Reception
The film received general critical acclaim by critics, holding a score of 86% with 32 positive reviews out of 37 on Rotten Tomatoes. With a budget of $11 million, My Cousin Vinny was more successful than any had anticipated, grossing $52,929,168 domestically and $11,159,384 in the foreign markets, bringing its overall total to $64,088,552. Marisa Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 65th Academy Awards in 1993. The film's screenwriter Dale Launer wrote a sequel; while Pesci was interested in filming it, Tomei was not.
Director Jonathan Lynn has a law degree from Cambridge University, and lawyers have praised the accuracy of My Cousin Vinny's depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy. At least one legal textbook uses the film as an "extremely helpful introduction to the art of presenting expert witnesses at trial". Criminal defenders, professors, and other lawyers use the film to demonstrate voir dire and cross examination, and United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has cited My Cousin Vinny as an example of the principle that a client can choose his own lawyer. The authors of Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies (2006) gave the film its highest rating along with several films based on real trials, such as Judgement at Nuremberg and Breaker Morant. In 2008 the ABA Journal ranked the film #3 on its list of the "25 Greatest Legal Movies", and in 2010 ranked Pesci's character as #12 on its list of "The 25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers (Who Are Not Atticus Finch)".
Lynn, an opponent of capital punishment, believes that the film expresses an anti-death penalty message without "preaching to people", and demonstrates the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Lawyers find the film appealing, according to the director, because "there aren't any bad guys", with the judge, prosecutor, and Vinny all seeking justice. Lynn stated that both he and Launer sought to accurately depict the legal process in Vinny, favorably comparing it to Trial and Error, for which he could not make what he believed were necessary changes.
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