History Film / TwelveAngryMen

* PsychologicalProjection: It becomes clear by the end that the ''real'' reason Juror #3 is so insistent on a guilty conviction is because he's projecting his own problems with his son onto the case.

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Juror #8 catches #10 in a bit of a contradiction early on, which earns him a [[TranquilFury cold, sarcastic reply]].

* BerserkButton: #6 twice threatens violence (once explicitly, once by implication) over people showing disrespect to others.

** Juror #3 may be vicious and want to see the defendant executed, but even he is unwilling to listen to #10's bigoted tirades (he gets up right before #10's tirade, and doesn't sit back down until after it's over). Even Juror #4, who comes off as a {{Jerkass}} at times, and is strongly convinced of the defendant's guilt, has had enough of #10's bigotry, and tells him as such in no uncertain terms.

%%** Sanguine: Juror #12 (advertising executive)
%%** Choleric: Juror #1 (school football coach), and ''especially'' Juror #10 (bigoted garage owner)
%%** Melancholic: Juror #4 (stock broker)
%%** Phlegmatic: Juror #8 (architect), Juror #9 (the old man) and Juror #11 (immigrant watch maker)
%%** Sanguine and choleric: Juror #7 (salesman and baseball fan)
%%** Choleric and melancholic: Juror #3 (the unmerciful messenger service owner)
%%** Melancholic and phlegmatic: Juror #2 (bank teller)
%%** Leukine: Juror #5 (businessman who grew up in a slum), Juror #6 (house painter)

** Vaguely [[ImpliedTrope implied]] for Juror #10. When he rants at length about how "they" (the unspecified ethnic group the defendant belongs to) are by nature nothing but a bunch of liars and killers, the way all eleven of the other jurors respond with silent open contempt for his views, followed by #4's [[ShutUpHannibal command to sit down and not say another word]] causes him to go practically catatonic. He spends the remainder of the deliberation silently [[ThousandYardStare staring at nothing]], and after #4 changes his vote to not guilty, #10 soon follows. It is left ambiguous, if this means he was actually rethinking his views, or if he just felt defeated.

* LampshadeHanging: "You know, it's interesting he'd find a knife exactly like the one the boy bought!"
** [[UpToEleven Double lampshaded]] by #3's response asking what's so interesting about it.

* SecondhandStorytelling: We never see the murder, the investigation, or even the trial - all we learn about them is what comes up during the deliberation by the jurors.
* ShutUpHannibal: Juror #10 digs his own grave when he starts shooting his mouth off about how inferior the lower classes are. By the time he's finished, when everyone has clearly stopped listening, this trope is all it takes to shut him up for the rest of the movie.
** Done almost literally by #4:

-->'''Juror #3:''' They'll get their chance to talk-BE quiet a second, will ya?

* TheUnreveal: Did the boy really kill his father? If he didn't, who did? Since the play and film only see the case from the jurors' perspective (not the police's), it is never discovered. All that is known is that there is reasonable doubt as to the boy's guilt -- which, under the laws of the United States, is enough to keep him from being convicted. TruthInTelevision, of course - jurors not working on an obvious open and shut case rarely get "closure" as to whether or not they were right.

* AmbiguouslyBrown: The defendant in the original film seems to have a slightly darker skin color than the rest of the cast, and is referred to as being part of an unnamed ethnicity that lives in a New York slum. The actor, John Savoca, is of southern Italian descent (his surname is a toponym that ties his family origin to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoca Savoca]], Sicily).

In 1997, it was adapted yet again, this time as a MadeForTV movie on Creator/{{Showtime}}, starring Creator/JackLemmon as Juror #8 and Creator/GeorgeCScott as the main antagonist, Juror #3. This adaptation {{race lift}}ed several jurors, [[GenderFlip gender flipped]] the judge, and [[ClusterFBomb added more cussing]]. In 2007, a Russian version titled simply ''[[Film/{{Twelve}} 12]]'' was released.

