Back to trending
The Accused

The Accused

Crime · Drama · 1988

Out drinking one night after a fight with her boyfriend, three men brutally rape Sarah Tobias in a bar while people watch and cheer. District Attorney Kathryn Murphy takes the case; however, she allows the rapists to receive a mild sentence. A distraught Sarah decides to seek punishment for the men who witnessed and encouraged the rape. To get justice, Sarah must take the stand and revisit the night of her attack.

Movie details

The Accused

“The first scream was for help. The second is for justice.”

1988 Crime · Drama 1h 51m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.1 / 10

42.9K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

93 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

65 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.1 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Out drinking one night after a fight with her boyfriend, three men brutally rape Sarah Tobias in a bar while people watch and cheer. District Attorney Kathryn Murphy takes the case; however, she allows the rapists to receive a mild sentence. A distraught Sarah decides to seek punishment for the men who witnessed and encouraged the rape. To get justice, Sarah must take the stand and revisit the night of her attack.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Accused?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Green Street Hooligans

Green Street Hooligans

Crime · 2005

After being wrongfully expelled from Harvard University, American Matt Buckner flees to his sister's home in England. Once there, he is befriended by her charming and dangerous brother-in-law, Pete Dunham, and introduced to the underworld of British football hooliganism. Matt learns to stand his ground through a friendship that develops against the backdrop of this secret and often violent world. 'Green Street Hooligans' is a story of loyalty, trust and the sometimes brutal consequences of living close to the edge.

Bully

Bully

Crime · 2001

A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.

Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey

Believe Me: The Abduction of Lisa McVey

Drama · 2018

On the night she plans on taking her own life, 17-year-old 'Lisa McVey' is kidnapped and finds herself fighting to stay alive and is raped. She manages to talk her attacker into releasing her, but when she returns home, no one believes her story except for one detective, who suspects she was abducted by a serial killer. Based on horrifying true events.

Anatomy of a Murder

Anatomy of a Murder

Crime · 1959

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Skin

Drama · 2005

A teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions cross paths, together discovering a horrible, liberating truth.

Midnight Cowboy

Midnight Cowboy

Drama · 1969

Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.

Sleepers

Sleepers

Crime · 1996

Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.

A Time to Kill

A Time to Kill

Crime · 1996

A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.

Finestkind

Finestkind

Crime · 2023

Two brothers from opposite sides of the tracks are reunited as adults. Desperate circumstances force them into a deal with an organized crime syndicate in Boston, and a young woman gets caught in the middle.

Cape Fear

Cape Fear

Drama · 1991

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Jonathan Kaplan

Written by

Tom Topor

Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster

Sarah Tobias

Kelly McGillis

Kelly McGillis

Kathryn Murphy

Bernie Coulson

Bernie Coulson

Ken Joyce

Leo Rossi

Leo Rossi

Cliff 'Scorpion' Albrect

Ann Hearn

Ann Hearn

Sally Fraser

Carmen Argenziano

Carmen Argenziano

D.A. Paul Rudolph

Steve Antin

Steve Antin

Bob Joiner

Court is in session

Put The Accused on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Form is the argument.”

Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Technique in search of a pulse.”

Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.