Why Is 12 Angry Men Still One of the Best Screenplays Ever?

Josh (00:01)
Everybody. Welcome to So Many Sequels, your book club for movies. I'm Josh. And we are three angry men. Who's number three? Who's number one, two, and three are angry. No, we're not angry, but we're talking about 12 Angry Men today on the show, which—

Garrett Powders (00:06)
I'm Garrett.

David Prock (00:07)
And I'm David. Yes, I'm host number three.

Josh (00:25)
[unclear] David, this was your pick. Did this win?

David Prock (00:29)
This did not. This was nominated for Best Adapted and did not win. Lost to a movie. We'll talk about it in a minute, what it lost to.

Josh (00:34)
There you go. But that's part of our Oscars month here for March, where we are talking about best screenplay nominees and winners. These are movies that have been nominated or won Best Original or Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars, or other various titles that may have been under over the years.

That's something I've noticed is the titles have changed. You guys notice that? Going through some of the old awards, it's like, it used to be called this and now it's called that. The writing awards.

David Prock (01:00)
Yes. Yeah, this was—it was called Best Writing back when this particular award was nominated.

Josh (01:07)
Yeah. So we'll be talking about movies all month long that are in the Best Writing category. Very exciting. This movie came out in 1957. Is that right? Based on a teleplay. Very interesting.

Garrett Powders (01:21)
Yes.

David Prock (01:22)
Yes.

Garrett Powders (01:24)
Interesting.

David Prock (01:25)
Yes. It was a TV film. It was initially produced for television. A live production of 12 Angry Men was broadcast on CBS on September 20th, 1954. It won three Emmys.

Josh (01:41)
Letterboxd says about this movie: "The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other."

So yeah, David, tell us more about when this movie came out. How did it compare to this teleplay stuff and all that?

David Prock (02:10)
Well, it came out—it was officially released in theaters on April 10th, 1957, and was at the time considered a bit of a disappointing box office performance. Made about a million dollars, according to Variety's archives for 1957, in the United States. That's not just opening weekend. That's total. And then it made about another million dollars overseas, where it was actually considered like a lot more—there was a bit of a better reception overseas.

For a worldwide total of maybe two million dollars. A budget of just $380,000, though actor Henry Fonda claimed they only spent $347,000 of that. Shot and filmed in just 21 days.

And Henry Fonda, the actor who plays Juror Number Eight, was a massive part of getting this movie made. He saw the TV movie in 1954 and said, "We got to make that a real movie, like a theatrical movie. It looks great. And I want to be Juror Number Eight. I want to be the main guy."

So he was a big part of getting it launched. It was the directorial debut of Sidney Lumet, who directed Network, which we watched last year during our Academy Awards month when we watched best picture nominees. [unclear] But yes, ended up being the number 91 movie of 1957. Was nominated for three Academy Awards but didn't win any of them. The number one movie in 1957 was The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston.

Garrett Powders (03:19)
Nice. God bless.

David Prock (03:34)
You had Around the World in 80 Days at number two. Giant at number three. Pal Joey. And Seven Wonders of the World was number five. So 1957, a long time ago. And this is our first movie that we reviewed from the 1950s. I talked about—

Garrett Powders (03:50)
You mean to tell me we haven't reviewed Pal Joey?

David Prock (03:53)
We haven't reviewed Pal Joey just yet, or Giant, or any of the others. But I talked about it at the end during our Many Sequels wrap-up last year. I had mentioned that we hadn't done any movies from the 1950s. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to cross that off.

Josh (04:08)
Stunning. I'm stunned. I don't remember that reveal, so I'm stunned again. Well, I'm glad that we've accomplished checking a decade off the list. That's crazy. We're doing better. Wow, okay. Yeah, Twelve Angry Men. Was this the first-time watch for everybody? Yeah, first-time watch here as well.

David Prock (04:22)
Yes.

Garrett Powders (04:23)
We're doing better, boys.

David Prock (04:24)
Yes. It was.

Garrett Powders (04:31)
Indeed.

