Abstract:

If by resorting to Law cinema tells us “its” (almost always fictional) stories, why would it not be a good idea to resort to cinema in law schools classrooms to tell us the secrets of this discipline? And why shall we not do on a branch such as Criminal Law if there are a considerable number of films with direct allusions to crimes, penalties, lawyers, policemen, judges, prosecutors, prisons and trials? In Spain, indeed, it is not uncommon to find any film explaining certain issues with criminal consequences. Movies such as The Sea Inside are already almost unavoidable references to explain euthanasia issues.

Cinema allows introducing new –and traditionally excluded from Criminal Law- approaches improving students’ skills on identifying and understanding current criminological issues, and their ability to understand the interaction between public perception, media, and popular culture and criminal justice systems.

In criminal matters, not only is cinema useful to introduce general problems linked to criminal policies on specific issues, for example, illegal immigration, drug trafficking, euthanasia, abortion, etc. It is also particularly interesting to explore its potential in explaining the doctrines of the General Part of Criminal Law. Thus, in instead of going to the proven facts of a judgement, it can be much more stimulating to introduce cases, for example on self-defence, through films such as The Raiders of the Lost Ark of the Indiana Jones saga, or through a classical film which is To Kill a Nightingale.

This poster provides some very useful films, tics and activities to explain certain aspects of the theory of crime as self-defence, defence of necessity, the action theory, the objective imputation theory, etc.

Keywords:

Cinema, Criminal Law, New Teaching Trends, General Part.