Sidney Lumet's first feature takes Reginald Rose's 1954 teleplay and confines it almost entirely to a jury room, where eleven men ready to convict a teenager of murder are worked, one by one, toward doubt. Shot in three weeks on a budget of $340,000, it turns a single set into an escalating study of temper, prejudice and procedure, carried by an ensemble led by Henry Fonda, who also produced.
Sergio Leone's 1968 Western, funded by Paramount specifically to secure Henry Fonda, casts the actor against type as a hired killer clearing land for the railroad while a harmonica-playing stranger, played by Charles Bronson, pursues him for reasons the film withholds until its final scenes. Composed with Ennio Morricone's score written and recorded before filming began, and shot across Spain, Utah and Cinecittà, the film ran 165 minutes in Europe to strong box office, but Paramount's 140-minute US cut flopped on release in 1969, a fate the film's reputation has long since reversed.