Josh (04:38)
I don't—how do you even jump into talking about this? Because it really is like, in television terms, it's a bottle episode. It exists totally in one room, basically, for about a little over 90 minutes. Literally starts at the beginning with them just coming in, and we have a 11 to one vote in favor of guilty.

David Prock (04:50)
Yeah.

Garrett Powders (05:06)
Yes.

Josh (05:06)
Thoughts going into it? What did you guys expect? What have you heard?

David Prock (05:11)
I expected exactly what I got, which is that it's supposed to be a very claustrophobic drama, pretty much set in one room. There is one scene where they go into the bathroom. So you have two little sets. But it's going to be these 12 characters sort of going back and forth and slowly but surely uncovering—

David Prock (05:39)
—details and biases. Realizing more and more about each other, realizing more and more about the case, and really drilling down on concepts of groupthink, I guess, and how prejudice plays into these types of things. That's what I expected. And that's what it is.

Josh (06:05)
What about you, Garrett?

Garrett Powders (06:05)
Yeah, I didn't really know what to expect other than a lot of talking. Obviously this is about a jury room, and I'm a person who has watched many an episode of Matlock, both the Andy Griffith and Kathy Bates versions. Thank you very much. So I know some courtroom drama, if I do say so myself.

And this is what, honestly, you would hope people would take it as. And I think that this movie does a good job of looking at all of these different points of view from different people and how they view jury duty also, and how the responsibility—especially in this case—is something that we could so easily take for granted because we got a ball game to get to or something like that.

It is a different era of movie also. And as we've learned over time and as we know, this is shot differently, so it feels like you're in the room with them. And so it takes a long time to really get to where this is going. And that's the way the movies used to be. And especially a play, where there's a long build, a long discussion. It really takes a little while to get to where it's like, all of a sudden I'm sucked in.

And I really appreciate those kinds of movies. But man, they do feel—I think it's an hour and a half, and it felt every minute of a day and a half of waiting for a jury to come back with their deliberation.

David Prock (07:25)
Yeah.

Josh (07:36)
It does.

David Prock (07:40)
What about you, Josh?

Josh (07:41)
It totally does. Yeah, I agree. I was really interested in this, and I've been interested in it for a while because I think jury duty in particular is an interesting concept. I haven't been called to do it yet. I don't know if I want to. People always complain about it, but there's a part of me that's like, it could be vaguely interesting actually. Right, I absolutely would.

Garrett Powders (08:01)
You'd be a Juror Number Eight.

Josh (08:06)
Because I ask questions, and it bugs the hell out of me when people just go, "Okay." And as you can see, if you watch this movie, thank God for Juror Eight.

And that's why I think it's very interesting. I don't fully understand the concept of a jury, but the vast majority of cases it seems that juries work on are not as contentious as this, don't take as long.

David Prock (08:14)
Mm-hmm.

Josh (08:33)
But they didn't seem to think it was gonna take long either. Everybody walked in there pretty convinced this was a closed case, except for Juror Number Eight. And he slowly helps people unravel throughout it, why there should be—he doesn't even introduce evidence in the beginning or anything. He just goes, "I don't know. It just seems like we got to this decision pretty quickly. Maybe we could just talk." So I like that.

David Prock (08:56)
Yeah, I mean, it's really diving into the concept of reasonable doubt.

Josh (09:02)
Yes, I like that, because I wanted to see that examined. People have a preconceived notion of how they think the justice system works, and at the end of the day, a lot of times it is just 12 dudes behind a room deciding your fate.

David Prock (09:16)
Mm-hmm.

Garrett Powders (09:20)
I think that it was raised in this movie about the concept of reasonable doubt and what that means. Because, 1957, there was a remake of this movie in 1997, and that same concept—people take it for granted. And they forget, when you're on jury duty or in your own life, it's innocent until proven guilty.

And I feel like we're so quick in our age to judge in a negative way, that we don't listen, that we don't go in with "they are innocent and they have to prove me otherwise." We go into it thinking they did it and I need to be proven otherwise. And that's not the way it's supposed to work. And so I again appreciate him saying, "We need to talk about this," and really setting the tone of, there's a person's actual life on the line.

