Law on Film

Jonathan Hafetz
  • 5.0 (18)
  • FILM HISTORY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Law on Film explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films, even to those that are not obviously about the legal world.  Film, meanwhile, tells us a lot about the law, especially how it is perceived and portrayed. The podcast is created and hosted by Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer, legal scholar, and  film buff.  Each episode, Jonathan and a guest expert will examine a film that is noteworthy from a legal perspective. What does the film get right about the law and what does it get wrong? Why is law important to understanding the film? And what does the film teach about law's relationship to the larger society and culture that surrounds it.  Whether you're interested in law, film, or an entertaining discussion, there will be something here for you.

  1. FEB 10

    Conclave (2024) (Guest: Monsignor Raymond Kupke) (episode 54)

    In Conclave (2024), Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) organizes a conclave to elect a new pope. Key candidates and factions vie with one another as the process plays out until finally a new pope is elected. The film was directed by Edward Berger from a script by Peter Straughan (based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris), and features an all-star cast including Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini. The film provides a window into the process for electing a new pope, along with the legal, historical, and political forces that have shaped it.   Timestamps: 0.00    Introduction 2:32     The origins of the conclave 5:29    Electing a new pope 8:03    The College of Cardinals 10:23   The Apostolic Constitutions 14:46   The contentious conclave in the film 21:05   Naming a new cardinal in pectore 24:51    Leo XIV, the new pope 26:58   The Roman Curia 26:38   The nuns in the film 30:05  Symbol and ritual: the smoke from the chimney 32:17    The custom of a new pope choosing a name 36:55   Struggles over different visions of the church 40:58   How accurate was the film in capturing a conclave? 42:39   How the conclave has changed 45:04   Possible future changes to the papal selection process Further reading: Allen, John L. Conclave: The Politics, Personalities, and Process of the Next Papal Election (2002) Baumgartner, Frederic J., Behind Locked Doors: A History of the Papal Elections (2003) Harris, Robert, Conclave (2016) Povoledo, Elisabetta, “A Papal Primer That’s Fiction, but Also Rings True,” N.Y. Times (Mar. 2, 2025) West, Morris, L., The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

    50 min

  2. JAN 20

    Inglourious Basterds (2009) (Guest Renana Keydar) (episode 53)

    Inglourious Basterds (2009), written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, revolves around two plots to assassinate Nazi leaders during the closing years of World War II. One plot centers on a secret band of Jewish-American soldiers under the command of Ltn. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt)—the “Basterds”—who terrorize Nazis. The other involves Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), a young Jewish woman who narrowly escapes death at the hands of notorious “Jew hunter” Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) and flees to Paris where she runs a cinema under a false identity. The plot lines converge at the Paris cinema where the Basterds and Shosanna are each separately plotting to kill Hitler and other Nazi leaders while they are attending the premiere of a German propaganda film. The film utilizes alternate history to explore themes surrounding the pursuit of justice against the perpetrators of mass atrocities and the complex relationship between law and vengeance. Timestamps: 0:00    Introduction 2:37     Reimagining the arc of justice 8:00     Alternatives to the progress narrative 16:51     The power of violence and revenge 21:56     Counterfactuals and alternative histories 27:03     The limits of legalistic responses to atrocities 32:24     The role of cinema in Nazi Germany 39:00     Narratives of progress 44:10     Ending with a primal moment of revenge   Further reading: Hussain, Nadine, “‘Inglorious Basterds’: A Satirical Criticism of WWII Cinema and the Myth of the American War Hero,” 13(2) Inquiries Journal 1 (2021) Jackson, Robert H., Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal, Robert H. Jackson Center (Nov. 21, 1945) James, Caryn, “Why Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece,” BBC (Aug. 16, 2019) Keydar, Renana, “‘Lessons in Humanity’: Re-evaluating International Criminal Law’s Narrative of Progress in the Post 9/11 Era,” 17 (2) J. Int’l Criminal Justice 229 (2019) Kligerman, Eric. “Reels of Justice: Inglourious Basterds, The Sorrow and the Pity, and Jewish Revenge Fantasies,” in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds: A Manipulation of Metacinema (Robert Dassanowsky ed., 2012) Tekay, Baran “Transforming Cultural Memory: ‘Inglourious Basterds’”, 48(1) Film Criticism (2024) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

    48 min

  3. 12/16/2025

    I'm Still Here (Brazil) (2024) (Guest: Isabela Amaral) (episode 52)

