12 Angry Men (1957 film)

12 Angry Men is a 1957 American legal drama film directed by Sidney Lumet in his feature directorial debut, adapted by Reginald Rose from his 1954 teleplay. A critique of the American jury system during the McCarthy era, the film tells the story of a jury of twelve men as they deliberate the conviction or acquittal of a teenager charged with murder on the basis of reasonable doubt; disagreement and conflict among the jurors forces them to question their morals and values. It stars an ensemble cast, featuring Henry Fonda (who also produced the film with Rose), Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, and Jack Warden.
An independent production distributed by United Artists, 12 Angry Men received acclaim from critics, despite a lukewarm box-office performance. At the 30th Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. It is regarded by many as one of the greatest films ever made.
In 2007, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". Additionally, it was selected as the second-best courtroom drama ever (after 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird) by the American Film Institute for their AFI's 10 Top 10 list.
On a hot summer day in the New York County Courthouse, the trial phase has just concluded for an impoverished 18-year-old boy accused of killing his abusive father. The judge instructs the jury that if there is reasonable doubt, the jurors must return a verdict of "not guilty". If the defendant is found guilty, he will receive a mandatory death sentence via the electric chair. The verdict must be unanimous.
At first, the case seems clear. A neighbor testified to witnessing the defendant stab his father, from her window, through the windows of a passing elevated train. Another neighbor testified that he heard the defendant threaten to kill his father, and the father's body hitting the floor; then, as he ran to his door, he saw the defendant running down the stairs. The boy had recently purchased a switchblade of the same type that was found, wiped of fingerprints, at the murder scene, but claimed he lost it.
In a preliminary vote, all jurors vote "guilty" except Juror 8, who believes there should be some discussion before the verdict. He says he cannot vote "guilty" because reasonable doubt exists. When his first few arguments (including producing a recently purchased knife nearly identical to the murder weapon that was thought to be unique) seemingly fail to convince any of the other jurors, Juror 8 suggests a secret ballot, from which he will abstain; if all the other jurors still vote guilty, he will acquiesce. The ballot reveals one "not guilty" vote. Juror 9 reveals that he changed his vote; he respects Juror 8's motives, and agrees there should be more discussion.
Juror 8 argues that the train noise would have obscured everything the second witness claimed to have overheard. Jurors 5 and 11 change their votes. Jurors 5, 6 and 8 further question the second witness's story, and question whether the death threat was figurative speech. After looking at a diagram of the witness's apartment and conducting an experiment, the jurors determine that it is impossible for the disabled witness to have made it to the door in time. Juror 3, infuriated, argues with and tries to attack Juror 8, yelling a death threat; jurors 5, 6 and 7 physically restrain Juror 3. Jurors 2 and 6 change their votes; the jury is now evenly split.
Juror 4 doubts the defendant's alibi, as the boy did not recall specific details. Juror 8 tests Juror 4's own memory to make a point. Jurors 2 and 5 point out the father's stab wound was angled downwards, although the boy was shorter than his father. Juror 7 changes his vote out of impatience rather than conviction, angering Juror 11. After another vote, jurors 1 and 12 also change sides, leaving only three "guilty" votes.
Juror 10 goes on a bigoted rant, causing Juror 4 to forbid him to speak for the remainder of the deliberation. When Juror 4 is pressed as to why he still maintains a guilty vote, he declares that the woman who saw the killing from across the street stands as solid evidence. Juror 12 reverts to a guilty vote.
After watching Juror 4 remove his spectacles and rub the impressions they made on his nose, Juror 9 realizes that the first witness was constantly rubbing similar impressions on her own nose, indicating that she also was a habitual glasses wearer, even though she chose not to wear her glasses in court. Juror 8 remarks that the witness, who was trying to sleep when she saw the killing, would not have had glasses on or the time to put them on, making her story questionable. Jurors 4, 10 and 12 all change their votes, leaving Juror 3 as the sole dissenter.
After failing to convince the others of his argument, Juror 3 finally reveals that his strained relationship with his own son is the reason why he voted guilty. He breaks down in tears and changes his vote to "not guilty". As the others leave, Juror 8 graciously helps Juror 3 put on his coat. The defendant is acquitted off-screen. As the jurors leave the courthouse, Jurors 8 and 9 reveal their surnames to each other before parting ways.