** The judge (in the original film) mentions that in the event the accused is found guilty, that it is automatically a death sentence (as it was until 1963 in New York--the film came out in 1957), and that he would not entertain any recommendations for mercy. It wasn't up to him--he had no choice about it. The judge in the 1997 remake echoes this, stating that she will not consider pleas for leniency should the jury find the defendant guilty. However, at that time, like now, the jurors decide what sentence the defendant should get too in capital cases after considering all the various aggravating vs. mitigating factors, following US Supreme Court rulings which struck down most of the capital punishment laws in the US. Without such a recommendation for death, the judge can't sentence the defendant to it. Given that change, this is nonsensical and legally meaningless (though it could mislead jurors, which thus might get any death sentence they passed overturned).

* {{Jerkass}}: Juror #7. He doesn't care what the decision of the jury is. He's only concerned with catching a baseball game. At least the most vicious jurors voted guilty because they believed in it. That said, when called out on this, he does say that he doesn't believe the accused is guilty. Fortunately, the game is rained out during the deliberation, so he can relax and pay attention for once. He sounds rather more sincere about it in the 1997 version, though.

* TheJudge: Shown issuing instructions to the jury in the opening scene. Many stage productions (and the 1997 TV version) cast a woman in the role as a way of bringing at least some token gender diversity to the play without having to change its title.

* LargeHam: George C. Scott as Juror #3 in the 1997 version. He yells almost every other line.

* MonochromeCasting:
** Perhaps unsurprisingly for a film made in TheFifties, the jury is all-white (although one is an immigrant with a noticeable accent). RaceLift for the 1997 update, which features one Latino juror and four African Americans. In a twist, one of the latter is a MalcolmXerox version of the bigoted Juror #10.

* NiceHat: Juror #7 dons a straw fedora throughout the 1957 film, while Juror #10 wears a kufi in the 1997 version.

* TheOner: The 1957 version is full of them, especially the scene where the jurors get settled in the room, the bathroom scene, or the Juror #10's rant scene. The 1997 version has some of them too, but they're much less impressive.
* RaceLift: The original featured 12 white men. The 1997 movie diversified the racial makeup of the jury. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]]: In 1954, an all-white, all-male jury would be the norm, but in 1997 such a jury would be very unusual, given that having all the jurors be of the same race could be used as grounds for an appeal later.

* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: The music in the 1957 version plays four times, while in 1997 version plays only once during the credits.

''12 Angry Men'' is a 1954 teleplay by Creator/ReginaldRose (and much more famously, a 1957 film directed by Creator/SidneyLumet starring Creator/HenryFonda and a veritable AllStarCast of character actors) that concerns a supposedly straightforward murder trial. An eyewitness, forensic evidence, and the accused himself all seem to clearly point to an adolescent boy having murdered his father. In the deliberation room, most of the jurors push for a quick guilty verdict, but a single juror, known only as Juror #8, holds out and insists that they examine the evidence thoroughly to make damn sure that the accused deserves his punishment: a mandatory death sentence.

* SecondhandStorytelling: The murder of the victim, the police investigation, and the trial are all spoken about by the twelve jurors.

* TheUnreveal: Did the boy really kill his father? If he didn't, who did? Since the play and film only see the case from the jurors' perspective (not the police's), it is never discovered. All that is known is that there is reasonable doubt as to the boy's guilt -- which, under the laws of the United States, is enough to keep him from being convicted.

* VideoCredits: Necessary, since none of the characters are named.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Juror #8 is first seen pondering at the window of the jury room before being called over to begin the decision. Notably, he isn't shown speaking and chattering excitedly like most of the jurors, hinting that the majority sentiment won't go through as easily as previously thought.

** Juror #3 may be vicious and want to see the defendant executed, but even he is unwilling to listen to #10's bigoted tirades (he gets up right before #10's tirade, and doesn't sit back down until after it's over). Even Juror #4, who has come off as a {{Jerkass}} at times and is strongly convinced at the defendant's guilt, has enough and tells #10 as such.

