What 1943 Western starring Henry Fonda is known for its critique of mob justice?

The 1943 Western starring Henry Fonda that critiques mob justice is The Ox-Bow Incident.

Henry Fonda plays Gil Carter, one of several men drawn into a posse after a rancher is reportedly murdered and his cattle stolen. The posse finds three strangers with cattle and, rather than taking them to a court, votes to decide their fate on the spot. Most members choose hanging, despite weak evidence and pleas for a lawful trial.

Directed by William A. Wellman and adapted from Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s novel, the film is less a conventional action Western than a stark moral drama. Its central question is whether fear, anger and group pressure can turn ordinary citizens into an unjust mob. The discovery that the supposedly murdered rancher is still alive exposes the terrible consequences of acting before the facts are known.

The film is often remembered for its unusually direct condemnation of lynching and vigilante justice. It is sometimes grouped with more celebrated Fonda Westerns such as My Darling Clementine, but its focus is collective guilt and the failure of due process rather than frontier adventure.