Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

  The sensibilities in this film are woefully outdated (though unfortunately still relevant) but it remains a damn good trial film.

Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart) is a former prosecutor turned quasi-retired.  He is nominally a defense attorney but spends the majority of his time fishing in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Until the Manion case drops in his lap.  Army Lieutenant Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara) is accused of murdering bar owner Barney Quill (uncredited, only shown in photos).  Manion doesn't deny the murder but his extenuating circumstance is that Quill raped Manion's wife, Laura (Lee Remick), causing Manion to become murderous in a bout of temporary insanity.  This was a very risky plea even in the 50s and Paul has his work cut out for him as Laura is known as a flirt and Manion has a hair-trigger temper.  Making matters worse, the district attorney (Brooks West) has called in a hotshot up-and-coming lawyer from the state capital named Charles Dancer (George C. Scott) to help him win against his predecessor in the office.

This is based on a novel written by a Michigan Supreme Court justice, in turn based on a man he defended in 1952.  So the legal bona fides are there.  It was directed by Otto Preminger, starred Stewart, Gazzara, Scott, and Remick, and was scored by Duke Ellington.  It might be one of the finest made movies to ever exist.  It was nominated for seven Oscars but was unfortunately going up against Ben-Hur and The Diary of Anne Frank.

So that's what's good.  What's bad is A) the treatment of Laura Manion, a rape victim who is never treated like a victim during the course of the movie.  She has almost no agency and her rape (when it is believed at all) is referred to only as it affects her husband.  The prosecution brings up her clothing and personal habits, implies that she was cheating or that "married women can't be raped" and does everything possible to degrade and denigrate this woman on the stand.
B) the entire mental health aspect.  A lot of their concepts of shell shock, neuroses, and dissociative states are just really outdated.  That, at least, is to be expected.

It really is a phenomenal film, as long as you watch with the caveat that it gets these things terribly, terribly wrong.  It was a product of its time and that should be addressed.  It's currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.