Every fan of the best feature-length legal dramas has experienced the deflating feeling of thinking that maybe the movie ended just as things were starting to get more interesting. That feeling usually rears its ugly head simply because there’s always more to the story than viewers are shown on screen. Real trials drag on for months, sometimes years, and it’s often a challenge for feature-length movies to put everything on screen.
Whether it’s how and why a witness disappeared or what happens to families that fell apart waiting for verdicts, there’s always something the film cuts out due to time constraints. Yes, that’s right. The biggest enemy to these feature lengths is time. Two hours is barely enough to show how messy the justice system actually gets. These five films are great, but they all would have been even better as TV shows. Here’s why.
5. Worth (2020)
This movie is about Kenneth Feinberg (played to perfection by Michael Keaton), the man who had the frankly difficult task of putting a price tag on the lives lost during the unfortunate tragedy that is 9/11. The film is quite respectful in the way it handled the tragedy, no disputing that. But it also felt like a highlight reel. It zipped through meetings so fast that audiences barely got to know any of the victims before the next case started.
Imagine spending a whole episode with just one family, watching them relive the worst moments of their lives just to fill out a government form. The debates about who counts as a “victim” get some screen time, but that alone should have been enough to carry a full season of six to eight episodes. Also, the real-life Ken Feinberg went on to handle funding for the Boston Marathon bombing, GM’s ignition switch recall, and the BP oil spill. His BP work alone deserved a season of its own because a federal judge ruled that Feinberg wasn’t independent of BP. That ruling raises the kind of ethical question that can’t be answered properly in just two hours.
4. Marshall (2017)
Chadwick Boseman did an incredible job as Thurgood Marshall, but this film only covers one random case in his life and calls it a day. And it’s a shame because Marshall won 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court before he ever became a Justice himself. A TV series, even a limited one, could maybe follow Marshall through the years, showing him slowly chip away at segregation, one case at a time.
Watching him win some, lose some, and slowly build the legal strategy that would eventually change the country. The movie we got was essentially a really, really great pilot episode that never got picked up for a full season. It honestly feels like a missed opportunity for everyone involved.
3. The Burial (2023)
Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx) was born to be a series regular because who flies in on his own private jet to take on a funeral home giant? A giant killer, that’s who. The man oozes charisma, and the movie did its best to contain him, even though it was clear there was more to him than we saw. Also, the movie barely had time to set up the lawsuit before everything had to wrap up. A TV show would slow things down, show viewers all the corporate backroom deals, show how the other side tried to play dirty, and show Gary working his magic through multiple episodes. Two hours just wasn’t enough for all that.
2. Dark Waters (2019)
It just doesn’t feel satisfying to watch a two-decade story compressed into two hours of entertainment, but that’s exactly what happens in Dark Waters. Mark Ruffalo plays Robert Bilott, a corporate defense lawyer from Cincinnati who spends the better part of 20 years fighting DuPont over chemical contamination. The main problem with the movie is that it rushes past the important stuff, including how DuPont had internal documents showing the dangers of the chemical for decades before the public knew.
A full episode from a show would take the time to show viewers the science of it all, how the waters were contaminated. Another could show the rancher whose cows are dying from drinking contaminated water and the families whose water made them sick. Let the evidence pile up slowly so that viewers can feel the weight. This is one of the most infuriating cover-ups in human history, and it certainly deserved more than what a movie theater could offer.
1. Just Mercy (2019)
Just Mercy follows Bryan Stevenson, played by Michael B. Jordan, fighting to exonerate Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), a Black man wrongfully sent to death row in Alabama. The film is powerful, but that case only covers maybe five percent of what Stevenson has actually done. The Equal Justice Initiative, which he created, has won relief for over 140 (and counting) people on death row. And the issues, including racial bias, bad lawyers, and corrupt cops, are still relevant today. A show could pick a new case each season, or follow Stevenson as he builds his organization from the ground up. His book, titled Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, actually details more than the MacMillan case, which means that the movie we got was just a warm-up act.
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