Saturday Matinee Movies: Reel Justice

This course explores how films portray lawyers, litigants, and the pursuit of justice—or, at times, mere financial gain—in classic courtroom and legal dramas. We examine enduring questions of truth, advocacy, moral responsibility, and the power—and limits—of legal institutions.

Half of the films focus on civilian lawyers in the American legal system (“Lawyers”). Some attorneys emerge as idealistic crusaders, others as cynical or unscrupulous figures; together, these stories reveal the profession at its best and worst. Featured titles include Just Mercy, Erin Brockovich, and A Civil Action.

The other half examine military justice (“Military Justice?”), dramatizing courts-martial, war-crimes trials, and the tension between military discipline, legal process, and moral judgment. Spanning the 1880s to the 1950s, selections include Breaker Morant, Paths of Glory, and the 1951 Playhouse 90 production of Judgment at Nuremberg.

Unlike recent film series that grouped similar works, this course alternates weekly between the two themes, sharpening contrasts and highlighting recurring questions across radically different legal worlds.