    I’m Still Here (dir. Walter Salles, 2024) is based on the true story of the enforced disappearance and murder of former congressman Rubens Paiva by the military dictatorship in Brazil. The film opens in Rio de Janeiro in 1970, where Rubens lives with his wife, Eunice, and their five children. Their lives are forever altered when the military government arrests and disappears Rubens. The film describes Eunice’s attempt to find out what happened to Rubens and to rebuild her life and raise her family in his absence. The film is based on the memoir of their son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, who was a young boy when Rubens was disappeared. I’m Still Here provides a harrowing account of Brazil's military dictatorship and a moving story of a woman’s struggle to overcome adversity and obtain justice. Timestamps: 0:00    Introduction 2:16     The military dictatorship in Brazil 4:38     Living amid contradictions 6:52     The kidnapping of the Swiss ambassador 8:33     Rubens’ arrest and disappearance 12:38   Authoritarian legality 14:18    The arrest and mistreatment of family members 17:16    Covering up state crimes 19:29    Exile as another tool of repression 23:08   Enforced disappearances 27:18     Leveraging international pressure 29:08   Eunice Paiva’s struggle and success 33:15    Support for the military dictatorship 36:01   Finally obtaining Rubens’ death certificate 25 years later 40:10   Brazil’s National Truth Commission 48:39   Authoritarian threats to democracy today Further reading: Atencio, Rebecca J., Memory’s Turn: Reckoning with Dictatorship in Brazil (2014) Filho, Paulo Coehlo, “Truth Commission in Brazil: Individualizing Amnesty, Revealing the Truth,” The Yale Review of International Studies (Feb. 29, 2012) Lima, Ana Gabriela Oliveira, “Corrected death certificates for Herzog, Rubens Paiva,and one hundred others are celebrated in a ceremony,” Folha de S. Paulo (Oct. 8, 2025) Paiva, Marcelo Rubens, I’m Still Here (2025) Pitts, Bryan, Until the Storm Passes: Politicians, Democracy, and the Demise of Brazil’s Military Dictatorship (2023) Weinberg, Eyal, “Transitional Justice in Brazil, 1970s–2010s,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia (2022)   Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

    55 min

  4. 11/25/2025

    An Officer and a Spy (2019) (Guest: William Schabas) (episode 51)

    This episode explores An Officer and a Spy (J’accuse in French), Roman Polanski’s 2019 film about the Dreyfus Affair in France. The Dreyfus Affair is one of most significant events in late 19th/early 20th century, an event whose implications reverberated for decades in France and around the world. The Dreyfus Affair centered around the military trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus on charges of treason. Wrongly convicted based on secret evidence and false information, Dreyfus’s case would become a cause célèbres and synonymous with a miscarriage of justice. It also exposed and exacerbated tensions within French society while underscoring deep and pervasive levels of antisemitism.  Based on Robert Harris's 2013 novel of the same name, An Officer and a Spy focuses on the role of George Picquart, the military officer who helps uncover the truth behind Dreyfus’s wrongful conviction, and Picquart’s complex relationship with Dreyfus himself. Hewing closely to historical fact, the film highlights critical issues around law, truth, and justice, at the heart of the Dreyfus affair and why it remains so relevant today.  Timestamps: 0:00     Introduction  3:02      An overview of the Dreyfus case and key players  5:54.     Georges Picquart  13:14.    The struggle to overturn Dreyfus’s conviction  17:54     Tensions over the Dreyfus affair and a lack of accountability  20:48    The “evidence” in the Dreyfus case  25:38     How the Dreyfus affair divided French society  30:16     Other films about the Dreyfus affair  33:54     The controversy around Roman Polanski as director  39:21      Legacies of the Dreyfus affair  45:13      The role of Colonel Henry  Further reading:  Begley, Louis, Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters (2009)  Bredin, Jean‑Denis, The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus (1986)  Doherty, Thomas, “From Méliès to Polanski: The Dreyfus Affair on Film,” Cineaste (2020)  Harris, Robert, An Officer and a Spy (2013)  Read, Piers Paul, The Dreyfus Affair: The Scandal That Tore France in Two (2013)  Samuels, Maurice, Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair (2024)  Zola, Émile, The Dreyfus Affair: J’Accuse and Other Writings (1998)    Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

    49 min

  5. 11/04/2025

    Juror #2 (2024) (Guest: Frank Wohl) (episode 50)

