The defence The Big-Idea Head
“Form is the argument.”
Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.
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Presumed Innocent
Mystery · Crime · Thriller · 1990
Rusty Sabich is a deputy prosecutor engaged in an obsessive affair with a coworker who is murdered. Soon after, he's accused of the crime. And his fight to clear his name becomes a whirlpool of lies and hidden passions.
Movie details
Presumed Innocent
“Some people would kill for love.”
1990 Mystery · Crime · Thriller 2h 7m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.8 / 10
Community rating
Rusty Sabich is a deputy prosecutor engaged in an obsessive affair with a coworker who is murdered. Soon after, he's accused of the crime. And his fight to clear his name becomes a whirlpool of lies and hidden passions.
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 Presumed Innocent?
For the defence
The Big-Idea Head
“You watch with your brain, not your gut.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe 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.
Harper
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Harper is a cynical private eye in the best tradition of Bogart. He even has Bogie's Baby hiring him to find her missing husband, getting involved along the way with an assortment of unsavory characters and an illegal-alien smuggling ring.
Crooked House
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A private investigator helps a former flame solve the murder of her wealthy grandfather, who lived in a sprawling estate surrounded by his idiosyncratic family.
L.A. Confidential
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Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.
Secret Window
Mystery · 2004
Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.
A Walk Among the Tombstones
Crime · 2014
Private investigator Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife.
Dead Man's Folly
Crime · 1986
During a murder hunt game at a country house, to which Hercule Poirot is invited as an "expert", a real murder occurs.
Righteous Kill
Crime · 2008
Two veteran New York City detectives work to identify the possible connection between a recent murder and a case they believe they solved years ago; is there a serial killer on the loose, and did they perhaps put the wrong person behind bars?
The Girl on the Train
Crime · 2016
Rachel Watson, devastated by her recent divorce, spends her daily commute fantasizing about the seemingly perfect couple who live in a house that her train passes every day, until one morning she sees something shocking happen there and becomes entangled in the mystery that unfolds.
Ted Bundy: American Boogeyman
Thriller · 2021
Set in a gritty and decadent 1970s America, American Boogeyman follows the elusive and charming killer and the manhunt that brought him to justice involving the detective and the FBI rookie who coined the phrase ‘serial killer’.
The Whisper Man
Crime · 2026
When his young son vanishes, a widower enlists help from his estranged father, a retired detective who put away the serial killer now linked to the case.
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Alan J. Pakula
Written by
Frank Pierson · Alan J. Pakula
Harrison Ford
Rusty Sabich
Brian Dennehy
Raymond Horgan
Raúl Juliá
Sandy Stern
Bonnie Bedelia
Barbara Sabich
Paul Winfield
Judge Larren Lyttle
Greta Scacchi
Carolyn Polhemus
John Spencer
Detective Dan Lipranzer
Court is in session
Put Presumed Innocent on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
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.