How to Watch 'The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial'

Nail-biting new courtroom dramaThe Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is the final directorial feature from William Friedkin, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker perhaps best remembered for his 1973 horror classic The Exorcist. It revolves around the court-martial of a naval officer who forcibly relieved his captain from command of the USS Caine, claiming him to be unfit for duty. But is he telling the truth?

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is based on the play by Herman Wouk, which he adapted himself from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Caine Mutiny in the 1950s. While the book covers the events that took place on the ship, the action of the play—and this new film adaptation—is limited to the court-martial itself, and so multiple conflicting accounts are recounted, Rashomon-like, by different characters, with the audience unsure at first who to believe.

This movie, which transposes the story from World War Two to the post-9/11 era, will now be viewed as the swansong of Friedkin's career, and as with The Exorcist and his other adaptations of Cruising and The Boys in the Band, the director has proven more than adept at wringing the utmost immersive tension from the source material. Writing for Deadline, Pete Hammond wrote that the film "proves that without a doubt Billy Friedkin still had game. We should be glad he got his chance to make it."

Oh, and the cast in this legal thriller is stacked, with the captain being played by Kiefer Sutherland, most recently seen in the espionage drama Rabbit Hole, while his first officer is played by Jake Lacy, who earned an Emmy nod for his performance in Season 1 of The White Lotus. The supporting cast includes: Jason Clarke, coming to this from a role in Oppenheimer; Lewis Pullman from Outer Range and Top Gun: Maverick; and Monica Raymund from just about every network procedural ever. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial also features a posthumous appearance by Lance Reddick, the actor known for his roles in Lost, The Wire, and John Wick who passed away in March 2023.

How to watch and stream The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial had its premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival in September, and becomes more widely available on Friday, October 6. The movie was filmed as a Showtime original, and audiences will be able to watch it exclusively during its first weekend out via a Showtime subscription on Paramount+. The movie will also air on Showtime on Sunday, October 8 at 9 p.m. ET.

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