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 [email protected]
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 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 [email protected]
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 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 [email protected]
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

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 [email protected]
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

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 [email protected]
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

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 [email protected]
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 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 [email protected]
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 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 [email protected]
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

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 [email protected]
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

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 [email protected]
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