Argentina 1985

Shortly after the dictatorship ends, the prosecutor Julio Cesar Strassera is handed a job that looks impossible: trying the leaders of the military junta in a civilian court. Most experienced lawyers will not touch it, so Strassera and his deputy Luis Moreno Ocampo assemble a team of people under thirty. The time is short, the witnesses are many and the threats never stop. Santiago Mitre directed and wrote the screenplay with Mariano Llinas. Ricardo Darin plays Strassera and Peter Lanzani plays Moreno Ocampo. Unknown actors were deliberately cast in the supporting roles, for the sake of authenticity. It was shot in Buenos Aires between June and September 2021, with the courtroom scenes filmed in the actual courtroom at Tribunales. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 95 percent. It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Best International Feature Oscar. It was the most-watched film in Argentina in 2022, selling more than 1.15 million tickets and taking roughly 659 million pesos. Who it is for: viewers who like real court records and stories of political reckoning. Who it is not for: anyone who cannot carry the weight of the testimony. The film delivers the accounts of torture directly and without shortening them.