Which Billy Wilder film is based on a play by Agatha Christie?

Witness for the Prosecution is the Billy Wilder film based on a play by Agatha Christie. Wilder’s 1957 courtroom mystery adapts Christie’s 1953 stage play, which she developed from her short story “Traitor’s Hands.”

The film centers on Leonard Vole, who is accused of murdering Emily French, a wealthy widow who named him as the main beneficiary of her will. Charles Laughton plays the brilliant but ailing barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts, while Tyrone Power plays Vole and Marlene Dietrich plays his wife, Christine.

Wilder and his collaborators expanded the stage material for cinema while preserving its courtroom tension and elaborate reversals. The production famously protected its surprise ending: the cast reportedly did not receive the final pages of the script until those scenes were ready to shoot, and the film’s advertising urged audiences not to reveal the ending.

The film earned six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress, Film Editing, and Sound Recording. It is distinct from Wilder’s other courtroom-adjacent films, such as the noir Double Indemnity, which was not adapted from Christie.