Each week we’re recommending a movie from the film lover’s favorite home video company, Criterion. The Criterion Collection is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions of the highest technical quality with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film. This week, 12 Angry Men.
12 Angry Men, by Sidney Lumet, may be the most radical courtroom drama in cinema history.
A behind-closed-doors look at the American legal system that is as riveting as it is spare, this iconic adaptation of Reginald Rose’s teleplay stars Henry Fonda as the dissenting member on a jury of white men ready to pass judgment on a Puerto Rican teenager charged with murdering his father.
The result is a saga of epic proportions that plays out over a tense afternoon in one sweltering room. Lumet’s electrifying snapshot of 1950s America on the verge of change is one of the great feature film debuts.
Special Features
- 4K digital restoration, supervised by cinematographer Roger Deakins, with uncompressed monaural sNew high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- Frank Schaffner’s 1955 teleplay of 12 Angry Men, from the series Studio One, featuring an introduction by Ron Simon, curator at the Paley Center for Media
- Production history of 12 Angry Men, from teleplay to big-screen classic
- Archival interviews with director Sidney Lumet
- New interview with screenwriter Walter Bernstein about Lumet
- New interview with Simon about writer Reginald Rose
- Tragedy in a Temporary Town (1956), a teleplay directed by Lumet and written by Rose
- New interview with cinematographer John Bailey about director of photography Boris Kaufman
- Original theatrical trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- New interview with David Ryan, author of George Orwell on Screen
- Behind-the-scenes footage
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
1957
96 minutes
Black & White
1.66:1
English
Spine #591