%%** Choleric: Juror #1 (football coach), and ''especially'' Juror #10 (bigoted garage owner)

%%** Phlegmatic: Juror #8 (architect Mr. Davis), Juror #9 (Mr. [=McCardle=]) and Juror #11 (watch maker)
%%** Sanguine and choleric: Juror #7 (salesman)
%%** Choleric and melancholic: Juror #3 (the unmerciful)

%%** Leukine: Juror #5 (sports fan), Juror #6 (painter)

** Vaguely [[ImpliedTrope implied]] for Juror #10. When he rants at length about how "they" (the unspecified ethnic group the defendant belongs to) are by nature nothing but a bunch of liars and killers, the way all eleven of the other jurors respond with open contempt for his views causes him to go practically catatonic. He changes his vote to "not guilty" and then spends the remainder of the deliberation silently [[ThousandYardStare staring at nothing]]. Somewhat ambiguous as it's not clear if this means he was actually rethinking his views, or if he just felt defeated.

** The judge (in the original film) does not say that capital punishment is mandatory in the case (as it was until 1963 in New York--the film came out in 1957), but that ''he'' would pass one if the jury delivered a guilty verdict. It wasn't up to him--he had no choice about it. The judge in the 1997 remake echoes the original line, stating that she will not consider pleas for leniency should the jury find the defendant guilty. However, nowadays the jurors decide what sentence the defendant should get too in capital cases after considering all the various aggravating vs. mitigating factors, following US Supreme Court rulings which struck down most of the capital punishment laws in the US. Without such a recommendation for death, the judge can't sentence the defendant to it. Given that change, this is nonsensical and legally meaningless (though it could mislead jurors, which thus might get any death sentence they passed overturned).

** Though Edward James Olmos, who plays Juror #11 in the 1997 version, is indeed of Mexican descent, it is not made clear if Juror #11 ''is'' actually Latino, especially since Olmos' portrayal sticks with previous portrayals of the character as an immigrant watchmaker from an undisclosed (likely Eastern) European country.

* AmbiguouslyBrown: The defendant in the original film seems to have a slightly darker skin color than the rest of the cast, and is referred to as being part of an unnamed ethnicity that lives in a New York slum.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Its never ''explicitly'' said that the defendant is black, but he has a [[AmbiguouslyBrown noticeably darker skin coloration]] than the jurors, is noted to be part of an ethnic minority that commonly lives in the slums of New York, and #10's rant about him is pretty much ''drenched'' in racial and classist language.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw:
** A major plot point involves Juror #8 visiting a pawnshop to buy a knife identical to the murder weapon (proving that it isn't really one of a kind), and showing it to the other jurors as evidence. Jurors are ''not'' supposed to conduct their own investigations outside of the courtroom, and they're ''really'' not supposed to consider any evidence that wasn't introduced in court.
** In addition to considering evidence not introduced in court, the jurors outright disregard many of the witness testimonies that ''were'' introduced in court, for reasons that the prosecutor and defense attorney never actually brought up as possible issues (like the fact that one of the witnesses may or may not have been nearsighted). In RealLife, only a judge has the final say on whether or not statements in court can be considered credible, and jurors aren't supposed to disregard witness testimonies unless a judge ''instructs'' them to disregard them.
** The judge (in the original film) does not say that capital punishment is mandatory in the case (as it was until 1963 in New York--the film came out in 1957), but that ''he'' would pass one if the jury delivered a guilty verdict. It wasn't up to him--he had no choice about it. The judge in the 1997 remake echoes the original line, stating that she will not consider pleas for leniency should the jury find the defendant guilty. However, nowadays the jurors decide what sentence the defendant should get too in capital cases after considering all the various aggravating vs. mitigating factors, following US Supreme Court rulings which struck down most of the capital punishment laws in the US. Without such a recommendation for death, the judge can't sentence the defendant to it. Given that change, this is nonsensical and legally meaningless (though it could mislead jurors, which thus might get any death sentence they passed overturned).

