Presumed Innocent was brought to the screen in the summer of 1990 in a film directed by Alan J. Pakula and written for the screen by Pakula and Frank Pierson. The movie starred Harrison Ford as Rusty, Bonnie Bedelia as his wife, Brian Dennehy as Raymond Horgan, Paul Winfield as Judge Lyttle, Raul Julia as Sandy Stern, John Spencer as Lip Lipranzer, and Greta Scacchi as Carolyn Polhemus. Janet Maslin, writing in The New York Times, called the film "an intense, enveloping, gratifyingly thorough adaptation of Mr. Turow's story."