Other, uncredited actors in the film include Rudy Bond as the judge, Tom Gorman as the court stenographer, James Kelly as the bailiff, Billy Nelson as the clerk, and John Savoca as the defendant.
Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA School of Law Michael Asimow referred to the film as a "tribute to a common man holding out against lynch mob mentality". Gavin Smith of Film Comment called the film "a definitive rebuttal to the lynch mob hysteria of the McCarthy era".
Business academic Phil Rosenzweig called the jury in 12 Angry Men being made up entirely of white men "especially important", writing: "Many of the twelve would have looked around the room, and, seeing other white men, assumed that they had much in common and should be able to reach a verdict without difficulty. As they deliberate, however, fault lines begin to appear—by age, by education, by national origin, by socioeconomic level, by values, and by temperament."
Reginald Rose's screenplay for 12 Angry Men, titled Twelve Angry Men, was initially produced for television and was inspired by a jury summons. Although it is unclear what trial he was summoned to, according to Rose, in early 1954, he served as a juror on a manslaughter case in the New York Court of General Sessions. Though he and the other eleven jurors initially attended begrudgingly, Rose was deeply affected by the impassioned and deliberate atmosphere of the trial and the finality of his and the jury's verdict. Rose began writing Twelve Angry Men upon realizing that very few people knew what occurred during jury deliberations and that they could serve as an exciting setting for a drama. While writing the screenplay, Rose cut planned passages of dialogue to account for a fifty-minute time slot on television, leading to the characters to be less nuanced. A live production of "Twelve Angry Men", directed by Franklin Schaffner and starring Robert Cummings as Juror 8 and Franchot Tone as Juror 3, was broadcast on the CBS program Westinghouse Studio One in September 20, 1954 to positive reviews. It received four nominations for the 7th Primetime Emmy Awards, winning three on March 7, 1955: "Best Actor in a Single Performance", "Best Direction", and "Best Written Dramatic Material".
In February 1955, actor Henry Fonda formed Orion Productions under a three-year deal with distributor United Artists. He reportedly first saw Westinghouse Studio One's "Twelve Angry Men" as a kinescope in a Hollywood projection room following its success in the 7th Primetime Emmy Awards. He was impressed with the story and wanted to star as Juror 8. In mid-1956, Fonda partnered with Rose to produce a film adaptation of 12 Angry Men. As part of the partnership, Rose formed Nova Productions and combined it with Fonda's Orion Productions to form Orion-Nova Productions, and production of the film was budgeted at $340,000. To develop the screenplay and characters, Rose restored material he had cut for the broadcast and added dialogue that revealed character's backgrounds and motivations.
Fonda and Rose recruited Sidney Lumet to direct 12 Angry Men, his film directorial debut. Lumet had previously directed numerous episodes, including adaptations of Rose's plays, for TV series such as Danger and You Are There. Fonda said he hired Lumet because of his proficient directing skills and because he was "wonderful with actors". Lumet recruited Boris Kaufman as the cinematographer. Kaufman had recently won Academy Award for Best Cinematography for On the Waterfront (1954), and Lumet believed Kaufman's "realist style" suited the film.
The film was shot in New York and completed after a short but rigorous rehearsal schedule, in less than three weeks, on a budget of $337,000 (equivalent to $3,773,000 in 2024). Rose and Fonda took salary deferrals. Faith Hubley, later to be known for her Oscar-winning animated efforts with spouse John, was script supervisor for this film.
At the beginning of the film, the cameras are positioned above eye level and mounted with wide-angle lenses, to give the appearance of greater depth between subjects, but as the film progresses the focal length of the lenses is gradually increased. By the end of the film, nearly everyone is shown in closeup, using telephoto lenses from a lower angle, which decreases or "shortens" depth of field. Lumet stated that his intention in using these techniques with cinematographer Boris Kaufman was to create a nearly palpable claustrophobia.
The film was a box office disappointment in the US but did better internationally. The advent of color and widescreen productions may have contributed to its disappointing box office performance. It was not until its first airing on television that the film finally found its audience.