David Prock (10:15)
Mm.

Garrett Powders (10:17)
We should at least talk about what we've gone over.

David Prock (10:20)
And there's been—because it's not 1957. It'll be—what would that be, 70 years next year? Is that what it will be?

Garrett Powders (10:29)
We talk about movies here.

David Prock (10:31)
So it's a film that has been analyzed from a legal perspective many times. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has said that it actually was a movie that inspired her to get into law. She does say, though, that when teaching law students, she has often said this, and when talking to jurors she's often said: do not follow the tactics of the 12 Angry Men. Because that one aspect you could say about this movie is that they overdo trying to find reasonable doubt, kind of speculating on things, speculating on whether a woman wore glasses, and kind of really over—obviously as a juror, you can't go out and do your own research and see if you can buy a similar knife. You're not supposed to do those kinds of things. It is kind of advised that they might go too far. But this film—

Garrett Powders (11:15)
You certainly can't bring a knife in a courtroom. And cocaine. You got metal detectors and stuff.

David Prock (11:26)
I think also, beyond the legal analysis—even the question of whether or not they got it right or wrong, that's not really something they answer for us. The movie, where it really comes through in its most interesting way, is you have these 12 men. And to be kind of—I don't want to overdo this, but you have 12 white men, mostly older than—

Josh (11:52)
No, I think that really matters because this is also a time in the country where there's a lot of social change happening. And these are 12 white men, and it is a young Spanish-American man on trial. Yeah, it's important.

Garrett Powders (11:56)
Makes a huge difference.

David Prock (12:02)
And what they discover as they keep going is they all walk into that room, I think, and they all feel like, "We're all equal, right? We're all the same guy. We're all white guys, right?"

But they slowly uncover that there are little subtle things that separate us. Some of us grew up poor and we're doing okay now. Some of us grew up poor and we're rich now. Some of us grew up rich and are still rich. Some of us are immigrants to this country, or sons of immigrants. Some of us are blue collar. Some of us are white collar. Some of us are old men. Some of us are young men.

Some of us are natural leaders. Some of us are emotional and excitable. Some of us are logical and clinical. And those different biases and those different prejudices slowly boil to the top as they keep asking these questions. Some people really care about our society. And some people—I think it's not Ed Begley's character, the character who was making a lot of jokes, Juror Number Seven. He's like, "I don't know, who cares? Just get out of here, man. This is tiring."

Those different things, I think the movie really explores those different prejudices really well. By the end of it, they don't feel equal to each other. They all feel like, this is not as simple as things are. And you got to remember, like you said, Josh, this is the height of social change. It's at the height of the McCarthy era. And a lot of people view this movie through the lens of being a critique of McCarthyism.

And at the 30th Academy Awards where this was nominated, the Hollywood blacklist was still a thing. Communism, the Red Scare was still a huge part of things. The guys who won Best Screenplay for The Bridge on the River Kwai—

Josh (13:44)
And they're doing everything they can to bring it back.

David Prock (13:47)
The guys who won the Best—so this was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay but lost to The Bridge on the River Kwai. And the guys who won that award, who wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai, were blacklisted and not presented the award. They presented it to another guy who didn't write it. They have been— [unclear] —since, the Academy has gone back and rectified that.

But it's a time where these types of struggles were happening. And this movie, I think, does a good job of reflecting that and exploring some of those differences.

Josh (14:26)
Yeah, it's also, to me, a real look at the importance of questioning what's essentially a mob mentality. The easiest solution would be to go, "Everybody thinks he did it? Okay, I guess you're right."

David Prock (14:27)
Or as much as you can with 12 white men. Mm-hmm.

Josh (14:49)
One of those other jurors might have been more willing to be like, "Right, I'm ready to get out of here." But he wasn't. He was willing to stand up to the mob and say no, and here's why, despite the risks at hand. And I think that's always an important lesson and reminder for people.

