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    If you love courtroom dramas, this Oscar-nominated film is not to be missed

    The courtroom drama is a beloved and established film genre. Anatomy of a Fall is a Best Picture nominee that feels familiar at first but immerses audiences in a different kind of legal thriller.
    by Linda Holmes Feb 22, 2024 5 minutes
    "We have to live with the monsters we create," Justine Triet <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1205951212">told NPR's Scott Simon</a>, when he asked whether characters linger with her after a film. "I've been living with these people for three years, and I think I'll probably live with them for at least another year."

    The Oscars love a courtroom drama, and part of the appeal of a traditional courtroom drama has always been the restoration of order. There is an open question, there is an investigation, there is a confrontation, and there is a climactic moment when something is revealed and settles the matter. Even where the system fails, the storytelling succeeds in getting to that resolution. The innocent may be convicted or the guilty set free, but the storyteller gets to the bottom of things, and in that sense, there is order again.

    Plenty of Best Picture nominees have fallen into this category: Witness for the Prosecution, The Verdict, A Few Good Men. This year's courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Fall, looks at this question in a different way.

    Beyond the fact that it's set in France and in the French justice system, the film is ultimately much less clear than these other examples about the answers

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