Law in film: Globalizing the Hollywood courtroom drama

The courtroom drama is a prominent film genre. Most of the movies in this c ategory are Hollywood productions, dealing with the legal system in the Uni ted States of America. What they have in common is that essential parts of their stories take place in court. These movies have a tremendous influence on the public's concept of justice even though very few of them accurately reflect legal reality. Anyone with legal training who watches films of thi s sort will notice in them all sorts of absurdities' which are not thorough ly investigated in this paper. Our concern here is to inquire why even movi es that take place in continental Europe follow patterns of the American sy stem and also why certain elements from American movies are repeated over a nd over again.