David Prock (15:04)
For sure. I have done jury duty one time and we did have a case. When you go in, they put you in a little room, you're not allowed to talk to each other as jurors the entire time. So when you go into that room to do the deliberation, that's the first time you actually get to talk to each other. And if you're following the rules, it's the only time you've ever gotten to talk about the case with anybody.

So there's kind of an awkwardness of, I've been sitting next to these people for who knows how long—three days, two days.

Josh (15:09)
Ooh. Sure.

David Prock (15:34)
Ten days, whatever length the trial is. I think ours was like four days. And I kind of had seen these people regularly, but we're not allowed to talk. And then we had to suddenly have a whole conversation about whether or not this guy is going to go to prison for 70 years or not. It's a very pressure-sensitive thing.

Garrett Powders (15:54)
And it should be. I think that's, again, one of the things that this movie is trying to get the point across of, is that you 12 people, depending on what your case is, hold the fate of someone in your hands. What you decide, based on what you've seen and heard, can make a huge difference. And it's something that you should take a considerable amount of thought on.

Because there is a line in there where they're talking about one of the witnesses' testimony, and they were saying, "It's just a matter of seconds, what does it matter?" And Juror Number Eight says, "I think testimony that has somebody's life on the line should be that accurate." And I was like, yes. People just don't—

David Prock (16:25)
Mm-hmm.

Garrett Powders (16:43)
They don't seem to take that responsibility seriously. And it might be the whole, "Oh, jury duty sucks, and you have to go sit there and yada yada yada." But if you do get on a jury, you should definitely—even if it's just a parking ticket, it is something that you should take seriously, because you don't know how that's going to impact the other person's life. And a $5 parking ticket could mean they can't afford groceries, could mean they can't afford rent, just because of something.

And so you have to take everything that you've heard seriously. Especially if you haven't had a chance to talk about it, David, because that's interesting. I didn't know that. But that adds to why they absolutely should be having a discussion about what they've heard, what they've seen, because you have so many different points of view. And that is the point—to say, "Hey, I think this, here's this," and then you break it down.

David Prock (17:24)
Mm-hmm.

Garrett Powders (17:34)
I think that this movie does a great job. Again, it kind of Sorkins it, where it's this idealistic thing of what it should be and how it should play out.

David Prock (17:44)
Yeah, and it does feel like both. It's no surprise that it has been adapted many times for other countries. It's been adapted for Germany, Korea, Japan, I think as well. And then it's also been adapted to a stage play. It feels like a stage play. I was kind of surprised that it was first written for TV.

The way that it's put together seems so simple.

Garrett Powders (17:58)
Looks like a stage play. Yeah.

David Prock (18:09)
But it's a pretty complicated balancing act, because you have this very small room where you have to balance 12 actors and whatever crew you have, right? The first eight minutes, or seven and a half to eight minutes of the movie, is all one shot where the cinematographer said they did 18 camera moves, moving in and back and around the room, introducing characters. You get to talk a little bit as they go back.

Then they said that what they actually did, because it was just easier, was if an actor had a monologue, instead of shooting it in real time and trying to set up lights and move things around, they would just shoot all of that actor's stuff. And so the people to his left and right would be in the scene, and the people on the other side—"Hey, go ahead and walk off. It's fine. We're going to shoot this guy's whole part of the movie right now. And then we'll shoot this guy's whole part of the movie right now." And that's kind of a crazy—

Garrett Powders (19:00)
Yeah.

David Prock (19:02)
—thing to think about, especially when you go back into editing. It's, "Okay, we shot all of your Number Two stuff. Now we're going to shoot all of your Number One stuff."

So it's a very interesting way—from a shooting perspective—and for a movie that's not big—there's no set pieces, there's no major action. You have a very small box. And I think it's a very interesting challenge. And the way they pull it off, I think, did a great job of highlighting the point of this movie, which is mostly the performances and dialogue. That's what this is—it's heavy on that. It's not heavy on a crazy plot, or over-the-top chase sequences or anything crazy you might also look for in a big screenwriting thing.

