American Tragedy is a 2000 biographical television movie based on the true story of O.J. Simpson's (Raymond Forchion) trial for the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman in 1994. Ving Rhames starred as the late, great defense attorney, Johnnie Cochran.

Based on the book of the real-life O.J. Simpson criminal trial based on Simpson's lawyers point of view of the long trial. In June 1994, former pro football player-turned-entertainer O.J. Simpson is charged with the murder of his ex-wife Nicole and a friend, named Ron Goldman. When Simpson doubts his lawyer Robert Shapiro's ability to try the case because of Shapiro's doubts of Simpson's innocence, Simpson hires civil rights lawyer Johnny Cochran along with an assortment of lawyers including vetran criminal lawyer F. Lee Bailey, DNA lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and lawyer Gerry Uelman to defend him in which each lawyer argues with the court, and each other, over the case and their ability to try the high-profile case in and out of the courtroom. Written by Anonymous

In 1922 a nationwide coal mining strike occurs. David's family and the rest of Herrin, Illinois try to suffer through. But David's father is sick and he must find a way to help pay to take care of him. He does the unthinkable and crosses the picket line to take work as a scab at the local mine. But David soon discovers that his choice may have not been the safest one as the union and the rest of the town will stop at nothing to keep the mine from operating under scabs and breaking the strike. David has to decide what is stronger, loyalty or poverty? Based on actual events. Written by Doug Meyer

Theodore Dreiser's novel was based on the actual 1906 murder case of Chester Gillette, convicted of drowning his girlfriend Grace Brown in Big Moose Lake in upstate New York. Gillette was executed in the electric chair on 30 March 1908.

The mother of Grace Brown, the real-life murder victim, filed a $150,000 libel suit against Paramount in 1934. The suit was settled out of court.

Dreiser, Theodore sued Paramount for misrepresenting his novel by transforming it into an ordinary murder story. The judge ruled in favor of Paramount; Dreiser's motion to prevent release of the film was denied.

The movie was banned in England, South Africa and Italy because of reference to abortion. Other states required allusions to abortion to be deleted before release.

Writer Theodore Dreiser was dismayed to find that director Josef von Sternberg and Paramount had taken so many liberties with his book, and he successfully sued, which forced von Sternberg to add many scenes that had been edited out of the movie. The resulting final cut was so far from what von Sternberg had intended, he disowned the picture.

One of the very few feature films to be dubbed in Swedish. The audience, however, did not take to Swedish voices in an American film and preferred the subtitled version. Since then, subtitling has been the general practice in Sweden, with the exception of animated films and children's films (even then, an option of seeing the original version is usually available).

Sergei M. Eisenstein was originally in talks to direct this film. He even wrote an early script, several hundred pages long. Einstein hoped to make his English-speaking directorial debut with this film, and Paramount wanted him to as well, but nothing came of it.