Based on a true story

"We're going to Chicago to protest the Vietnam War."

Abbie Hoffman

The Trial of the Chicago 7

Release Date: September 25, 2020

It’s 1968 and the United States is in turmoil. Martin Luther King Jr. is gunned down by an assassin in Memphis, Robert F. Kennedy is shot and killed in Los Angeles. The Vietnam War is at its height with over 30,000 American casualties and 1,000 more U.S. troops killed each month. In August, scores of antiwar protestors gather outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and are tear gassed and beaten by police and the National Guard.

The following year, eight activists—Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis of the Students for a Democratic Society, counter-culture Yippies Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, MOBE organizers David Dellinger, John Froines, and Lee Weiner, and Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale—are put on trial for conspiring to incite a riot outside the Democratic Convention. Noted civil rights attorney William Kunstler works to defend this odd lot of antiwar activists against charges brought by a new Republican administration aiming to stifle and silence the movement. The whole world watches as the defendants face an unjust judge in one of the most bizarre and momentous trials in American history, The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Written and directed by Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7 stars Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne as Tom Hayden, Sacha Baron Cohen (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street) as Abbie Hoffman, Emmy Award nominee Jeremy Strong as Jerry Rubin, Tony Award winner Alex Sharp as Rennie Davis, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Bobby Seale.

The film also stars Academy Award winner Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies) as defense attorney William Kunstler, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Lincoln) as lead prosecutor Richard Schultz, Frank Langella as Judge Julius Hoffman, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Fred Hampton, and Michael Keaton as former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

Kristie Macosko Krieger executive produced for DreamWorks Pictures.

About the Film

About the Film

CAST
  • YAHYA ABDUL-MATEEN II,
  • SACHA BARON COHEN,
  • JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT,
  • MICHAEL KEATON,
  • FRANK LANGELLA,
  • JOHN CARROLL LYNCH,
  • EDDIE REDMAYNE,
  • MARK RYLANCE,
  • JEREMY STRONG,
  • ALEX SHARP
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY
  • AARON SORKIN
PRODUCERS
  • MARC PLATT,
  • STUART BESSER,
  • MATT JACKSON,
  • TYLER THOMPSON
CINEMATOGRAPHER
  • PHEDON PAPAMICHAEL
PRODUCTION DESIGNER
  • SHANE VALENTINO
COSTUME DESIGNER
  • SUSAN LYALL
EDITOR
  • ALAN BAUMGARTEN
COMPOSER
  • DANIEL PEMBERTON

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