Courtroom dramas make for great movies, and even though the trial does not occupy the majority of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) it is one of the best trials in cinema. Especially significant is its landmark racial element. By having one of the greatest actors of all time, Gregory Peck, play a white lawyer in 1930s Alabama defending a black man accused of rapping a white teenage girl, it daringly indicated that things were changing in America. Before the classic movie there was of course the classic book by Harper Lee, which is one of the books all students must read in English class. I certainly had to read it when I was at an American high school while living in Chile, and I liked it a lot better than Catcher in the Rye . To anyone who disagrees with that I have only one question: where is the movie adaptation of Catcher in the Rye ? Lord of the Flies has children going feral and fighting one another, but that story has been adapted twice. Although I read the book and watch...