Joseph W. Dellapenna, Villanova University School of Law, has published "Peasants, Tanners, and Psychiatrists: Using Films To Teach Comparative Law," in International Journal of Legal Information, Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 2008. Here is the abstract.

Films have proven to be a useful teaching tool for a course on Comparative Law. The films serve to introduce the class to the look and feel of legal proceedings from selected foreign legal systems and to illustrate particular aspects of how these legal proceedings differ from our own. The article summarizes the results of more than 10 years of experience in using films. It will be of interest to others who teach Comparative Law and also to lawyers, judges, and students who want a video means of oriented themselves to foreign legal traditions. The article discusses the limitations of such films as teaching (or orientation) tools, both in general and with regard to each particular film.

Download the paper from SSRN here.