Compulsion
“Sometimes murder is just a way to pass the time.”
1959 · 1 h 43 min
Directed by 
Richard Fleischer
Richard FleischerCast
Orson Welles 
Dean Stockwell Diane Varsi Bradford Dillman 
E.G. Marshall Martin Milner
Credits
Written by: Richard Murphy
Plot
Two wealthy University of Chicago students, based on Leopold and Loeb, murder a boy to prove their superiority, and a lawyer, based on Clarence Darrow, defends them, in a tense courtroom drama with Orson Welles.
Sinekatalog’s take
A tense and well-acted true-crime drama.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.
Ratings
IMDb: 7.4 / 10 (8,765 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.
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