Just Mercy

Just Mercy tells the story of Bryan Stevenson, a Harvard-trained lawyer who turns down more lucrative work to move to Alabama, where he devotes himself to representing people who were wrongly convicted or could not afford proper legal representation. There he teams with local activist Eva Ansley. Among his earliest cases is that of Walter McMillian, sentenced to death in 1987 for the killing of an eighteen-year-old girl, even though the evidence pointed to his innocence. Over the years that follow, Stevenson works through a tangle of legal and political obstacles and open racism while fighting for McMillian and others like him.

Destin Daniel Cretton directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Andrew Lanham. It was his third feature, following Short Term 12 and The Glass Castle and preceding Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Michael B. Jordan plays Stevenson, Brie Larson plays Ansley, and Jamie Foxx plays McMillian, with O'Shea Jackson Jr., Rafe Spall and Rob Morgan among the supporting cast. The production credits include Gil Netter, Jordan and Asher Goldstein as producers.

Released in December 2019, the film carries a 7.6 rating on IMDb from roughly 84,000 votes and a 7.8 on TMDB from a much smaller pool of voters, while critics give it 7.1 from over 300 reviews. Made for 25 million dollars, it took in about 51 million worldwide.