    This episode examines Juror #2, Clint Eastwood’s most recent—and perhaps final—film. Juror #2 centers around the trial of a man accused of murdering his girlfriend after a fight at a bar, leaving her in a ditch by the side of a road. The twist comes early: Justin Kemp a/k/a Juror #2 (played by Nicholas Hoult) soon realizes that the wrong man is on trial—as he hears the evidence, Kemp figures out that he, and not the defendant, killed the victim. Kemp realizes that he accidentally hit the defendant’s girlfriend with his car while she was walking along the side of a road on a dark and rainy night—thinking at the time, that he had hit a deer. Kemp, otherwise portrayed as a good man—a loving husband with a baby on the way—must navigate the moral dilemma as he serves on a jury that seems prepared to condemn an innocent man. Eastwood’s first courtroom drama in a long and legendary career, Juror #2 explores themes of justice, morality, and the imperfections of the legal system.  Timestamps: 0:00      Introduction 2:46       A flawed process 7:05       The ex-police detective on the jury and the motion for a mistrial 15:40     The lawyer’s problematic advice 23:16     A prosecutor who eventually does the right thing 27:17      The public defender 31:28      A good person caught in terrible circumstances? 40:40    Missing scenes in the legal narrative 44:46     A dark picture of the U.S. criminal justice system Further reading: “A Forensic Review of ‘Juror #2,’” J. American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, vol. 53(1) (2025)   Banner, Adam, “Honesty in jury pool examined in ‘Juror #2,’” ABA Bar Journal (Jan. 28, 2025) Brody, Richard, “In ‘Juror #2,’ Clint Eastwood Judges the System Harshly,” New Yorker (Oct 30, 2024) Melonic, Emina, “The Storytelling of Clint Eastwood,” Law & Liberty (Jan. 10, 2025) Upendra, Chidella, “The Ethical Vision of Clint Eastwood,” Journal of Religion & Film, vol. 17(2) (Oct. 2013) Zagha, Muriel, “Clint Eastwood’s Puritan Morality Tale,” Engelsberg Ideas (Dec. 2, 2024)    Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

    48 min

  6. 10/13/2025

    Vindication Swim (2024) (Guest: Elliot Hasler) (episode 49)

    Vindication Swim (2024) tells the story of Mercedes Gleitze, the first British woman to swim the English Channel in 1927. This major accomplishment, however, was soon called into question when another swimmer made a dubious claim to the same feat. To defend her integrity and her legacy, Gleitze (Kirsten Callaghan) attempted what she called her “vindication swim” — a second crossing of the English Channel intended to silence her critics and restore her reputation. Vindication Swim is about more than an athletic feat. It also raises timeless questions of proof, reputation, and justice, while providing a window into the barriers imposed by gender and class in early 20th-century England.  Timestamps: 0:00    Introduction 2:14     Who was Mercedes Gleitz? 5:14     Training to play Mercedes Gleitz 6:14     Gleitz’s 1927 English Channel swim is called into question 8:58     A key event for women in open water swimming 11:22     The intersection of gender, class, and nationality 16:02   An impetus for regulating open water swimming 17:46    The vindication swim 20:49   The challenges in filming the swim 24:35:   Raising awareness about a historical injustice 29:08   Restoring Mercedes Gleitz to prominence Further Reading: “Mercedes Gleitze and the Vindication Swim,” LoneSwimmer (Oct. 18, 2013) Pember, Doloranda, In the Wake of Mercedes Gleitze: Open Water Swimming Pioneer (2019) Thorpe, Vanessa, “‘No stunt doubles for me,’ says actor who braved Channel to recreate epic swim,” The Guardian (Mar. 2, 2024)   Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

    31 min

  7. 09/16/2025

    The Godfather (1972) (Guest: Steve Koh) (episode 48)

    Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) is widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. Based on Mario Puzo’s best-selling 1969 novel, The Godfather depicts the rise and legacy of the Corleone family, a fictional Italian-American organized crime family led by Vito Corleone and the transformation of his son Michael from a reluctant outsider to a ruthless mafia boss. The film, which features an ensemble cast of American film icons, including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duval, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and John Cazale, explores themes of family, power, and the American Dream. It also provides a window into the relationship between law and culture while offering complex perspectives on the meaning of justice.  Timestamps:  0:00     Introduction  3:08     “I believe in America”  12:27    Business and the personal  14:07    Competing views of law and justice in America  16:57    The legitimate and illegitimate, the sacred and the profane 20:52   Narratives about the mafia  26:59   The consigliere  33:59   Tensions between tradition and modernity  39:37    Ritual 44:41    Performance and power  49:11     Retribution  55:18     The mafia and The Godfather  56:48    Codes of loyalty  102:39   The immigrant experience  Further reading:  Barber, Nicholas, “The Godfather: Have we misunderstood America's greatest film?”, BBC (Mar. 13, 2022)  Coppola, Francis Ford, The Godfather Notebook (2016)  Denvir, John, “The Slotting Function: How Movies Influence Political Decision,” 28 Vermont L. Rev. 799 (2003-04)  Gambrell, Brian C., “Leave the Representation, Take the Cannoli: The Crime Fraud Exception to the Attorney-Client Privilege and ‘The Godfather,’” 23 South Carolina Lawyer (2011-12)  Papke, David, “Myth and Meaning: Francis Ford Coppola and Popular Response to The Godfather Trilogy,” in Legal Reelism: Movies as Legal Text (John Denvir ed., 1996)  Puzo, Mario, The Godfather (1969)  Seal, Mark, Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather (2021)  Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

