Twelve Angry Men


Twelve Angry Men is an American courtroom drama written by Reginald Rose about the deliberations of a jury at a homicide trial. It was broadcast initially as a television play in 1954. Dramatic Publishing created a stage version of the teleplay in 1955. It was adapted for the screen in 1957, and Rose later adapted it to the stage himself. It has been the subject of numerous remakes, adaptations, and tributes in many languages.

Description

The play explores the deliberations of a jury of a homicide trial, in which a dozen "men with ties and a coat" decide the fate of a teenager accused of murdering his abusive father. In the beginning, they are nearly unanimous in concluding the youth is guilty, influenced by their own background and upbringing. One man dissents, declaring him "not guilty", and he sows a seed of reasonable doubt. Eventually, he convinces the other jurors to look beyond their own personal bias and support a unanimous "not guilty" verdict.
American writer Reginald Rose first wrote this work as a teleplay for the Studio One anthology television series; it aired as a live CBS Television production on 20 September 1954. He adapted the story for a 1957 film directed by Sidney Lumet, and then for the stage under the same title.

Stage adaptations

Twelve Angry Men was first adapted to the stage from Rose's teleplay by Sherman L. Sergel for Dramatic Publishing, premiering in San Francisco in 1955.
Following the film's release, the stage rights were sold, and foreign language versions were written. In 1958, Variety reported that Andre Obey's French version was a hit in Paris, while 's German version played in Munich and Frankfort with productions planned in three other German cities. They further reported that productions were scheduled or being planned in Switzerland, Iceland, East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Austria, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
Rose retained British rights for himself and planned his own stage adaptation for Broadway in 1960, though this did not materialize.
Sergel's adaptation continued to be performed by amateur theaters. It is still frequently performed, often as Twelve Angry Women and Twelve Angry Jurors, with all-women or mixed gender casts.

Reginald Rose's stage play

Rose's version made its London West End debut in 1964. A 1996 production directed by Harold Pinter transferred to the West End, and it was revived again in 2013.
An all-comedian version was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2003, and an Australian production of the same was done in 2005.
The play finally premiered on Broadway in 2004, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company and starring Boyd Gaines.

Musical adaptation

In June–July 2022, Theater Latté Da in Minneapolis presented a world-premiere musical adaptation based on Reginald Rose's teleplay called Twelve Angry Men: A New Musical, with a book by David Simpatico and music and lyrics by Michael Holland.

Notable foreign language productions

The drama has since been translated into additional languages, including Hebrew and Japanese.
Nine Years Theatre in Singapore has produced a Mandarian language version twice, translated and directed by Nelson Chia, in 2013 and 2025.
In 2014, Independent Theatre Pakistan performed an adaptation of this play at Alhamra Arts Council, Lahore, directed by Azeem Hamid.

In other media

Films

It was written again in 1957 as a feature film, 12 Angry Men, which Sidney Lumet directed, and which starred Henry Fonda. It was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing of Adapted Screenplay.
Indian director Basu Chatterjee remade it in Hindi as Ek Ruka Hua Faisla in 1986. It was officially adapted by another Indian director Srijit Mukherji in Bengali as Shotyi Bole Shotyi Kichhu Nei.
In 2007, Russian film director Nikita Mikhalkov completed 12, his remake of the film. The jury of the 64th Venice Film Festival assigned its special prize to this remake "to acknowledge the consistent brilliance of Nikita Mikhalkov's body of work".
12 Angry Lebanese is a 2009 documentary film that chronicles efforts to stage an adaptation of Twelve Angry Men with inmates inside Beirut's Roumieh Prison.
In 2014, Chinese film director Xu Ang remade it as 12 Citizens. It was shown at the 2014 Rome Film Festival on October 19, 2014 and was released in China on May 15, 2015.
Vaaimai is a Tamil language adaptation of Twelve Angry Men.

Television

12 Angry Men was remade for television in 1997. Directed by William Friedkin, the remake stars George C. Scott, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza, William Petersen, Ossie Davis, Hume Cronyn, Courtney B. Vance, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Mykelti Williamson, Edward James Olmos, Dorian Harewood, and Jack Lemmon. In this production, the judge is a woman and four of the jurors are black, but most of the action and dialogue of the film are identical to the original. Modernizations include a prohibition on smoking in the jury room, the changing of references to income and pop culture figures, more dialogue relating to ethnicity, discussion about who else could have committed the murder if it was not the defendant, references to execution by lethal injection as opposed to the electric chair, and occasional profanity.
A film version of the CBS play was shown in 1973 on the Televisión Española show Estudio 1, with the title '.
In 1963, the West German television channel ZDF produced a film adaptation under the title '.

Radio

In 2005, L.A. Theatre Works recorded an audio version of 12 Angry Men, directed by John de Lancie, with a cast including Dan Castellaneta, Jeffrey Donovan, Héctor Elizondo, Robert Foxworth, Kevin Kilner, Richard Kind, Armin Shimerman, Joe Spano and Steve Vinovich.

