Trial by Fire

Trial by Fire (2019) is a drama directed by Edward Zwick — watch online on iFILM. Jack O'Connell plays Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man sentenced to death for the 1991 house fire that killed his three daughters. He spent twelve years on death row insisting he was innocent. Nobody listened — until a stranger started reading his letters.

Laura Dern plays Elizabeth Gilbert, an activist and playwright who takes up Willingham's correspondence and grows convinced the arson science used to convict him was junk. She pulls in outside forensic experts, documents their findings, and pushes them toward the courts. The state of Texas moves slower than she hopes. The execution date does not move at all.

Based on David Grann's New Yorker investigation, the film is less a courtroom thriller than a study in institutional inertia — and two people hitting the same wall from opposite sides of it. Stream Trial by Fire (2019) in full online on iFILM.