Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn do give riveting performances in Dead Man Walking,and maybe that’s why most people think of that film first when they think about movies dealing with the death penalty.
Of course, the life’s work of Sister Helen Prejean may have something to do with it, too!
However, there some other really great films out there that deal with capital punishment. Here are four other great ones, available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Hulu:
Stars Clint Eastwood as a journalist who discovers that an innocent man may be about to be executed in a few hours, and so he investigates …. TIck tock.
Kevin Spacey stars as an activist who’s now Death Row inmate, innocent but facing execution. It’s Kevin Spacey, folks.
Philip Seymour Hoffman does an amazing job transforming himself into author Truman Capote, who interviews and befriends convicted murderer Perry Smith. Smith is ultimately executed for the murder of a Kansas farm family. True crime; this really happened. Movie includes the execution by hanging and the aftermath.
Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan star in a movie where we learn that a Death Row Inmate is innocent, but how can the execution be stopped – or can it? Eerie things happen. Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name.