Law on Film

Jonathan Hafetz
  • 5.0 (20)
  • 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. Jun 2

    Monster (2003) (Guest: Mara Malagodi) (episode 59)

    This episode examines a case that sits at the uneasy boundary between criminal adjudication, media power, and moral authority: the prosecution and execution of Aileen Wuornos, labeled the “first female serial killer. We look at two documentaries by Nick Broomfield—Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992) and Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)—alongside the feature film Monster (2003), written and directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Charlize Theron in an Oscar-winning role. Broomfield’s documentaries are less about guilt or innocence than about process: who controls the narrative, how legal representation operates, and what happens when a defendant’s life becomes an object of transaction, between lawyers, media, and the public. The films also penetrate the issues around the application of the death penalty in the United States, and the problems that arise when the state seeks to executive individuals who are themselves victims and suffer from severe mental illness. Monster  approaches the same facts through dramatization. It also raises important questions, including how far context should matter in judging criminal responsibility and construction of narratives around crimes. Timestamps: 0:00   Introduction 2:58   Capturing law on film 5:24   The two Nick Broomfield documentaries 11:16   Addressing Aileen Wuornos’s murders 14:04  The flawed defense strategy 18:47  The depiction of Tyria Moore (Aileen Wuornos’s girlfriend 20:55  Selling the Aileen Wuornos story 23:09  The theme of the “monster” 28:29  Themes of betrayal and self-defense 31:53   Nick Broomfield and an outsider view of the American legal system 34:56  Mental illness and the death penalty 37:39  Media coverage of sensational murders  39:22  Failures of the legal process 44:26  A critique of the death penalty 47:00  Exoticization in the films Further Reading:  Cavanaugh, L. Sheila, “‘White Trash:’ Abject Skin in Film Reviews of ‘Monster’,” in Skin, Culture, and Pscyhoanalysis (Cavanaugh, L. Sheila et al. eds.) (2013) Dargis, Manohla, “Life and Death Issues,” Los Angeles Times (Jan. 9. 2004) Diamond, Suzanna, “‘A Flower in a Hard Rain’: Melodramatic Storytelling by, and About, Aileen Wuornos,” Anthurium, vol. 15(2) (2019) Horeck, Tanya, “From Documentary to Drama: Capturing Aileen Wuornos,” Screen, vol. 48(2), pp. 141-59 (Summer 2007) Pearson, Kyra, “The Trouble with Aileen Wuornos, Feminism’s ‘First Serial Killer,’” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 4(3), pp. 256-75 (Sept. 2007 Smith, Abbe, “The ‘Monster’ in All of Us: When Victims Become Perpetrators,” 38 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 367 (2005) 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

  2. May 12

    My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow (2024) (Russian) (Guests: Rachel Denber & Anna Nemzer) (episode 58)

    My Undesirable Friends: Part I—Last Air in Moscow (2024) is Russian-language American documentary film written and directed by Julia Loktev (with co-director Anna Nemzer). The film describes the effort to maintain press freedoms in Putin’s Russia in the period leading up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The documentary provides an intimate portrait of independent Russian journalists—mainly young women—who risk everything to pursue truth and accountability amidst escalating repression under the Putin regime. Filmed in late 2021 and early 2022, the documentary captures how the legal machinery of censorship, surveillance, and state-harassment converged to crush internal dissent and incapacitate civil society. It not only provides a profoundly disturbing account of what has occurred in Russia but also serves as a broader warning about the fragility of press freedoms and in a time of rising authoritarianism worldwide.  Timestamps: 0:00      Introduction 2:45       How the film came about 5:25       A primer on Russian censorship and repression 15:15      “Foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations” 23:32     Social marginalization through the creation of an enemies list  28:46     State persecution of TV Rain and other independent media  32:45     The manipulation of language 36:30     Identifying the pivotal moment  43:36     How the film captures the elimination of press freedoms 48:26     Courts and lawyers 53:27     The Kremlin’s public mobilization to support the war in Ukraine 58:53     Independent journalism in exile 1:02:17   Parallels to the United States under Trump Further reading: Chang, Justin, “‘My Undesirable Friends: Part I’ Is a Staggering Portrait of Russian Journalists in Dissent,” New Yorker (Aug. 14, 2025) Edel, Anastasia, “Putin vs. the Press,” Foreign Policy (Oct. 3, 2025) Human Rights Watch, Russia’s Legislative Minefield: Tripwires for Civil Society Since 2020 (2024) Human Rights Watch, Disrupted, Throttled, and Blocked State Censorship, Control, and Increasing Isolation of Internet Users in Russia (2025) Krupskiy, Maxim, “The Impact of Russia’s ‘Foreign Agents’ Legislation on Civil Society,” Fletcher Russia & Eurasia Program (2023) Troinovski, Anton & Safronova, Valeriya, “Russia Takes Censorship to New Extremes, Stifling War Coverage,” New York Times (May 18, 2022) Yablokov, Ilya & Gatov, Vasily, “Broadcasting through the (New) Iron Curtain: Practices, Challenges, and Legacies of Russia's Independent Media in Exile,” Journalism Studies (Feb. 11, 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