Josh (19:56)
No, the facts of the case, so to speak, don't even really matter as much, because we're still presented it through the eyes of the jury. Even when they talk about wanting to see the knife again and go through all this stuff in the back—there's no shot. There's no, "Let's see a scene of how this was presented in a trial." It's never anything like that. It is only their perception of everything. Which is, I just think it's a really—

Josh (20:24)
—interesting way to see it. It's the only way I can think of to really show you what it would be like to be the jury, or in the jury room. That's all you have.

David Prock (20:34)
No, I think that, yeah—because they could have done flashbacks to, "Remember that day in court, what they talked about," or—

Josh (20:41)
Or the first 20 minutes could have been the closing arguments and then it would go into it. But no, we don't know anything about the arguments.

David Prock (20:45)
Yeah. And you see the jury's instructions. You don't see the final result. We don't see them go out and make the announcement and see how the defendant reacts or anything like that. It's a very contained story. And I think in that, it is worthy of a nomination, because I think it's a challenge.

Garrett Powders (20:51)
Yeah.

David Prock (21:12)
You can view challenge in writing as two different things. If you have a big worldwide sprawling epic, that's a challenge in writing. But also writing a story that's really compelling that's pretty much one room—I'll give them the bathroom as well, but it's pretty much one room—that's a challenge. That's a hard challenge to write and to keep that room interesting for 90 minutes.

Garrett Powders (21:34)
Well, and you have to talk about the performances too. Because these people are the ones that have to make it interesting, because the writing is pretty good—obviously, it's nominated for an Academy Award. And so these are the performers who have to take that piece and make it worth it, because it's tough. It's heavy. It's dialogue heavy. It's not—

David Prock (21:54)
Mm-hmm.

Garrett Powders (21:58)
—interesting as far as cuts or actions, or keeping your attention, other than the very interesting story and the way that it unravels and the way that they tell it. Obviously I feel like the standout performers were Juror Number Three, Juror Number Seven, Eight, and Ten. So you got Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, Henry Fonda, and Ed Begley.

David Prock (22:18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, really calm. Yeah.

Garrett Powders (22:24)
And each of them were so strong in their delivery, but they were also kind of one note. You have 12 different people, so they all kind of have to think and be a certain specific way without showing a lot of sway until they actually sway. But I think they all did a really good job of delivering and making you like them or hate them, or kind of forget about them.

David Prock (22:42)
No, that's 100%. You have 12 characters. That's a lot of characters to manage. And to kind of find a way—because you start with 11 and you work your way slowly to two people. Two people say not guilty. Well, now three, now five, now six, and slowly—finding what are those points that make someone question, and what can their background tell you about that?

What can their family status—those little things—what can we press on to make it believable that all of a sudden this is starting to change? And you kind of have two villains, if you will. You have Ed Begley and you have Juror Number Three, played by Lee J. Cobb. They're very hot tempered. They hold on to the "guilty" as long as they can.

I think one of the more powerful scenes in the movie is when Ed Begley—

Garrett Powders (23:42)
Toxic masculinity at its finest.

David Prock (23:47)
—really goes off on "these people" and "you can't trust these people" and "they will do this." And you watch as each of the jurors reaches a breaking point in that type of language and steps away, except for two. And I think that one of them would step away, but it's not in his character to.

You have, and I like this guy a lot too, Juror Number Six, played by Edward Binns. He's the one that has the glasses. He's very clinical. He doesn't—

David Prock (24:17)
—raise his voice. He's very meticulous. And I think he's listening to that because the guy is yelling, and he tells him at the end, "No, I heard what you—I'm listening now. Sit down and shut up and don't speak again." He didn't have to stand up because it's just not—he's like, "I'm going to tell this guy to stop."

But—and this is where I'm going to be me from 2026 about it. It is so heartwarming to watch a man be shamed into silence. That is something that I really wish still worked today. Because all of those other men stand up and turn their back on him as he continues to spout essentially his prejudice. And for him to be shamed into, "I got to go sit down and I'm going to say not guilty," because, "I've just—maybe I've even said more than I realized I knew about myself." Great.

