Film Noir: In The Courtroom.
by seymourblack-1 | created - 21 Jan 2021 | updated - 5 months ago | PublicMovies in which courtroom proceedings have a significant bearing on the plot.
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1. I Confess (1953)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A priest, who comes under suspicion for murder, cannot clear his name without breaking the seal of the confessional.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, Brian Aherne
Votes: 23,254
2. A Place in the Sun (1951)
Passed | 122 min | Drama, Romance
A poor boy gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere
Votes: 24,773
3. Illegal (1955)
Approved | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After an overly aggressive district attorney unknowingly sends an innocent man to the chair, he resigns, turns to drinking, and acquires a criminal clientèle.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe, Jayne Mansfield
Votes: 2,334
4. Boomerang! (1947)
Passed | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The true story of a prosecutor's fight to prove the innocence of a man accused of a notorious murder.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Lee J. Cobb, Cara Williams
Votes: 5,058
5. Call Northside 777 (1948)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker
Votes: 10,239
6. The Wrong Man (1956)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Film-Noir
In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone
Votes: 31,364
7. I Want to Live! (1958)
Approved | 120 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A prostitute, sentenced to death for murder, pleads her innocence.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland, Virginia Vincent, Theodore Bikel
Votes: 7,346
8. The Letter (1940)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The wife of a rubber plantation administrator shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defense, but a letter written in her own hand may prove her undoing.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort
Votes: 14,596
9. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)
Approved | 64 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An aspiring reporter is the key witness at the murder trial of a young man accused of cutting a café owner's throat and is soon accused of a similar crime himself.
Director: Boris Ingster | Stars: Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Tallichet, Charles Waldron
Votes: 4,609
10. The File on Thelma Jordon (1949)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Assistant district attorney Cleve Marshall falls for the mysterious Thelma Jordon when she seeks help solving robberies of her aunt's estate.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, Paul Kelly, Joan Tetzel
Votes: 3,177
11. Fury (1936)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When a wrongly-accused prisoner barely survives a lynch-mob attack and is presumed dead, he vindictively decides to fake his death and frame the mob for his supposed murder.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot
Votes: 13,726
12. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
Not Rated | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A novelist aided by his future father-in-law conspires to frame himself for the murder of a burlesque dancer as part of an effort to ban capital punishment.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer, Arthur Franz
Votes: 5,899
13. Dishonored Lady (1947)
Approved | 85 min | Crime, Drama
A beautiful editor at a fashion magazine has a breakdown due to the pressures of her work and her disappointing love life. A psychiatrist recommends that she start life fresh by moving into a smaller apartment and under another name.
Director: Robert Stevenson | Stars: Hedy Lamarr, Dennis O'Keefe, John Loder, William Lundigan
Votes: 1,689
14. Party Girl (1958)
Approved | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Lawyer Tommy Farrell is a defender of crooks. Vicki Gaye encourages him to go straight, but mob king Rico Angelo insists otherwise.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb, John Ireland
Votes: 3,747
15. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A married woman and a drifter fall in love and then plot to murder her husband.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn
Votes: 22,882 | Gross: $8.33M
16. White Heat (1949)
Not Rated | 114 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly
Votes: 35,744
17. Impact (1949)
Passed | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A unfaithful wife plots with her lover to kill her husband, but the lover is accidentally killed instead. The husband stays in hiding and lets his wife be charged with conspiracy.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Charles Coburn, Helen Walker
Votes: 4,718
18. The Tattered Dress (1957)
Approved | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After top lawyer James Blane gets an acquittal for a man who killed another man for sexually roughing up his trophy wife, the murderous town sheriff frames him for bribing a juror in the case.
Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Jeff Chandler, Jeanne Crain, Jack Carson, Gail Russell
Votes: 660
19. The People Against O'Hara (1951)
Passed | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Jim Curtayne, formerly a successful defense attorney who is now a recovering alcoholic, attempts a comeback when he defends a neighbor's son facing a homicide charge.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Pat O'Brien, Diana Lynn, John Hodiak
Votes: 1,539
20. The Accused (1949)
Approved | 101 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A beautiful psychology professor tries to hide a self-defense killing.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey, Sam Jaffe
Votes: 1,100
21. They Won't Forget (1937)
Passed | 95 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A politically ambitious district attorney, unscrupulous tabloid journalists, and regional prejudice combine to charge a teacher with the murder of his student.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson, Edward Norris, Otto Kruger
Votes: 1,942
22. Hunt the Man Down (1950)
Passed | 69 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
The suspect in a 12-year-old murder case is finally caught and tried, but the witnesses are a bit hard to track down...
Director: George Archainbaud | Stars: Gig Young, Lynne Roberts, Mary Anderson, Willard Parker
Votes: 1,050
23. Knock on Any Door (1949)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An attorney defends a hoodlum of murder, using the oppressiveness of the slums to appeal to the court.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, John Derek, George Macready, Allene Roberts
Votes: 4,206
24. Count the Hours! (1953)
Passed | 76 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Lawyer defends migrant worker falsely accused of two murders.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey, Dolores Moran, Adele Mara
Votes: 605
25. Convicted (1950)
Passed | 91 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A D.A. becomes the prison warden where he tries to help an inmate he prosecuted, because he believes his sentence was excessive.