On its first release, 12 Angry Men received critical acclaim. A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote, "It makes for taut, absorbing, and compelling drama that reaches far beyond the close confines of its jury room setting." His observation of the twelve men was that "their dramas are powerful and provocative enough to keep a viewer spellbound." Variety called it an "absorbing drama" with acting that was "perhaps the best seen recently in any single film", Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times declared it a "tour de force in movie making", The Monthly Film Bulletin deemed it "a compelling and outstandingly well-handled drama", and John McCarten of The New Yorker called it "a fairly substantial addition to the celluloid landscape".
Variety noted: "Perhaps the motivations of each juror are introduced too quickly and are repeated too often before each changes his vote. However, the film leaves a tremendous impact."
In 2012, Mike D'Angelo of The A.V. Club questioned the verdict of the jury in the film, writing: "What ensures The Kid's guilt for practical purposes, [...] is the sheer improbability that all the evidence is erroneous. You'd have to be the jurisprudential inverse of a national lottery winner to face so many apparently damning coincidences and misidentifications. Or you'd have to be framed, which is what Johnnie Cochran was ultimately forced to argue—not just because of the DNA evidence, but because there's no other plausible explanation for why every single detail points to O. J. Simpson's guilt. But there's no reason offered in 12 Angry Men for why, say, the police would be planting switchblades."
The film is viewed as a classic, highly regarded from both a critical and popular viewpoint: Roger Ebert listed it as one of his "Great Movies". The American Film Institute named Juror 8, played by Henry Fonda, 28th in a list of the 50 greatest movie heroes of the 20th century. AFI also named 12 Angry Men the 42nd-most inspiring film, the 88th-most heart-pounding film and the 87th-best film of the past hundred years. In 2011, the film was one of the top 20 most screened films in secondary schools in the United Kingdom. The February 2020 issue of New York Magazine lists 12 Angry Men as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars." As of March 2023, the film holds a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 61 reviews, with a weighted average of 9.10/10. The site's consensus reads: "Sidney Lumet's feature debut is a superbly written, dramatically effective courtroom thriller that rightfully stands as a modern classic". Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 97 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
The film was selected as the second-best courtroom drama ever by the American Film Institute during their AFI's 10 Top 10 list, just after To Kill a Mockingbird, and is the highest rated courtroom drama on Rotten Tomatoes' Top 100 Movies of All Time.
American Film Institute lists:
Speaking at a screening of the film during the 2010 Fordham University School of Law Film Festival, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated that seeing 12 Angry Men while she was in college influenced her decision to pursue a career in law. She was particularly inspired by immigrant Juror 11's monologue on his reverence for the American justice system. She also told the audience of law students that, as a lower-court judge, she would sometimes instruct juries to not follow the film's example, because most of the jurors' conclusions are based on speculation, not fact. Sotomayor noted that events such as Juror 8 entering a similar knife into the proceeding; performing outside research into the case matter in the first place; and ultimately the jury as a whole making broad, wide-ranging assumptions far beyond the scope of reasonable doubt (such as the inferences regarding the woman wearing glasses) would not be allowed in a real-life jury situation, and in fact would have yielded a mistrial (assuming that applicable law permitted the content of jury deliberations to be revealed).
In 2007, legal scholar Michael Asimow argued that the jury in 12 Angry Men reached an incorrect verdict, writing that the amount of circumstantial evidence against the defendant should have been enough to convict him, even if the testimony of the two eyewitnesses was disregarded.
In 2007, drawing on empirical research, legal scholar Valerie Hans noted that while 12 Angry Men's depiction of a lone dissenter converting the majority is rare in reality, the film accurately portrays how quality deliberation, diverse perspectives, and the unanimity requirement can enable thoughtful dissenters to meaningfully influence jury outcomes, particularly when arguing for acquittal.
There have been a number of adaptations of 12 Angry Men owing to its popularity and legacy.
A 1963 German TV production, Die zwölf Geschworenen, was directed by Günter Gräwert, and a 1973 Spanish production, Doce hombres sin piedad, was made for TV 22 years before Spain allowed jury trials, while a 1991 homage by Kōki Mitani, Juninin no Yasashii Nihonjin ("12 gentle Japanese"), posits a Japan with a jury system and features a group of Japanese people grappling with their responsibility in the face of Japanese cultural norms.
