TEHRAN – The cinematheque of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) screened the 1962 American legal drama crime film “To Kill a Mockingbird” directed by Robert Mulligan on Sunday.

The screening was a part of the “Law in Cinema” series on the theme of “Courthouse Dramas,” which was followed by a review session in the presence of Jahanbakhsh Nouraei, a lawyer and film critic, IRNA reported.

Starring Gregory Peck and Mary Badham, the film is adapted from Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name.

The film follows lawyer Atticus Finch in Depression-era Alabama, educating his children against prejudice while defending a black man who is falsely charged with the rape of a white woman. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made.

The film won an overwhelmingly positive reception from both the critics and the public; a box-office success, it earned more than six times its budget. The film was awarded three Academy Awards, including Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, and was nominated for eight, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress.

In 1995, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. In 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century. 

In 2007, the film ranked twenty-fifth on the AFI's 10th anniversary list of the greatest American movies of all time. In 2008, the film ranked first on the AFI's list of the ten greatest courtroom dramas. In 2020, the British Film Institute included it in their list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 15.

Harper Lee’s novel became instantly successful after its release; in the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. 

“To Kill a Mockingbird” won the Pulitzer Prize a year after its release, and it has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors, and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was ten.

Despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality, the novel is renowned for its warmth and humor. Atticus Finch, the narrator's father, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. 

As a Southern Gothic novel and Bildungsroman, the primary themes of “To Kill a Mockingbird” involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles in the Deep South. 

Lessons from the book emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice. In 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one “every adult should read before they die”.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” was Lee's only published book until “Go Set a Watchman” was published in 2015. Lee continued to respond to her work's impact until her death in 2016.

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