Conviction

Conviction (2010) is a true-story drama starring Hilary Swank that you can watch online on iFILM. Betty Anne Waters refuses to accept that her brother Kenny killed anyone, and sets out to prove it herself.

It begins in Massachusetts in 1983, when Kenny Waters draws a life sentence for the brutal killing of a neighbor. His sister is certain the case was wrong from the start. The trouble is that she's a waitress with no money for lawyers and no legal training. So she goes back to school, earns a GED, pushes through college and law school, all to free her own brother. Across roughly two decades she picks apart the original testimony, hunts for old evidence and chases down DNA testing that could undo everything. Sam Rockwell is loose and volatile as Kenny, while Minnie Driver plays the friend who runs the marathon beside her.

Director Tony Goldwyn frames a story with a real-world ending: the actual Waters got the case reopened with help from the Innocence Project. Swank plays it on stubbornness and exhaustion rather than big speeches, and that restraint holds the film together better than any courtroom thriller could. A solid pick for anyone who loves dramas about people too bullheaded to quit. Stream Conviction (2010) online on iFILM.