--- title: "The Whole World is Watching: Inside Aaron Sorkin's Trial of the Chicago 7" year: 2021 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-whole-world-is-watching-inside-aaron-sorkins-trial-of-the-chicago-7" fi1m_score: 52 critics_score: 69 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-20T08:02:53.419582+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T08:03:41.772569+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Whole World is Watching: Inside Aaron Sorkin's Trial of the Chicago 7 (2021) 28m · TV Movie, Documentary **Fi1m score: 52** · Critics 69 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* Twenty-eight minutes of clever people agreeing that their film is important, which it nearly is > A tidy half-hour in which Aaron Sorkin and his cast explain why the 1969 trial matters now. Everyone is articulate and nobody is challenged, and the archive footage from Chicago does more in thirty seconds than the interviews manage in twenty-eight minutes. ## Synopsis Chicago, August 1968. Outside the Democratic National Convention the police wade into anti-war demonstrators while the crowd chants the line that gives this film its title. A year later the organisers, among them Abbie Hoffman and Tom Hayden, are tried for conspiracy in a federal courtroom. Aaron Sorkin has turned that trial into *The Trial of the Chicago 7* (2020), and this 28-minute companion piece goes behind it. Sorkin explains why he wanted the case; Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays Hoffman, and Eddie Redmayne, who plays Hayden, talk about the men they play and the arguments those men had with each other; newsreel of Grant Park and the courtroom sits beside Sorkin’s restaging of the same nights. The question underneath is whether 1968 is still happening. ## Review First, a word about what this is, because the title takes a while to say it. *The Whole World is Watching* is not Aaron Sorkin’s film about the 1969 conspiracy trial; that is *The Trial of the Chicago 7* (2020), which runs over two hours and has Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne and a good many other famous faces in it. This is the 28-minute companion piece made to sit beside it, in which Sorkin and his actors talk about the trial, the film and the country. Most of the reviews so far that carry this title are in fact reviews of the feature, and they are warm, so their scores do not describe this. We would be warm about the feature too. This is a smaller thing and should be judged as one. The form is the one you know. Sorkin, seated, explains the case: eight men charged with crossing state lines to incite a riot at the Democratic convention, a judge who behaved as if he were the prosecution, a defence that turned the courtroom into a stage. The actors take turns describing the men they play, and clips from the feature are cut against black-and-white newsreel of the real thing. It is well organised, it never dawdles, and it is exactly as long as it needs to be for the point it wants to make, which is that the arguments of 1968 are the arguments of now. The newsreel is where we felt something. There is footage of Chicago police going into the crowd in Grant Park with clubs raised, and the crowd chanting the words of the title back at them, and for a few seconds the tasteful lighting and the reasonable voices drop away and we were watching people get hurt in 1968. Then it cuts to an actor telling us how powerful that footage is, and the feeling goes. It kept happening. The film has the real thing in its hands and keeps putting it down to talk about it. What it does not have is anyone who disagrees. A making-of is a friendly form, and nobody expects the cast to complain about the script, but the trial itself was a fight between men who could not stand each other, Hoffman’s theatre against Hayden’s discipline, and Sorkin’s feature is at its best when it lets that fight breathe. Here everybody is on the same side, and the side is the film. Sorkin is fluent and likeable, and he says nothing about his own choices that a sharper interviewer could not have made him defend. Nobody asks whether the feature is too clean, which several critics of it did. Nobody asks why a film about a riot has such orderly crowds. As a piece of filmmaking it is anonymous, which is the habit of the form rather than the fault of anyone in particular. The interviews are lit the way these interviews are always lit, the music is low and stirring and tells you when to be stirred, and the cutting between feature and archive is quick enough that for a beat you cannot always tell which is which. That last is the one interesting idea in it, and we are not sure it is intended. When Sorkin’s staged Grant Park and the real one slide past each other, the feature looks briefly like an expensive reconstruction and the reconstruction looks briefly like evidence. The film does not pursue this. It moves on to the next testimonial. Against other companion pieces it is above average: it has a real historical argument and it makes it clearly, where most of these things have only a stunt coordinator and a lot of praise for the director. As a documentary about the Chicago trial it is not one, and *Chicago 10* (2007) already exists. As half an hour of your evening it is fine, and fine is a low bar for a subject this loud. Watch it after the feature, not before, and not instead. It will send you back to the newsreel, which is the best thing in it and which it did not shoot. If you have not seen Sorkin’s film, this is 28 minutes of people telling you it is good. They are right, and you would do better to spend the time finding out for yourself. *Fi1m score 52, published 20 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (6) - **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (85/100, inferred): The critic praises Aaron Sorkin's dramatization of the notorious 1969 trial for its urgent energy, prescient relevance to modern America, and strong ensemble cast, especially Eddie Redmayne and Sacha Baron Cohen. [Read](https://deadline.com/video/trial-of-the-chicago-7-review-aaron-sorkin-sacha-baron-cohen-mark-rylance/) - **Eye for Film**, Amber Wilkinson (80/100, inferred): Sorkin's dramatisation has a spring in its step and a sharply relevant message about protest and prejudice, delivering an informative, compelling story with verve and pace despite some Hollywood gloss and orderly crowd scenes. [Read](http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/the-trial-of-the-chicago-7-2020-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson) - **/Film**, Chris Evangelista (7.5/10): A showcase for fantastic performances and punchy Sorkin dialogue that is almost unbeatable as a delivery system for great actors, though the direction leaves something to be desired. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/576786/trial-of-the-chicago-7-review/) - **The Playlist** (65/100, inferred): The film zips comedically with snappy dialogue and an uplifting final act but often feels manufactured in its outrage, too safe and witty rather than gritty, though it captures captivating story elements and timely philosophical divides. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/the-trial-of-the-chicago-7-review/) - **HeyUGuys**, Hayden Mears (3/5): Sorkin's film does a decent job highlighting the earnestness of the protesters and has undeniable relevance, but skims emotional beats, becomes innocuous, and addresses its subject with stiffness that undercuts its weight. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/the-trial-of-the-chicago-7-review/) - **Film Stories**, Mark Harrison (50/100, inferred): The film succeeds as a throwback to star-studded 1990s courtroom dramas with a dazzling ensemble cast and irreconcilable tensions, but feels scattergun in its approach and less substantial overall than Sorkin's prior work. [Read](https://filmstories.co.uk/reviews/the-trial-of-the-chicago-7-review-a-timely-throwback-in-cinemas-and-on-netflix/) ## Details - **Runtime:** 28m - **Release (the US):** 1 January 2021 - **Genres:** TV Movie, Documentary ## Where to watch in the US Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check. ## If you liked this - *The Trial of the Chicago 7* (2020): The film this is about, and the one you should actually be watching tonight - *Medium Cool* (1969): Haskell Wexler shot his fiction inside the real Chicago convention as the tear gas fell - *Chicago 10* (2007): Brett Morgen animates the trial transcripts; angrier and stranger than any restaging - *Punishment Park* (1971): Peter Watkins imagines the tribunals that came next, and it still stings - *Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse* (1991), Fi1m 84: The making-of as a real film, with a director who is actually in trouble — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/hearts-of-darkness-a-filmmakers-apocalypse.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-whole-world-is-watching-inside-aaron-sorkins-trial-of-the-chicago-7