    1h 8m

  8. 08/12/2025

    No Other Land (2024) (Palestinian-Israeli) (Guests: Omer Bartov & Lisa Hajjar) (episode 47)

    No Other Land (2024) is the Oscar-winning documentary that shows the brutal destruction of a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank. Recorded between 2019 to 2023, the film tells the story of Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist, who has been protesting the Israeli army’s destruction of homes and eviction of villagers. Adra is assisted by Yuval Abraham, a Jewish Israeli journalist. (They are also two of the film’s four directors). To Adra and other Palestinians, the Israeli army is destroying their homeland. The Israeli army, however, maintains that the inhabitants are on land that the military needs for live-fire military training and that the evictions have been duly authorized by Israeli courts. The situation turns violent—Adra’s cousin is shot by Israeli soldiers in the days after the Oct 7 attacks—and Adra himself is endangered by his efforts to record the evictions and protests. The film provides a penetrating look not only at a Palestinian community in the West Bank but also at the plight of those being forced off their land--with literally nowhere else to go. [Editor's Note: Since the recording of this episode, Odeh Hathalin, a Palestinian activist and contributor to the film, was shot and killed in a village in Masafer Yatta by an Israeli settler.] Timestamps: 0:00     Introduction 3:42      Masafar Yatta and the Occupied West Bank 7:43      The legal apparatus of illegal occupation 13:14    The “Gazafication” of the West Bank 20:08   The meaning of “No Other Land” 23:21    Israel and the international community 31:24    The crackdown on free speech in the United States and in Israel 34:41    A complex story of an Israeli-Palestinian friendship 41:18     The power of images 43:07    Growing Israeli indifference to Gaza and the West Bank after Oct. 7 48:30    The film’s reception in Israel  49:53    Law-based criticism of Israel and antisemitism   Further reading: Bartov, Omer, “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It,” New York Times (July 15, 2025) Beinart, Peter, Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (2025) Caplan, Neil, The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Contested Histories (2010) Hajjar, Lisa, “International Humanitarian Law and ‘Wars on Terror’: A Comparative Analysis of Israeli and American Doctrines and Policies,” 36 Journal of Palestine Studies 36 (Autumn 2006) Kaufman, Anthony, "No Other Distribution: How Film Industry Economics and Politics Are Suppressing Docs Sympathetic to Palestine and Critical of Israel," Int’l Documentary Ass’n (Jan 15, 2025) Khalidi, Rashid, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (2020) Lukenville, Mackenzie, “The Only Path Forward: ‘No Other Land,’” Int’l Documentary Ass’n (Dec. 5, 2024) Sfard, Michael, Occupation from Within: A Journey to the Roots of the Constitutional Coup (2025) Law on Film is created and produced by Jonathan Hafetz. Jonathan is a professor at Seton Hall Law School. He has written many books and articles about the law. He has litigated important cases to protect civil liberties and human rights while working at the ACLU and other organizations. Jonathan is a huge film buff and has been watching, studying, and talking about movies for as long as he can remember. For more information about Jonathan, here's a link to his bio: https://law.shu.edu/profiles/hafetzjo.html You can contact him at jonathanhafetz@gmail.com You can follow him on X (Twitter) @jonathanhafetz You can follow the podcast on X (Twitter) @LawOnFilm You can follow the podcast on Instagram @lawonfilmpodcast

    52 min
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About

Law on Film explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films, even to those that are not obviously about the legal world.  Film, meanwhile, tells us a lot about the law, especially how it is perceived and portrayed. The podcast is created and hosted by Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer, legal scholar, and  film buff.  Each episode, Jonathan and a guest expert will examine a film that is noteworthy from a legal perspective. What does the film get right about the law and what does it get wrong? Why is law important to understanding the film? And what does the film teach about law's relationship to the larger society and culture that surrounds it.  Whether you're interested in law, film, or an entertaining discussion, there will be something here for you.

Information

  • Creator
    Jonathan Hafetz
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    56
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Law on Film
  • Show Website
    Law on Film