards. The Academy Awards and the Alliance of Female Journalists also nominated Sorkin for Best Adapted Screenplay. During the 2017 Denver International Film Festival, Aaron Sorkin won the Career Achievement Award. He was nominated for yet another Best Adapted Screenplay Award in the same event. Molly’s Game won the Audience Favorite U.S. Cinema – Gold Award during the Mill Valley Film Festival. Jessica Chastain won the Chairman’s Award during the Palm Springs International Film Festival. In 2017 during the Zurich Film Festival, Aaron Sorkin won the Career Achievement Award.

The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

Plot: the film features pornographer Larry Flynt as he rises and rubs shoulders the wrong way with the law and religious organizations. Flynt had an impoverished upbringing in Kentucky but rises to fame. The film chronicles thirty-five years of Flynt’s life, starting from his life as a young boy to the pornographer h becomes. The climax is his court case with Reverend Jerry Falwell.

Director: The People vs. Larry Flynt movie was directed by Miloš Forman.

Main Cast: the film’s principal cast consists of Woody Harrelson (as Larry Flynt), Cody Block (as young Larry), Courtney Love (as Althea Leasure), Edward Norton (as Alan Isaacman), and Richard Paul (as Jerry Falwell).

Commercial Performance: The People vs. Larry Flynt film performed well in the market. It grossed $43million against its $35million budgetary expenditure.

Awards and Nominations: many critics recognized the film’s great performance and led to its reception of several accolades. During the 69^th Academy Awards, the movie received two nominations; Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Woody Harrelson) and Best Director (Miloš Forman). The Boston Film Critics’ Awards also awarded the movie two awards; Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Edward Norton) and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Courtney Love).

Trivia: the wrangles between Flynt and religions rose to another level. A US court case named Hustler Magazine versus Falwell involved Flynt and Falwell, all in the line of Flynt’s controversial growth.

Rehearsal of Fortune (1990)

Plot: Rehearsal of Fortune has its adaptation in the 1985 book Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case, which the law professor Alan Dershowitz wrote. The film follows a socialite named Sunny von Bülow and the hardships she goes through. She is accused of attempted murder and has to face court trials. Then comes the acquittal of her husband, Claus von Bülow, over the same issue. When Claus is acquitted, law professor Alan stands in as his lawyer.

Director: Rehearsal of Fortune was directed by Barbet Schroeder.

Main Cast: the cast list includes Glenn Close (as Sunny von Bülow), Jeremy Irons (as Claus von Bülow), Ron Silver (as Alan Dershowitz), and Uta Hagen (as Maria).

Commercial Performance: the movie's box office value is $15.4million. There is no information about the movie's budgetary expenditure, so it is impossible to gauge its commercial performance.

Awards and Nominations: Jeremy Irons won the Best Actor Academy. The Academy Awards nominated the film for other awards, including Best Director (Barbet Schroeder) and Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium (Nicholas Kazan). The movie won numerous other awards.

Trivia: when Sunny died, the immediate suspect was her husband Claus, which led to his acquittal.

Twelve Angry Men (1954)

Plot: this is a teleplay created for the Studio One Anthropology television series. The episode that lasts sixty minutes features a case of capital murder. An eighteen-year-old boy from Puerto Rico is accused of killing his father. If he pleads guilty, the boy will automatically be killed. The jury with twelve members deliberate on the way forward.

Director: Twelve Angry Men teleplay was directed by Franklin Schaffner.

Main Cast: the teleplay’s cast includes Robert Cummings (as Juror #8), Franchot Tone (as Juror #3), Edward Arnold (as Juror #10), Paul Hartman (as Juror #7), and John Beal (as Juror #2).

Commercial Performance: the records say nothing about how much the production team spent making the film. Besides, there is no information about the box office gross. Therefore, it is impossible to comment on the movie’s commercial performance.

Awards and Nominations: Twelve Angry men episode was a subject of critical acclaim. It won three Emmy Awards for Best Writer (Reginald Rose), Best Director for Franklin Schaffner, and Best Actor for Robert Cummings.

Trivia: the episode was indeed a great performance, as shown by adaptations later. In 1957, a feature film entitled 12 Angry Men sprang from it. Seven years later, in 1964, a stage play entitled Twelve Angry Men was adapted from the episode.

Sleepers (1996)

Plot: Sleepers movie is based on the 1996 Sleepers novel that Lorenzo Carcaterra penned. The film is set in Hell’s Kitchen and features four teenagers for whom hell breaks loose. The four youngsters almost kill a man. When the authorities realize this, they send the quad to reform school. At the reform school, life is not any easy, and the teenagers must put up with the brutality from the guards. Years pass, and the teenagers become fully-grown adults. Two of them come across the guy who abused them many years ago and recognizes him, after which they kill him. At this time, one of the gang members serves as an assistant DA. When the case is taken to court, the assistant DA is the main prosecutor who handles the trial.

Director: the legal drama film was directed by Barry Lewinson.

Main Cast: Sleepers movie’s cast includes Kevin Bacon (as Sean Nokes), Billy Crudup (as Tommy Marcano), Jonathan Tucker (as Young Tommy Marcano), Robert De Niro (as Father Bobby), and Ron Eldard (as John Riley).

Commercial Performance: the movie was a tremendous commercial success. Its production budget took $4omillion, but it grossed $165.6million after its premiere.

Awards and Nominations: critics recognized the film’s uniqueness. Consequently, John Williams received the Academy Award nomination for Best Original Dramatic Score, while Minnie Driver was nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the London Film Critics Circle.

Conclusion

Because there are many films in the entertainment industry, producing unique content is what makes a genre stay in the market. Courtroom movies have been there for a long time and feature unique and authentic content. Many people love them and would remain glued to the screen watching them. This article has shared the seven greatest films a person would ever watch.

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