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

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

The Return of Martin Guerre is a 1982 French historical drama directed by Daniel Vigne and staring Gerard Depardieu. The film describes the historical case of Martin Guerre who leaves his young wife Bertrande (Nathalie Baye) in the small French village of Artigat to fight in a war and travel. Around eight years later, the false Martin (played by Depardieu) returns to the village to resume his life. The false Martin (whose real name is Arnaud du Tilh) persuades the people in the village that he is in fact Martin Guerre. This includes Bertrande, who goes on to have two children with the false Martin and who seems happy to finally have a husband who loves her, as opposed to the real Martin, with whom she was trapped in an arranged and loveless marriage. But when the imposter Martin presses his uncle for the money he is owed for his land, the uncle denounces him as a fraud. An investigation and trial follow to determine if the Depardieu character is the real Martin. The imposter Martin is on the verge of winning until the real Martin shows up at the last minute, exposing the imposter Martin, who then confesses. The imposter (i.e., Arnaud) is then led to the gallows and hanged, and the real Martin resumes his place in the village.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

2:56 Teaching comparative law through film

4:18 A quick primer on French legal history

7:33 Jean de Coras and the Parliament of Toulouse

11:28 How the false Martin Guerre becomes Martin Guerre

16:12 The allegations against Martin and Bertrande

21:01 The trial of Martin Guerre

25:16 How the false Martin almost pulls it off

27:26 The execution

31:29 Religious conflict in 16th century Europe

34:59 The difficulty of proving identity at the time

Further reading:

Bienen, Leigh Buchanan, Book Review, “The Law as Storyteller,” 98 Harv. L. Rev. 494 (1984)

Davis, Natalie Zemon, The Return of Martin Guerre (1983)

Dellapenna, Joseph, “Peasants, Tanners, and Psychiatrists: Using Films to Teach Comparative Law,” 36 (1) Int’l J. Legal Information 156 (2008)

Finlay, Robert, “The Refashioning of Martin Guerre,” 93(3) Am. Hist. Rev. 553 (1988)

Hall, Phyllis A., “Teaching Analytical Thinking through the AHR Forum and ‘The Return of Martin Guerre’” Perspectives on History (Jan. 1, 1990)

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

This episode examines The Conformist, Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 political drama set in 1930s Italy. The film centers on Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a mid-level Fascist functionary who is ordered to assassinate his former professor, an anti-fascist dissident living in Paris. The film, which includes many flashbacks to Clerici’s early life and decision to join the secret police, provides powerful and chilling insights into the psychology of conformism and fascism The film, widely considered one of the greatest ever made, not only features outstanding performances but also superb production design (Fernando Scarfiotti) and cinematography (Vittorio Storaro) that helps capture Italy under Mussolini. The film is as timely today as it was when it was released, as the world witnesses a resurgence of authoritarianism in the United States and Europe.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

3:45 Fascist Italy under Mussolini

7:58 Why Clerici joins the fascists

12:39 Repression of sexual orientation and the desire to belong

14:10 Why people are vulnerable to fascism

18:56 Manganiello and the fascist enforcer

23:43 Perspectives on normalcy and the scenes in Paris

31:56 How the film speaks to the Trump era

36:40 Architecture in Mussolini’s Italy

39:08 The murder of Quadri and Anna

44:39 After Mussolini falls

50:30 The lack of consequences for going along with fascism

56:04 The Holocaust in Mussolini’s Italy

Further reading:

Bosworth, R.J.B., Mussolini’s Italy: Life under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945 (2006)

Elbiri, Bilge, “It’s Time to See ‘The Conformist’ Again,” Vulture (Jan. 14, 2023)

Huq, Aziz, "America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State," The Atlantic (Mar. 23. 2025)

Kael, Pauline, “‘The Conformist’: The Poetry of Images,” New Yorker (Mar. 27, 1971)

Moravia, Alberto, The Conformist (1951)

Musil, Robert, The Man Without Qualities (1930-43)

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

Dark Waters (2019), directed by Todd Haynes, tells the real-life story of how a lawyer, Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo), waged a twenty-year battle to hold the DuPont corporation accountable for contaminating a local water supply with carcinogenic chemicals that poisoned tens of thousands of people. While Bilott is ultimately able to achieve some degree of compensation and justice for the victims, the film shows the challenges of litigating against a powerful company bent on denying responsibility and covering up its misconduct.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