Josh (25:13)
Yeah, feels like it wouldn't happen today.

Garrett Powders (25:15)
David, I appreciate your input on that, because my takeaway from that was, man, in 1957 and in 2026, I don't believe that many people would stand up and move away from the table during this idiot's rant.

David Prock (25:28)
Yeah, I think luckily he had irritated them enough before that.

Josh (25:28)
Very possible. That's the thing, is I think it feels less likely today actually than at least the writers could imagine it in the 1950s. I can't even imagine it now.

David Prock (25:36)
Yeah. And I do think too, it speaks to—really, had the defendant been a young Black kid, I think it's different than the defendant—even if he is Spanish-American—also looks white, like them. I think that also says a lot about them. One of the characters is an immigrant, or maybe the son of an immigrant. He makes an impassioned speech about why this system means—why he was proud to do this jury duty, because it's something that in—

Garrett Powders (25:43)
That's true.

Garrett Powders (25:58)
Yeah, he did.

David Prock (26:13)
I think the way he puts it, in his country, he wouldn't have been afforded this type of right, or something like that. I'd have to go back to the specific line. It is a very interesting analysis of that mentality, of those ideas. But great performances. Like you said.

Garrett Powders (26:17)
Yeah. Well, they did remake it in 1997. Did you guys watch that? Have you guys seen that version of it? Okay, so—

David Prock (26:32)
No. Now I'm excited, because you said that, because I do think it would be interesting to watch another interpretation of this.

Josh (26:37)
I want to.

Garrett Powders (26:39)
So I watched it—just literally just finished it before we jumped on the microphone. And let me give you a quick little rundown. It's almost exactly the same. There's almost zero changes to the dialogue.

Josh (26:40)
Ooh. Really?

Garrett Powders (26:55)
To the story. It is almost word-for-word the same. It's a little longer. It didn't seem like it was cut as quick, and they may have expanded on a few things. The thing that is mostly different is it's a more diverse cast.

So you have Courtney B. Vance as the Foreman. You have Ossie Davis as Juror Number Two. You have George C. Scott—better known as Ivan Ooze—as Juror Number Three.

David Prock (27:15)
Ossie Davis. Well, that's great.

Garrett Powders (27:25)
You have Armin Mueller-Stahl as Juror Number Four. Yeah, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza. Jack Lemmon is Juror Number Eight. Edward James Olmos. You've got William Petersen and all his CSI youngness there. So it is a really strong cast.

And one of the more interesting choices that they made as far as casting was—

Josh (27:28)
I'm done.

David Prock (27:30)
Man, James Gandolfini? That makes sense. [unclear]

Garrett Powders (27:52)
Mykelti Williamson. I don't know if I said his name right, but he's Juror Number Ten, and he is a Black man. It looks like he was at one point—they bring up the Nation of Islam. And he is the one who is talking about his beliefs on people and "those people." And so they made some interesting casting choices. I do wish it wouldn't have been exactly the same, but I—

David Prock (27:57)
Yeah, he's Bubba from Forrest Gump.

Garrett Powders (28:22)
—did feel like the diverse cast added a lot more.

David Prock (28:26)
Yeah, because I do think—people are always going to be anti-remake, but I do think when you have a story that is this airtight conceptually, I'm really interested to see how other people interpret the same material. That's why, obviously, I'm really glad to see it adapted to a stage play. In the world of theater, you can do the same play billions of times with different actors because every performance is unique.

I wish we had a little bit more leeway towards remakes in the film world, because I think, okay, yeah, making this a diverse cast—what if this was a cast that was—that's why you go to another country where the cast can all be, for the most part, the same ethnic group. You can have a lot of the similar conversations. It is an interesting show. It's an interesting play.

The great screenplay for adaptation.

Garrett Powders (29:21)
David, what did you say it lost to?

Josh (29:22)
Very much, then.

