All-Time Favourite Films: 12 angry men

Members of the #30plus MIRC channel were asked to note their all-time favourite films and to submit a list of 10, in order of enjoyment. Thanks to the 31 people who spent many hours jotting notes, the process provoked amazing discussions on line, and around peoples' kitchen tables. The final list consists of films that were mentioned over and over again, with the most frequently nominated films having an asterisk attached.

This list does not seem to hang together cohesively. As some resp­ond­ents noted, there might have been a gender thing going on and perhaps an age thing as well. Since many of the respondents were North American, the preference for Hollywood might well have been a factor.

In the end people could use the list as a reference (both positive and negative) for their own film selections, and perhaps for some analysis as well.


*2001 A Space Odyssey
12 Angry Men (my favourite)
Amadeus
American Graffiti
African Queen
Angel Heart
Bull Durham
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Chronicles Of Riddick
Dr Zhivago
Field of Dreams
Full Metal Jacket
*Gone With the Wind
Goodfellas
Good Will Hunting
Good, The Bad and the Ugly
It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World
LA Confidential
Last of the Mohicans
Lion in Winter
Lord of the Rings
*Matrix
Notebook
On Golden Pond
Pitch Black
Pulp Fiction
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler's List
Shawshank Redemption
Sixth Sense Sound of Music
*Star Wars
Steel Magnolias
*To Kill a Mockingbird
West Side Story
*Wizard of Oz

Years later I created a list of my personal favourites:
Tea With Mussolini
Ladies in Lavender
Late Bloomers
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Howard's End
Room with a View

12 Angry Men, 1957

Sidney Lumet already an experienced theatre and television director, rehearsed his cast for two weeks and then confined them in an actual jury room where virtually the entire film was shot. The claustrophobic setting combined with the combustible personalities of a dynamic cast, incl Lee J Cobb, Henry Fonda and E.G Marshall, to create a riveting drama. Although a critical success, the film performed poorly at the box office.

Although I was in high school when I saw the film, I had zero idea that jurors didn't recognise the importance of reasonable doubt and that jurors had a moral obligation to vote not guilty if was any doubt. Worse still, I didn't know that prejudices, class differences, racism and unresolved personal trauma could have slipped out, without the juror noticing it. So might viewers conclude that the jury started with false certainty and deliberated until they uncovered the certain truth. but the jury wasn’t able to establish whether or not the defendant was innocent. Rather than uncovering certainty, their deliberations uncover doubt. And I had never been out of Australia yet, so it was important for me to grasp the main message of 12 Angry Men. And that was that justice required critical thinking, open-mindedness and the strict application of reasonable doubt, free from personal bias, prejudice and rushing to judgment. But no women in the jury was beyond my grasp :(

12 Angry Men, TCM