A 1970 episode of The Odd Couple television series (also co-starring Jack Klugman) entitled "The Jury Story" is reminiscent of 12 Angry Men, as it tells in a flashback the circumstances behind the meeting of roommates Oscar Madison and Felix Unger. Klugman (Madison) plays a juror on a panel during a supposedly open-and-shut case. Co-star Tony Randall (Unger) portrays the lone holdout who votes not guilty, eventually convincing the other eleven jurors.
A 1978 episode of Happy Days entitled "Fonzie for the Defense" contains a situation similar to 12 Angry Men when Howard Cunningham and Fonzie find themselves the only members of the jury who are not ready to convict the defendant just because he rides a motorcycle.
A 1986 episode of Murder, She Wrote entitled "Trial by Error" pays tribute to 12 Angry Men. The major twists are originally 10 jurors vote for "not guilty" due to self defense, Jessica votes "unsure" and another juror votes "guilty". Jessica and other jurors recall the evidence, as more and more jurors switch from "not guilty due to self defense" and come to a realization as to what actually occurred the night of the murder.
The 1986 Hindi film Ek Ruka Hua Faisla ("a pending decision") and 2012 Kannada film Dashamukha ("ten faces") are Indian remakes of the film, with almost identical storylines. The former has been adapted as another Indian Bengali film Shotyi Bole Shotyi Kichhu Nei and is set to be released in 2025.
Season 1, episode 17a of the Nickelodeon cartoon Hey Arnold! (1996) is a parody of 12 Angry Men. In the episode, titled "False Alarm", Eugene is suspected and accused of pulling the fire alarm, and a student jury is assembled to vote on the verdict, but Arnold is the only one who believes Eugene is innocent. He has to convince the rest of his classmates that Eugene is not guilty of the crime. In this adaptation, it is proven that Eugene was not the criminal but Curly a member of the student "jury" is the actual perpetrator due to the latter's reaction to the former's use of the Winkyland pencil (chewing on the eraser and intense sharpening).
In 1997, a television remake of the film under the same title was directed by William Friedkin and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In the newer version, the judge is a woman, four of the jurors are black, and the ninth juror is not the only senior citizen, but the overall plot remains intact. Modernizations include not smoking in the jury room, changes in references to pop culture and sports figures and income, references to execution by lethal injection as opposed to the electric chair, more race-related dialogue, and casual profanity.
The detective drama television show Veronica Mars, which like the film includes the theme of class issues, featured a 2005 episode, "One Angry Veronica", in which the title character is selected for jury duty. The episode flips the film's format and depicts one holdout convincing the jury to convict the privileged defendants of assault against a less well-off victim, despite their lawyers initially convincing 11 jury members of a not guilty verdict.
In a 2022 episode of The Equalizer called "Vox Populi," Aunt Vi is the only juror who doesn't automatically assume that the black male defendant is obviously guilty of the rape and murder of a white woman. As McCall works the case outside of the courtroom, Vi challenges the evidence and assumptions of the prosecution's narrative with the other jurors.
Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov also made a 2007 Academy Award-nominated adaptation, 12, featuring a Chechen teen on trial in Moscow.
A 2015 Chinese adaptation, 12 Citizens, follows the plot of the original 1957 American film, while including characters reflecting contemporary Beijing society, including a cab driver, guard, businessman, policeman, a retiree persecuted in a 1950s political movement, and others.
Juror 8 is a 2019 South Korean adaptation, directed by Hong Seung-wan.
The film has also been subject to parody. In 2015, the Comedy Central TV series Inside Amy Schumer aired a half-hour parody of the film titled "12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer".
The film was also parodied in the BBC Television comedy Hancock's Half Hour, starring Tony Hancock and Sid James, and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, in the episode broadcast on October 16, 1959. Family Guy paid tribute to the film with its Season 11 episode titled "12 and a Half Angry Men", and King of the Hill acknowledged the film with their parody "Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men" in season 3.
The American adult animated sitcom Krapopolis also parodied the film in the fifth episode of its first season, titled "12 Angry Goat Herders". In it, Tyrannis invents the court system after Shlub is accused of eating the goats of the goat farmers. Tyrannis represented Shlub while the goat farmers were represented by Brenda the Sphinx.