Judge Hardin (Douglas), but I spent a lot of time at the Superior Court and there are silver foxes, sure, but there are also quite a few good-looking, 40-year-old judges on the bench." Reception The Star Chamber grossed $5.6 million. Critical response Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives The Star Chamber a score of 71% based on reviews from 14 critics and a rating of 6 out of 10. Critic Roger Ebert wrote: "The Star Chamber works brilliantly until it locks into a plot. Then it stops dancing and starts marching. The movie opens with a series of intriguing scenes showing a series of shocking miscarriages of justice. Fiends and perverts are caught red-handed, confess to their crimes and then are put back on the streets again because of minor legal technicalities. [...] The ending of the movie was especially infuriating." Critic Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "Peter Hyams has shown himself, with films like Busting, Outland, and Capricorn One, to be a stylish, flippant director, capable of generating a great deal of suspense as well as action scenes that really pack a wallop. The Star Chamber, which opens today at Loews Tower East and other theaters, begins so excitingly that Mr. Hyams appears to have outdone himself. [...] But The Star Chamber can't live up to its own initial promise – nor does it really live up to Mr. Hyams's. His powerhouse style finally sabotages the issues raised by The Star Chamber, which remain much more delicate than the treatment they have been given here. Release The Star Chamber was released in theatres on August 5, 1983. Home media The film was released on VHS by CBS/Fox Video in 1984 and reissued by FoxVideo in the 1990s. It was on DVD in 2005, and then on Blu-ray on May 28, 2013, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and is and has since the 2010s been available online through Apple's iTunes Store downloadable application and Amazon's, Vudu's and YouTube's websites. TV Series In April 2020 it was announced Amazon had a TV series in development based on the film. References Sources External links 1983 films 1983 crime drama films 1980s crime thriller films 1980s mystery films American crime drama films American crime thriller films American mystery films 1980s English-language films Films directed by Peter Hyams Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in Los Angeles 1980s legal films