David Prock (29:24)
It lost to The Bridge on the River Kwai, which—not gonna knock that.

Garrett Powders (29:28)
No, that's fair.

Josh (29:29)
No. I was checking some of the rankings of this movie, and it's made several American Film Institute lists. Juror Number Eight in particular was named the 28th best hero in their 100 Heroes and Villains list, which is pretty interesting.

David Prock (29:37)
Yes. And I think 12 Angry Men, AFI voted it the second best courtroom drama, behind To Kill a Mockingbird.

Garrett Powders (29:55)
Hmm. Did they have Matlock: The Movie on that list?

David Prock (29:57)
[unclear] I don't think so, unfortunately.

Josh (30:01)
What'd you say, Matlock?

Garrett Powders (30:03)
Not like the movie.

David Prock (30:05)
I also think—12 Angry Men is kind of one of those movies that's considered a basic cinephile top four. If you're one of those people who are really—Letterboxd, "I'm a cinephile. If only they asked me about my profile page." It's a very basic answer to be in your top four.

But that said, it's because everybody really likes this movie. This is going to be a hard Letterboxd game that we do in a—

Josh (30:38)
Oh my God, are you kidding me? I bet. I'm already interested to see what funny reviews there might be—if they're even funny. They're always funny. Gotta be. Alright, well, are we ready for that point? I think so. Final ratings and reviews from us?

Gosh. I think it's a five-star movie for me.

Garrett Powders (30:48)
Some of them. Yeah, I think so.

David Prock (30:51)
Yeah, I say so. Let's talk it in.

Garrett Powders (31:01)
Whoa.

Josh (31:03)
It's like, top to bottom, what's wrong with it? It's good. It doesn't overstay its welcome, I don't think. I'm trying to think of all the things that would knock it off five from me. And I don't think it has any of them. It holds up crazy well over that many years.

David Prock (31:06)
Yeah. I agree. I think all of its strengths are highlighted and any weaknesses are hard to really poke too hard at. You could knock it for things like how realistic is it legally, or the tactics of it or something like that, I suppose. But I don't really care about those things so much.

I think that this is the kind of show I'd love to be in. And that's always a mark for me.

Josh (31:42)
Yeah. Yeah, it'd be a fun play.

David Prock (31:50)
It'd be a fun play to be in, I think, to be one of these characters. I haven't rated a movie on that in a long time, but that is how I feel. I want to be one of these jurors. So I also think I'd give it five stars. I think it is nearly flawless, or flawless.

Garrett Powders (32:07)
Nice. I am not going to go as high as you guys. I do think it's incredibly strong, obviously worth the writing nomination and everything and the praise that it's gotten. For me, again, I do care about some of those things, and I look at it the same way I do whenever we analyze a Sorkin thing—this is the way it should be and it's not, and that's fine. But it raises awareness to it and I really appreciate it.

But both versions, let me tell you, they're very slow. And that does get a ding—

Josh (32:10)
That's fine.

Garrett Powders (32:38)
—for me, even if it's just a little bit. And we're looking at the movie as a whole, I probably wouldn't want to watch these again. But if everybody else was like, "Yeah, let's do it," I mean, alright. Yes, it's incredible, but I'm gonna fall asleep.

Josh (32:54)
How many times you end up in a room where someone goes, "Let's watch 12 Angry Men?"

Garrett Powders (32:57)
Exactly.

Garrett Powders (32:58)
Never. Which is why I will probably never see these again, and that's why it's not gonna make it quite to five. I'm gonna do a four and a half.

David Prock (33:06)
Okay. I am glad I knocked it off my list—my watch list, that is. I need to—off camera, I should tell you guys about the jury duty I had one time. There were some interesting takeaways.

Garrett Powders (33:09)
Yeah.

Josh (33:18)
Alright, well, I got some Letterboxd reviews here. We've got: Four stars—"Guilty of being a good-ass movie." Five stars—"Guess you could say that I couldn't be any Fonda of this film."

David Prock (33:26)
Yeah.

