Film

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Name: The Trial of the Chicago 7
Genre: Drama, History
Released: 2020
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Rylance, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Frank Langella

Aaron Sorkin turns a real 1969 conspiracy trial into a courtroom sparring match, cutting between testimony and flashbacks to the riot that started it all. It's talky, propulsive, and unapologetically theatrical — history rewritten as a snappy ensemble drama with a stacked cast chewing on righteous, quotable dialogue. Good for anyone who likes their politics delivered with wit and momentum rather than solemnity.

TMDb rating

7.7

If you liked this

A Few Good Men1992

Sorkin's own earlier courtroom classic, with the same love of righteous men shouting truth at institutions. Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson duel over conscience and chain of command.

But More slick studio thriller than history lesson — the politics are thinner, the courtroom pyrotechnics louder.

Judgment at Nuremberg1961

The granddaddy of the 'trial as moral reckoning' movie, three hours of towering performances asking who's responsible when a whole system goes wrong.

But It's long, black-and-white, and stately in a way that modern courtroom dramas rarely bother with anymore.

All the President's Men1976

Same era, same institutional rot, told through dogged reporters instead of defendants. Cool, procedural, and quietly furious about power protecting itself.

But No big speeches or trial fireworks — it's phone calls and index cards, which some will find slow.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Chicago 102008

Same trial, same transcripts, but told as non-fiction collage instead of star-driven drama — see how differently a documentary handles the material Sorkin dramatized.

A wild documentary-animation hybrid that dramatizes the actual trial transcripts as rotoscoped courtroom scenes, spliced with real 1968 riot footage.

But The animation style is jarring and cheap-looking at first, and some will find the tonal whiplash exhausting.

The Post2017

Spielberg's take on the same Nixon-era paranoia, with Streep and Hanks deciding whether to publish the Pentagon Papers against government pressure.

But Handsomely made but a little safe and sentimental compared to the messier, angrier Chicago 7.

Spotlight2015

For anyone who likes institutions being taken apart methodically rather than theatrically — a quieter, patient anger that builds instead of erupts.

But Low-key and unglamorous by design; if you want Sorkin's zingers, this will feel almost too restrained.

Milk2008

Another true story of activists colliding with a legal and political system built to grind them down, anchored by a magnetic Sean Penn performance.

But More biographical and elegiac than confrontational — it mourns as much as it argues.

Vice2018

Adam McKay's gonzo, fourth-wall-breaking history of Dick Cheney offers the same appetite for turning real politics into big, showy cinema.

But Much more satirical and stylistically chaotic — subtlety is not on the menu here.

Frost/Nixon2008

A courtroom-adjacent showdown of wits, with Frank Langella again playing a cornered establishment figure trying to control the narrative.

But Two men in a room talking is the whole movie — no ensemble chaos, no riot footage.

12 Angry Men1957

The purest distillation of the genre: strangers in a room arguing their way toward justice, or at least toward truth. Still electric.

But Single location, no politics beyond the jury room — a completely different scale of story.

Medium Cool1969

Made the same year as the riot at the heart of the trial, by people who were actually there — the rawest possible contrast to a polished 50-years-later reconstruction.

A fictional TV cameraman's story shot literally inside the real 1968 Chicago convention riots, blurring the line between the movie and the history happening around it.

But Loose, experimental, more mood than plot — this is 60s art-cinema, not a tidy narrative.

Punishment Park1971

Takes the same fear the Chicago 7 lived through — that the state will weaponize the courtroom against dissent — and pushes it into speculative nightmare instead of history.

A paranoid mockumentary imagining a dystopian America where anti-war protesters face show tribunals and are sent to a brutal desert 'game' instead of prison.

But Deliberately ugly, low-budget, and bleak — this is agitprop cinema, not entertainment in the usual sense.