2:35 The origins: a small case for a family friend back home

6:24 Teflon and the “miracle” chemical

10:24 How attorney Rob Bilott uncovers the pollution

13:49 Getting the Taft firm on board

21:50 Addressing the legal challenges in the case

24:30 Medical monitoring and causation in toxic tort cases

28:36 Divisions in the community, financial pressures, and client management

30:30 DuPont’s clout

35:14 Bellwether trials: trying the cases in court

39:44 What the litigation achieved and the continued challenges

46:27 The risks of “forever chemicals”

49:50 Developments since the film was released

55:43 Can the legal system deliver justice?

1:01:53 Some further developments

Further reading:

Bilott, Robert, Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont (Atria Books 2019)

Carucci, Rob, “Leadership Lessons from Rob Bilott’s 20 Year Battle for Justice Against DuPont,” Forbes (July 12, 2021)

Nevitt, Mark P. & Percival, Robert V., “Can Environmental Law Solve the ‘Forever Chemical’ Problem,” 57 Wake Forest L. Rev. 239 (2022)

Rich, Nathaniel, “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare,” N.Y. Times Magazine (Jan. 6, 2016)

Small, Sarah Chen, Note, “Toxic Film: Analyzing the Impact of Films Depicting Major Contamination Events on the Regulation of Toxic Chemicals,” 35 Georgetown Env. L. Rev. 561 (2023)

Tabuchi, Hiroko, “Trump Administration to Uphold Some PFAS Limits but Eliminate Others,” N.Y. Times (May 14, 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

This episode examines I Just Didn’t Do It, a 2007 Japanese film written and directed by Masayuki Suo. In the film, 26-year-old Teppei Kaneko (played by Ryo Kase) is traveling to a job interview on a packed Tokyo commuter train when a 15-year-old school girl, who was standing in front of him on the train and whom Kaneko hardly noticed, wrongly accuses him of groping (chikan). Kaneko is arrested. He is advised by a lawyer to plead guilty and pay a small fine, after which he will be freed. But Kaneko maintains his innocence and decides to fight the case, even though he is told that nearly everyone who takes their case to trial in Japan is convicted. The film then documents Kaneko’s nightmare odyssey through the Japanese criminal justice system, where he is detained for months and ultimately convicted despite significant problems with the prosecution's case. I Just Didn’t Do It provides important insights into the Japanese criminal justice system and a critique of how it operates, including its treatment of the presumption of innocence.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

2:52 Background on the Japanese criminal justice system

5:19 The crime of groping (chikan) in Japan

8:57 The pressure to plead guilty

17:12 The interrogation of suspects

18:46 Criminal defense lawyers in Japan

22:31 Why defendants tend to testify at trial

23:52 The prosecution’s disclosure obligations

28:30 How bail operates in Japan

31:04 The rotation of judges in Japan

34:06 The incentives in favor of conviction

38:44 Finding the defendant guilty despite reasonable doubt

43:20 The lay judge (saiban) system in Japan

46:54 A critique of Japan's treatment of the presumption of innocence

Further reading:

Aronson, Bruce E. & Johnson, David T., “Comparative Reflections on the Carlos Ghosn Case and Japanese Criminal Justice,” 18 Asia-Pacific Journal 24(2) (Dec. 15, 2020)

Doi, Kanae, “Inquiry Needed into Japan’s Flawed Criminal Justice System,” Human Rights Watch (Nov. 4, 2024)

Japan Federation of Bar Associations, “The Japanese Judicial System”

Keiichi, Muraoka & Toshikuni, Murai, “Citizens on the Bench: Assessing Japan’s Lay Judge System,” Nippon.com (June 26, 2019)