Josh (33:33)
Five stars—"Three very angry men, nine relatively pissed-off men." I think that's a fair assessment. Four stars—"I know it smelled crazy in there." How do you want to think about it?

David Prock (33:37)
Yeah.

Garrett Powders (33:37)
Yes, that's what we mean. Agreed.

David Prock (33:43)
Ha ha ha!

Garrett Powders (33:44)
Man, how many of them old men—they can't control their farts either, and it's so hot.

Josh (33:49)
Exactly.

Josh (33:51)
And they all smell like bad cologne. And then finally, five stars—"When they all start ignoring the racist, one of the best scenes in cinema history right there. There is no reasonable doubt." Truly.

Alright. What do we think? I think they're going to go high on this. But who gets his first?

Garrett Powders (34:03)
Yeah, I agree with that. That was awesome.

David Prock (34:12)
Right now, I am in last. You and Garrett are tied. Josh, since you won the most recent, you'll go last. So it'll be me, Garrett, then Josh. I'm gonna guess Letterboxd community is gonna give us a 4.4.

Josh (34:15)
Okay. You gotta guess it. Okay. Rip it! Okay, that's—

Garrett Powders (34:27)
Whoa, you're shooting a shot.

David Prock (34:30)
Shooting high.

Garrett Powders (34:32)
I am not gonna go that high, but I'm gonna give it a 4.2.

Josh (34:37)
Okay, I'm gonna give it a 4.0, I guess, and just see if we go—I don't know about higher than 4.4. That's crazy high. Let's see.

Garrett Powders (34:50)
No, it's going to be well reviewed.

Josh (34:55)
No direct hits. David is the winner. I think—yes, this is a 4.6. It is higher. This is a 4.6 movie. I'm shocked, actually.

David Prock (34:56)
Ugh.

Garrett Powders (35:01)
Woo!

David Prock (35:01)
A 4.6?!

Garrett Powders (35:03)
Well, I mean, listen, we gave it two fives and a four and a half. Two fives and a four and a half. That's 4.6, roughly.

David Prock (35:09)
Yeah.

Josh (35:12)
[unclear]

David Prock (35:12)
And at four and a half. That's amazing. I had no idea that they even went that high on Letterboxd.

Josh (35:21)
As an aggregate average, yeah, that's pretty freaking high.

David Prock (35:26)
So this must be almost exclusively fives and four-and-a-halfs in its little graph there. Is that the case?

Josh (35:31)
Yeah, and this is 12 Angry Men. It's got 1.3 million ratings. It's got a lot.

David Prock (35:36)
Oh yeah. I'm looking at the thing now. The bar—the little grid is like four, four and a half, five. It's like that. Oh, you've got to read some of these reviews. Not right now, but in time. There are 1,237 half-star reviews. What could that possibly be?

Garrett Powders (35:58)
"Too boring, moving on."

Josh (35:58)
Dive. "I like the racist." Things like that.

David Prock (36:02)
"He was guilty."

Josh (36:06)
Yeah, "He was guilty. They should have killed him in the first five minutes."

David Prock (36:10)
Okay, well, that brings us to dead even through our first eight. Let's see here. One, two, three, four, five, six movies in. We are all tied three to three to three.

Garrett Powders (36:22)
Wow.

Josh (36:25)
Right? Well, that's gonna do it for this episode. We've got more best writing movies coming up. We've got Do the Right Thing next on the list, so go check that out. Be ready to watch that if you want to follow along with us. You can go to somanysequels.com, subscribe to the show on YouTube or Spotify for the video.

Apple's getting video now. They're catching up, so maybe you'll be able to watch our videos there sometime. I don't care.

David Prock (36:32)
Yeah. One day we'll get a set or something. We'll figure that out.

Josh (36:55)
Yeah, someday. So anyway, go check all that out at somanysequels.com. You can follow us on Instagram, So Many Sequels Pod, and let us know what you think of 12 Angry Men, or your favorite best writing movies, best Oscar movies. We want to hear about your favorite films. So go let us know. We'll see you guys next time.