* HollywoodLaw: Juror #8 states that he went walking in the defendant's neighborhood, and found a copy of the supposedly unique switchblade knife in a local store. He presents it to the jury to prove his point. In a real jury proceding, the term for this is "juror misconduct." Jurors are not permitted to perform their own investigations, or admit their own evidence (the second knife). If it were to come out that #8 did all this, it's possible (though unlikely, given the double jeopardy prohibition) the verdict could be set aside, and #8 could be charged for his actions. There is at least an acknowledgement that #8 broke the law by buying the knife, but nobody brings up that searching for a knife is misconduct. Of course, none of the jurors are lawyers, so it's possible that they didn't recognize the acts as such.

** In addition to considering evidence not introduced in court, the jurors outright disregard many of the witness testimonies that ''were'' introduced in court, for reasons that the prosecutor and defender never actually brought up as possible issues (like the fact that one of the witnesses may or may not have been nearsighted). In RealLife, only a judge has the final say on whether or not statements in court can be considered credible, and jurors can't disregard witness testimonies unless a judge ''instructs'' them to disregard them.

* MinimalistCast: At the beginning, other people (such as the defendant and the judge) are briefly shown, but for the rest of the film, we only see the twelve jurors (and the bailiff, briefly).

* AmbiguouslyBrown: The defendant in the original seems to have a slightly darker skin color than the rest of the cast, and is referred to as being part of an unnamed ethnicity that lives in a New York slum.

''12 Angry Men'' is a 1954 teleplay by Creator/ReginaldRose (and much more famously, a 1957 film directed by Creator/SidneyLumet starring Creator/HenryFonda and a veritable AllStarCast of character actors) that concerns a supposedly straightforward murder trial. An eyewitness, forensic evidence, and the accused himself all seem to clearly point to an adolescent boy having murdered his father. In the deliberation room, most of the jurors push for a quick guilty verdict, but one juror holds out and insists that they examine the evidence thoroughly to make damn sure that the accused deserves his punishment: a mandatory death sentence.

In 1997, it was adapted yet again, this time as a MadeForTV movie on Creator/{{Showtime}}, starring Creator/JackLemmon and Creator/GeorgeCScott. This adaptation {{race lift}}ed several jurors, [[GenderFlip gender flipped]] the judge, and [[ClusterFBomb added more cussing]]. In 2007, a Russian version titled simply ''[[Film/{{Twelve}} 12]]'' was released.

* AbusiveParents: It’s revealed that the murder victim was an abusive dad. He deserved it.

* TheCharmer: Juror #12, a smartly-dressed MotorMouth adman, presents this way early on. He is very friendly to the other jurors and tries to diffuse the tension when they fight. He loses this trait and turns hesitant and unsure later on, flip-flopping his vote according to who cowed him last.

* NamelessNarrative: No names are used for any of the jurors, and not even for the victim or defendant. The film added an epilogue not in the play that [[NamedByTheAdaptation gives last names for]] Juror #8(Davis) and Juror #9 ([=McCardle=]).

* CornerOfWoe: Juror 10 retreats to one when, after one of his racist rants goes too far, Juror 4 shuts him up. From that point on, 10 rarely participates in any of the deliberations, only weakly showing an acknowledgement that his vote is "not guilty" when a poll is taken (ironically, after 4 changes his vote upon the woman's testimony about clearly seeing the killing is discredited).

-->'''Juror #10:''' Listen to me! Listen to me!

-->'''Juror #11:'''Who tells you that you have the right to play like this with a man's life? Don't you care?

* TheOner: The 1957 version is full of them, especially the scene where the jurors get settled in the room, the bathroom scene, or the Juror #10's rant scene.

* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: The music in 1957 version plays four times, while in 1997 version only once during the credits.

-->'''Juror #11:''' What kind of a man are you? You have sat here and voted guilty with everyone else, because there are some baseball tickets burning a hole in your pocket? And now you've changed your vote because you say you're sick of all the talking here? Who tells you that you have the right to play like this with a man's life? Don't you care?

* RealityHasNoSoundtracks: The music in 1957 version plays four times, while in 1997 version only once during the credits.

-->'''Juror #11:''' What kind of a man are you? You have sat here and voted guilty with everyone else, because there are some baseball tickets burning a hole in your pocket. And now you've changed your vote because you say you're sick of all the talking here? Who tells you that you have the right to play like this with a man's life? Don't you care?