Director: Henry Levin | Stars: Glenn Ford, Broderick Crawford, Millard Mitchell, Dorothy Malone
Votes: 1,486
26. The Unfaithful (1947)
Approved | 109 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles socialite kills a man while home alone one night and claims he was an intruder she did not know. It seems like a clear case of self defense until the story hits the papers and people connected to the dead man come forward.
Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Ann Sheridan, Lew Ayres, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden
Votes: 1,618
27. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)
Approved | 102 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Starting with a violent prison break, clever, ruthless Ralph Cotter corrupts everyone around him.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: James Cagney, Barbara Payton, Helena Carter, Ward Bond
Votes: 2,463
28. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason
Votes: 97,342 | Gross: $0.65M
29. The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Not Rated | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Fascinated by gorgeous Mrs. Bannister, seaman Michael O'Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders
Votes: 33,306 | Gross: $0.01M
30. Strangers on a Train (1951)
PG | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A psychopathic man tries to forcibly persuade a tennis star to agree to his theory that two strangers can get away with murder by submitting to his plan to kill the other's most-hated person.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 140,996 | Gross: $7.63M
31. A Woman's Face (1941)
Passed | 106 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt, Osa Massen
Votes: 3,777
32. Marked Woman (1937)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
A crusading district attorney persuades a clip joint hostess to testify against her mobster boss after her innocent sister is accidentally murdered during one of his unsavory parties.
Directors: Lloyd Bacon, Michael Curtiz | Stars: Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell
Votes: 4,832
33. This Side of the Law (1950)
Approved | 74 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A drifter is bailed out of jail by a lawyer, who hires him to impersonate a millionaire until the man can be declared legally dead and the estate settled. However, the man soon finds out that things are not exactly how they seem.
Director: Richard L. Bare | Stars: Viveca Lindfors, Kent Smith, Janis Paige, Robert Douglas
Votes: 401
34. An Act of Murder (1948)
Approved | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A hard-line judge is tempted toward mercy-killing by his wife's terminal cancer.
Director: Michael Gordon | Stars: Fredric March, Edmond O'Brien, Florence Eldridge, Geraldine Brooks
Votes: 870
35. Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A writer falls in love with a young socialite and they're soon married, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of them both as well as everyone around them.
Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price
Votes: 14,774
36. They Won't Believe Me (1947)
Approved | 95 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable-sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
Director: Irving Pichel | Stars: Robert Young, Susan Hayward, Jane Greer, Rita Johnson
Votes: 2,962
37. The Missing Juror (1944)
Approved | 66 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
In a major murder case, jurors are threatened and attacked. One of them disappears, and the detective Joe Keats looking for the guilty.
Director: Budd Boetticher | Stars: Jim Bannon, Janis Carter, George Macready, Jean Stevens
Votes: 324
38. Libel (1959)
Not Rated | 100 min | Drama, Mystery
A shell-shocked World War II veteran with memory problems is accused of being an impostor by a former comrade.
Director: Anthony Asquith | Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Olivia de Havilland, Paul Massie, Robert Morley
Votes: 1,599
39. Dual Alibi (1947)
81 min | Crime, Drama
Twin trapezists fall out over a lottery ticket and a worthless woman, but later extract a unique revenge.
Director: Alfred Travers | Stars: Herbert Lom, Phyllis Dixey, Terence de Marney, Ronald Frankau
Votes: 278
40. The Last Man to Hang (1956)
Approved | 75 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Sir Roderick Strood is on trial for the murder of his wife.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Tom Conway, Elizabeth Sellars, Eunice Gayson, Freda Jackson
Votes: 137
41. Sued for Libel (1939)
Passed | 66 min | Comedy, Crime, Film-Noir
The trial of Albert Pomeroy on the charge of murdering Edward Webster,arouses interest because Webster's widow, Muriel insists Pomeroy is innocent. Meanwhile, back to radio station NYEB, ... See full summary »
Director: Leslie Goodwins | Stars: Kent Taylor, Linda Hayes, Lilian Bond, Morgan Conway
Votes: 177
42. Eight O'Clock Walk (1954)
Approved | 87 min | Crime, Drama
In post-WW2 England, a taxi driver is ostracized by society after he's accused of murdering a school-girl and his untried lawyer must find the real killer to save his client from the hangman.
Director: Lance Comfort | Stars: Richard Attenborough, Cathy O'Donnell, Derek Farr, Ian Hunter
Votes: 473
43. Black Angel (1946)
Passed | 81 min | Adventure, Crime, Film-Noir
When Kirk Bennett is convicted of a singer's murder, his wife tries to prove him innocent...aided by the victim's ex-husband.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford
Votes: 3,952
44. Deadline - U.S.A. (1952)
Passed | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
With his newspaper about to be sold, crusading editor Ed Hutcheson tries to complete an exposé on gangster Rienzi.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Hunter, Ed Begley
Votes: 4,100
45. Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)
Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Fugitive Bill Saunders and lonely nurse Jane Wharton are crossed by fate when he hides out in her apartment.
Director: Norman Foster | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton, Lewis L. Russell
Votes: 2,143
46. Cell 2455, Death Row (1955)
Approved | 77 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Whit, condemned and awaiting execution, reviews the events of his life that has brought him to Cell 2455 on San Quentin's Death Row, a story he had told in a autobiography that became a ... See full summary »
Director: Fred F. Sears | Stars: William Campbell, R. Wright Campbell, Marian Carr, Kathryn Grant
Votes: 487
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