Michael Asimow and Paul Bergman have published a book about courtroom movies, called Real to Reel: Truth and Trickery in Courtroom Movies (2021). You can buy it on Amazon.com either in soft cover or e-book versions.

       Courtroom moviesare eternally popular with filmmakers and audiences because they combine great storytelling with lots of conflict and suspense.  We never know whether the jury will send the defendants to the chair or let them walk out the courtroom door to freedom.  Courtroom films wrestle with the eternal conflicts between law and justice and between truth and falsehood. Often the movies delve deeply into hot button issues like the death penalty, inter-racial adoption, discrimination based on race or gender, political protest, or military justice.

         The book reviews almost 200 courtroom movies, going back to the early 1930s and continuing to the present.  It covers older classics like To Kill a Mockingbird, Witness for the Prosecution, and 12 Angry Men as well as excellent current movies like The Trial of the Chicago 7, Denial, or Women in Gold.  Of course, it covers the great courtroom comedies like My Cousin Vinny and Chicago. And so many others.

         The book can serve as a video guide to help you discover trial films you haven’t seen and rediscover the ones you have.  To help you make your selection, the book assigns gavel ratings to each film, with four gavels reserved for the classics. 

         But the book is much more than a video guide. It’s intended to answer the questions that you might ask after seeing the film.  If the film is based on a true story, how closely does it follow the historical facts?  What is hearsay evidence, manslaughter, libel, community property or a peremptory challenge? Can lawyers really get away with dramatic courtroom stunts?  Do adversarial trials promote the search for truth and justice?  Or just the opposite? 

         Real to Reel is the perfect gift for the lawyers and film fans in your life—or for yourself!