Meehan, Susan, “I Just Didn’t Do It,” The Japan Society

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

This episode looks at On the Waterfront, the celebrated 1954 American film directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. The film stars Marlon Brando as the ex-prize fighter turned New Jersey longshoreman Terry Malloy. Malloy struggles to stand up to mob-affiliated union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) after Malloy is lured into setting up a fellow dockworker whom Friendly has murdered to prevent him from testifying before the Waterfront Crime Commission about violence and corruption at the docks. The pressure on Malloy rises as he falls in love with Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint), the murdered dockworker’s sister, and as Edie, along with local priest Father Pete Barry (Karl Malden), urge Malloy to do the right thing. Malloy ultimately testifies against Friendly and challenges Friendly’s leadership at great personal risk. While the film is about a courageous fight against a corrupt power structure and injustice, it is also influenced by director Elia Kazan’s own controversial decision to act as an informant against fellow directors, writers, and actors during the McCarthy-era Red Scare.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

2:20 Corruption on the docks

9:18 Boxing: I could have been a contender

17:07 The priest on the waterfront

23:44 Testifying before waterfront crime commission

32:10 Informants

34:48 Elia Kazan and the House Un-American Activities Committee

47:04 The film’s relevance today

48:39 Some people who stood up to HUAC

50:40 Separating the art and the artist

Further reading:

Demeri, Michelle J., “The ‘Watchdog’ Agency: Fighting Organized Crime on the Waterfront in New York and New Jersey,” 38 New Eng. J. on Crim. & Civ. Confinement 257 (2012)

Murphy, Sean, “An Underworld Syndicate': Malcolm Johnson's ' On the Waterfront' Articles,” The Pulitzer Prizes Archive (1948)

Navasky, Victor S., Naming Names (Viking Press 1980)

Rebello, Stephen, A City Full of Hawks: On the Waterfront Seventy Years Later—Still the Great American Contender (Rowman & Littlefield 2024)

Pjevach, Julia, Note, “A Comparative Look at the Response to Organized Crime in the Ports of New York-New Jersey and Vancouver,” 6 Cardozo Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 283 (2022)

Smith, Wendy, “The Director Who Named Names,” The American Scholar (Dec. 10, 2014)

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

Muhammad Ali is widely recognized as one of the greatest athletes of all-time and one of the most important figures of the 20th century. In addition to his long and celebrated career as a boxer and three-time heavyweight champion of the world, Ali changed the conversation about race, religion, and politics in America. Ali’s refusal to be inducted into the U.S. military during the Vietnam War on religious grounds—a profound act of resistance that resulted not only in Ali’s three-plus-year exile from professional boxing, but also a criminal conviction and five year-prison sentence that Ali almost had to serve until it was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court—represented a pivotal moment of the 1960s. Ali has been the subject of numerous books and documentary films, including the Oscar-winning When We Were Kings (1996) and The Trials of Muhammad Ali (2013). He is also the subject of the 2001 Hollywood biopic, Ali (co-written and directed by Michael Mann and starring Will Smith as Ali), which focuses on the ten-year period from Ali’s capture of the heavyweight crown from Sonny Liston in 1964 to Ali’s fight against George Foreman in Zaire in 1974 (the famed “Rumble in the Jungle”). Once a sharply polarizing figure, Ali became one of the most celebrated and eulogized individuals in America, whose rich, if not incomparable, legacy reverberates around the world today.

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction

2:22 Formative experiences

5:00 From Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali

10:26 Opposition to the Vietnam draft

13:16 Ali’s loss of his prime years

15:42 The broader significance of Ali’s opposition to induction

18:08 Ali’s legal challenges and the U.S. Supreme Court

22:48: The Fight of the Century

24:06 From a symbol of resistance to reconciliation

27:50 Becoming a global icon: The Rumble in the Jungle

35:30 Ali and Howard Cosell

36:57 Ali and Malcolm X

41:08 Some problems of the Ali biopic

44:12 Ali’s post-boxing career

47:53 Sports and resistance: Ali's legacy

Further reading:

Hauser, Thomas, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (1991)

Kindred, Dave, Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship (2006)

Lederman, Marty, “The story of Cassius Clay v. United States,” SCOTUSBlog (June 8, 2016)

Lipsyte, Robert, Free to Be Muhammad Ali (1978)

Marqusee, Mike, Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties (2017)

Remnick, David, King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero (1998)

Zirin, Dave, Muhammad Ali Handbook (2007)

Zirin, Dave, The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World (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