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The annual Forum Film Festival offers you the unique opportunity to watch and discuss movies dealing with legal themes, with a box of popcorn in hand and surrounded by a large audience, most of whom are not lawyers, so you don’t need to know any legalese. Featuring an exciting mix of current blockbusters, classic favorites, documentaries, and independent movies over six nights, the Film Festival illuminates the legal system with all of its triumphs, failures, moral dilemmas, and dramatic moments.

Each movie is followed by a post-screening discussion with renowned artists, writers, public intellectuals, and members of the legal profession who have a particular connection to the film. Explore how the themes of justice and injustice continue to inspire the artistic imagination. Hear interesting stories and anecdotes. Get answers to your questions. And share your own ideas and viewpoints.

Additionally, the Forum invites filmmakers from across the globe to submit an original short film on a legal theme. The judges' top picks are shown, discussed, and celebrated at the FOLCS Awards Night during the Film Festival where the winning films receive the FOLCS Awards. The Short Film Competition offers aspiring filmmakers an opportunity to be viewed by renowned judges and the Forum's audience, which votes for the winner of the Audience Favorite Award—all taking place in New York City, the capital of culture.

Events / Film Festival Schedule / 2010

2010 Film Festival

The 5th Annual Forum Film Festival was a tale of two Als, both named Pacino--Al Pacino both opened the Film Festival with his portrayal of Dr. Jack Kevorkian in You Don't Know Jack; and a much younger Pacino closed the Festival with his portrayal of an attorney with a conscience in ... And Justice For All. Our special guests for the Pacino nights were Dr. Jack Kevorkian himself, and actor Jeffrey Tambor, who made his feature film debut in our closing night's film. The Supreme Court of the United States played a part in this year's Film Festival, with our special guest, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Other films explored legal and moral issues issues surrounding slavery, genocide, and a fictional rendering of the Leo Frank trial and subsequent lynching.

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  • HBO Films
    You Don’t Know Jack

    • Jack Kevorkian - Pathologist, Artist, and Right-to-Die Activist
    • Al Pacino stars as Dr. Jack Kevorkian, defender of a patient’s right to die by assisted suicide. This film deals with the sensitive subject of what obligations does society owe to the terminally ill.

  • 12 Angry Men

    • Sonia Sotomayor - Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
    • Henry Fonda plays a righteous juror who seeks to convince eleven fellow jurors of the innocence of an 18-year-old Latino charged with murder.


  • Amistad

    • Debbie Allen - Emmy-winning Actress, Choreographer, Director, and Producer of Amistad
    • Annette Gordon-Reed - Pulitzer Prize–winning Author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family; Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Professor of History at Harvard University, and Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Radcliffe; 2010 MacArthur Fellow
    • This film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is a true story about a 19th century mutiny on a slave ship that sparked a legal battle before the Supreme Court of the United States and forshadowed the Civil War.

  • They Won’t Forget

    • Abraham Foxman - National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
    • Alfred Uhry - Oscar-, Tony-, and Pulitzer Prize–winning Playwright and Screenwriter of Driving Miss Daisy and the musical Parade
    • Morris Dickstein - Author of Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression; Distinguished Professor of English and Theatre, CUNY Graduate Center
    • Lana Turner’s film debut in this classic motion picture from the 1930s in a fictionalized drama based on the Leo Frank trial.

  • Worse Than War

    • Haris Silajdžić – Bosniak Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
    • Daniel Jonah Goldhagen - Bestselling Author of Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust and Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity
    • Bob Simon - Emmy-winning TV Correspondent for CBS News’ 60 Minutes
    • This documentary that premiered on PBS follows Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s travels, teachings, and interviews in nine countries around the world. The film provides an unprecedented journey in exploring the causes where genocide has taken place.

  • ...And Justice For All

    • Jeffrey Tambor - Six-time Emmy-nominated Actor for Arrested Development and The Larry Sanders Show
    • Neal Gabler - Author of Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Film Critic, Cultural Commentator, and former Co-host of the PBS show Sneak Previews
    • Al Pacino stars in this unsparing film where judges are both corrupt and insane, and where a defense attorney, such as Jeffrey Tambor (in his first film), can end up more loony than the character he portrayed on the critically-acclaimed TV show Arrested Development.