12 Angry Men (1957)

Written by Reginald Rose

Directed by Sidney Lumet

1998 List Ranking: NA

2007 List Ranking: 87

I know that I was in high school when I first saw 12 Angry Men, but I’ll admit that I cannot recall the reason I had to watch it. I’m going to assume that it was for English class, but what lessons I was supposed to glean from it have been lost to time. That’s not to say that the film is bad; on the contrary, I love this film, both then and now. I had only seen the film one other time besides that initial viewing, so I was very excited to see it on this list.

The jury room

12 Angry Men takes place almost entirely inside a jury room, as 12 jurors must decide the fate of a young boy who is accused of murdering his father: a guilty verdict is a mandatory death sentence to the electric chair. The initial vote reveals a near-unanimous verdict of guilty, save for 1, Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) who is reluctant to so swiftly condemn the boy. The film not only explores the circumstances of the case and the guilt or innocence of the boy, but also reveals the hidden motivations and prejudices of the 12 men.

Henry Fonda

I have always loved this film because of just how good the performances and the characterizations are. I might find some of the characters annoying (Jack Warden’s Juror 7 is a great example), but each of them feels completely believable as people charged with this civic duty. Henry Fonda is the obvious star of the film, and he gives a much better performance than he did in 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath. Admittedly, his character is a little Mary-Sue-ish, so he just *knows* how to respond and turn each juror to his side, but the rest of the cast are able to hold their own against him and take some of the focus off him.

Lee J. Cobb

The other major standout (in a cast of standouts) is Lee J. Cobb as Juror 3, the antithesis of Fonda’s Juror 8. His belligerent disgust with the others as they all, one by one, reconsider their votes is a major driving force of the film, yet Cobb never lets his performance become dull or repetitive. His climatic speech is made even better by all the non-verbal work and subtext that Cobb brings to the role, and while as a character he is hard to watch (although not as hard as Ed Begley’s incredibly racist Juror 10), he is a delight to watch from a sheer technical aspect.

Juror 10 (Ed Begley) during his racist rant

I know I have commented quite a bit in these earlier films about the racism imbedded within them, so this film feels like a breath of fresh air by actually starting to say something about it. Many of the jurors have a prejudice against the boy simply because of where he grew up, and the film actually starts to talk about how those prejudices are unacceptable. There is a very powerful moment when Begley goes off on a long racist rant (one that essentially checks off all the “But I’M not a racist” checklist (e.g., “I’m the first one to tell you that they’re not ALL bad!”)); as he rants, everyone else slowly moves away from the table or distances themselves from him. It’s a great visual metaphor for digging yourself into a hole because of abhorrent beliefs. I wish the film had gone even further to have someone really call him out instead of letting him get off relatively easily (after he rants, he just slowly sits in shock apart from the group and changes his vote), but it’s still the 1950’s and that’s just not going to happen.

The jury foreman (Martin Balsam) near the end of the film

I want to praise the cinematography of the film a bit: as the film begins, the angles are mostly high and wide, showing lots of different perspectives of the group. As the film goes on, however, the angles become lower and tighter, generating a sense of claustrophobia in the audience. It’s surprisingly effective, and admittedly not something I really realized until doing my research after the fact.

I wish I had more to say about this film, but it’s so good, and yet so seemingly simple, that there really isn’t much else to say. A tightly wound plot supported by 12 great performances makes 12 Angry Men a clear standout on this list.

FINAL GRADE: A+