    1h 6m

  3. Apr 21

    Small Things Like These (2024) (Guest: Sean Patrick Donlan) (episode 57)

    Small Things Like These (2024), adapted by Edna Walsh from Claire Keegan’s 2021 novel, tells the story of how coal merchant Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) uncovers disturbing secrets in a small Irish town in the mid-1980s. While going about his job delivering coal, Furlong discovers the truth about the Magdalene laundries—the abusive asylums run by Roman Catholic institutions from the 1820s until 1996. During this period, thousands of girls and women were imprisoned, forced to carry out unpaid labor and subjected to severe psychological and physical maltreatment. Furlong’s discovery about the local convent in his town parallels the story of his remembering and having to come to terms with his own traumatic childhood. The film provides a powerful and moving depiction life in a small Irish town, the role of the Magdalene laundries, and the power of the Roman Catholic Church to enforce a code of silence about the abuses taking place within a community.  Timestamps: 0:00   Introduction 2:14     The Magdalene laundries 6:39    Laundries in a broader social context 13:02   The convent’s power and secrecy 17:18    The absence of guilty men 18:31   The banality of evil 20:34  Why the laundries lasted so long 24:00  How they ended 26:02  Inquiries and accountability 28:16   Focus on the laundries in films and popular culture 30:38  The Bill Furlong character 36:20  Ireland in the 1980s Further reading: Seán Patrick Donlan, “Screening for Help – Irish Care and Confinement," Film Ireland (Nov. 21, 2025) Keegan, Claire, Small Things Like These (Faber & Faber 2021)  McGourty, Courtney, “Not Merely a Shameful Past: The Case for State Responsibility in the Magdalene Laundries,” Opinio Juris  (Aug 11, 2023)  Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to Establish the Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalene Laundries (2013) Smith, James M., Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment  (Univ. Notre Dame Press 2007) 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

    42 min

  4. Apr 2

    Syriana (2005): Special Commentary (Guest: Peggy McGuiness)

    We return to Syriana, a film we discussed previously in Episode 40, but one that feels newly urgent in light of the current war with Iran. When it was released in 2005, the film offered a dense, unsettling portrait of a post-9/11 world shaped by oil, covert operations, and overlapping networks of state and corporate power. Today, Syriana reads less as a product of its time and more as a reflection of a sharp turn in U.S. foreign policy, shaped by the erosion of institutional guardrails and a naked military imperialism—with the current reality even more dystopian than the one depicted in the film. 0:00     Introduction 1:15        Why Syriana is so relevant to the U.S. military action in Iran 3:20      "The Committee for the Liberation of Iran” 6:47       Syriana as Dubai 9:15       Corruption moves from sidelines to the cabinet under Trump 12:06     The continued vulnerability of migrant workers 14:03     The loss of U.S. omnipotence on drone warfare 16:29     The involvement of Israel 18:33     The authoritarian turn in U.S. foreign policy 21:20     Syriana: a must watch now 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

