Amadeus (Milos Forman, 1984). F. Murray Abraham won best actor for his portrayal of Salieri, a dutiful but mediocre composer upstaged by the obnoxious but more talented Mozart (Tom Hulce), and determined to get rid of him. Salieri is depicted as a one-man mob, compelled by envy to destroy the one he most admires.

Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford, 1979). A case of administrative mobbing in the British army during its war against the Boers. Lord Kitchener and his brass scapegoat three officers from Australia. Morant's requested epitaph (from Matthew 10: 30) captures the special horror of being mobbed in one's workplace: "A man's foes will be they of his own household." Arguably the best Australian film ever made.

Bully (Larry Clark, 2001). Based (whether loosely or closely is a matter of debate) on true events in Florida, this film is useful for illustrating the difference between bullying and mobbing, as these terms are used in research on abusive human relations. The character of Bobby (Nick Stahl) is a genuine bully, swaggering with pleasure in his domination of other members of a clique of teenagers. The others then form themselves into a mob for eliminating Bobby once and for all. A very harsh film.

Crucible, The (Twentieth Century Fox, Nicholas Hytner, 1996). Paul Scofield, best known for playing the heroically good Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, is cast in this film as John Danforth, the evil-doing judge of the witches at Salem. Explaining (in his preface to the Penguin filmscript) why he cast Scofield in the role, director Hytner wrote: "It would have been easy enough to find one of those actors who specialize in the sinister, but Danforth's particular danger is that his convictions are genuine and his commitment to rooting out the Devil is deeply felt." Arthur Miller's play focuses on John Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his accuser, Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder). Hytner thought the story as timely in the 1990s, amidst "rigid intellectual orthodoxies of college campuses," as when it was staged in 1952, in the era of McCarthyism and anticommunist witch hunts.

From Here to Eternity (Columbia, Fred Zinnemann, 1953). In Pearl Harbor just before Japan's attack, a U.S. army private (Montgomery Clift) is mobbed by fellow soldiers for declining to join his regiment's boxing team. The captain approves. "if a man don't go his own way," Clift's character insists, "he's nothin." The brass eventually bust the captain, but not before loves and lives are lost. Oscars for best picture and best supporting actor (Frank Sinatra), with nominations also for Clift, Burt Lancaster, and Deborah Kerr. Zinneman said his goal was just to tell the truth.

Human Stain, The (Robert Benton, 2003). Powerful screen adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel, about an aging professor in a New England College (Anthony Hopkins) who is ganged up on by colleagues, charged with racism, and run out of his job. The story appears too bizarre to be believed, except by people with personal experience of life on North American college campuses in the closing decade of the twentieth century.

Mean Creek (Jacob Estes, 2004). You've seen all the kids in this film in your local corner store. Their performances are amazingly believable. None is an angel. All evoke sympathy, including the bully whom the others decide to teach a lesson. Realistic depiction of the misgivings and reconsiderings that are often part of mob formation. Nobody intends for things to go so far. A beautifully sad film.