Characters

The cast of the 2007 Russian film adaptation, 12, directed by Nikita Michalkov:
  • Sergei Makovetsky – Juror No. 1
  • Nikita Mikhalkov – Juror No. 2
  • Sergei Garmash – Juror No. 3
  • Valentin Gaft – Juror No. 4
  • Alexei Petrenko – Juror No. 5
  • Yuri Stoyanov – Juror No. 6
  • Sergei Gazarov – Juror No. 7
  • Mikhail Yefremov – Juror No. 8
  • Alexey Gorbunov – Juror No. 9
  • Sergei Artsibashev – Juror No. 10
  • Viktor Verzhbitsky – Juror No. 11
  • Roman Madyanov – Juror No. 12
  • Alexander Adabashyan – Bailiff
  • Apti Magamayev – Chechen boy

    Homages and references in other works

  • On the Norman Lear CBS sitcom All in the Family, Edith Bunker is the lone juror who questioned the evidence against the defendant, despite the pressure from her bigoted socialite co-juror in the first-season episode, "Edith Has Jury Duty".
  • The first animated homage to Twelve Angry Men was Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones, also TV's first prime time animated series. In the sixth-season episode "Disorder in the Court", Fred is the foreman and believes the defendant is innocent even though it is obvious that he is guilty. Fred changes his vote and when he announces the guilty verdict in court, the defendant—called "The Mangler" —threatens Fred with revenge when released from prison.
  • A fifth-season episode of the BBC TV series Hancock's Half Hour called "Twelve Angry Men" is a parody of the original film with the central concept being reversed. Hancock spends the episode trying to convince the jury that a man caught red-handed stealing some jewelry is innocent when he is clearly guilty.
  • An episode of the TV series The Dick Van Dyke Show, aired March 7, 1962, and entitled "One Angry Man". In this episode, Rob Petrie is summoned to do jury duty; as in the movie, Petrie is the stand-out believing the defendant to be innocent, among the other jurors who wish to rapidly send the defendant to jail so they can return to their respective occupations. Throughout the episode, numerous references to the names of the actors and characters of the 1957 movie are mentioned.
  • The Newhart episode "Twelve Annoyed Men...and Women" features main character Dick Loudon as foreman of a jury that is set to convict a bird thief, until one holdout votes "not guilty". The lone dissenter reveals that he voted for acquittal only because he wanted to spend more time with the members of the jury.
  • The animated television series Pepper Ann features an episode titled "One Angry Woman". Pepper Ann's mother Lydia is called into jury duty for a case involving a supposed spitter. The events play out similarly to the original, complete with certain lines spoofed and altered for the episode.
  • An episode of the TV series Monk, "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty", strongly spoofs the original 12 Angry Men teleplay. In this episode, the jury is presiding over the case of a man accused of stabbing another man attempting to make a bank deposit.
  • A Season 11 episode of Family Guy, "12 and a Half Angry Men", is a parody of the film. The town mayor is accused of murder, and Brian and Peter are called to the jury. Brian takes the role of the eighth juror.
  • A Season 2 episode of Murder, She Wrote features a parody of the film, with Jessica Fletcher and eleven other jurors seeking to determine the guilt or innocence of both a man and a woman.
  • Season Three of Inside Amy Schumer devoted an episode to one sketch, a parody of 12 Angry Men. The twelve men must decide if Amy Schumer is "hot enough" to have her own TV show.
  • In a 1996 episode of Early Edition, titled "The Jury", Gary is the only juror who believes a man accused of embezzlement is innocent. Similarities to Twelve Angry Men include a European juror, a retiree, a meek juror, and a juror who cares little about the case.
  • The King of the Hill Season Three episode "Nine Pretty Darn Angry Men" parodies 12 Angry Men with the characters as part of a focus group for a new lawnmower. Hank in the role based on juror 8 opposes the new mower while the others praise it.
  • The title of an episode in Season Two of Veronica Mars, "One Angry Veronica", references the film as the main plot and is concerned with Veronica being called for jury duty.
  • The That Girl episode "Eleven Angry Men and That Girl", has the show's main character Ann Marie convince a jury that a person who was accused of domestic violence should be found innocent, only to see them strike their spouse in court after the verdict is announced.
  • In Blue Bloods season 4, episode 8, "Justice Served", Danny Reagan dissents as Juror 8.
  • Episode 6 in series 12 of the sitcom Not Going Out is set in a jury room with multiple references to Twelve Angry Men.
  • In the How I Met Your Mother episode "Twelve Horny Women", the character Marshall Eriksen faces a physically attractive male lawyer, in front of an all-female jury. At one point, he states "I've heard of twelve angry men, but this was more like twelve horny women".