    22 min

  5. Mar 31

    The Lives of Others (2006) (Guests: Mark Drumbl & Barbora Hola) (episode 56)

    This episode looks at The Lives of Others, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s haunting exploration of surveillance, complicity, and the brittle architecture of authoritarian legality in the final years of the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany). The critically acclaimed 2006 film examines how law can be co-opted into an instrument of domination, how bureaucratic routines of “security” normalize repression, and how small acts of resistance acquire profound moral weight under systems built on fear and an extensive system of informers. The Lives of Others raises enduring questions about the ethics of observing and informing in Cold War Eastern Europe. To help unpack these themes, I’m joined by Mark Drumbl and Barbara Holá, whose recent book Informers Up Close: Stories from Communist Prague (Oxford Univ. Press) offers a deeply researched, empirically grounded look at informers within repressive regimes and transitional justice processes.  Timestamps: 0:00      Introduction 4:23       East Germany in 1984 6:32.      The timelessness of informing 7:35.      The surveillance state in the Eastern bloc 13:27      Informers and informing 19:36.    Informing's afterlife 23:26    The book’s methodology and illustrative cases 33:26    The corrosive impact on social relations 35:02    Who becomes an informant and why 38:22    Informers and transitional justice 44:57    The opening of the secret files 50:39    Informers and agents 55:54    Resistance and historical revisionism 1:00:46 How the book came about Further reading: Ash, Timothy Garton, The File (1997) Burkhard, Bilger, “Piecing Together the Secrets of the Stasi,” The New Yorker (May 27, 2024) Cords, Suzzane, “Stasi: How the GDR kept its citizens under surveillance,” DW (Aug. 1, 2025) Drumbl, Mark A. & Holá, Barbora, Informers Up Close: Stories from Communist Prague (2024) Alford, C. Fred, Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power (2001) Lindenberger, Thomas, “Stasiploitation: Why Not? The Scriptwriter’s Historical Creativity in ‘The Lives of Others,’” 31 (3) German Studies Review 557 (2008) 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 6m

  6. Mar 10

    The Killing Fields (1984) (Guest: Alexandra Meise) (episode 55)

    The Killing Fields (1984), directed by Roland Joffe, depicts the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia and the genocide that followed, which resulted in the death of approximately 2-3 million people. The film is based on the experiences of New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterson) and Cambodian journalist Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor). It provides a haunting depiction of mass violence as well as a moving story about these two colleagues and friends. In the wake of the 50th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia, it is worth revisiting a film that is as powerful and relevant today as when it was released. Timestamps: 0:00      Introduction 2:16       The Khmer Rouge and Year Zero 6:04      The U.S. contribution to the Cambodian genocide 8:14        The role of journalists in Cambodia and conflict zones 17:34      The treatment of journalists under international law 18:46     The killing fields and the film’s impact 24:08    Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran, and journalistic ethics 34:10     The ECCC and transitional justice in Cambodia 42:44     Journalists and international criminal proceedings 47:50     Haing Ngor and his tragic fate 53:26     Civil society endeavors to bring history to life 55:21      The fall of Phnom Penh  59:03    The failed attempt to get Dith Pran out 1:00:15  The risks facing journalists today   Further reading:   Becker, Elizabeth, When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution (1988) Brown, Mark, “Genocide Films, Public Criminology, Collective Memory,” 53 (6) The British Journal of Criminology (2013)    Chandler, David P., The Pol Pot Regime (1991) Kiernan, Ben, Genocide in Cambodia (Revised ed. 2008)  Ngor, Haing (with Warner, Roger), Survival in the Killing Fields (1987) Nunn, Nora, "Rose-Colored Genocide: Hollywood, Harmonizing Narratives, and the Cinematic Legacy,” 14(2) Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 65 (2020) Schanberg, Sydney H., The Death and Life of Dith Pran (1985) Shawcross, William, Sideshow (1979)   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 4m

  7. 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

  8. 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
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5
out of 5
20 Ratings

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
    62
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Law on Film
  • Show Website
    Law on Film

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