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An Irish man's coerced confession to an I.R.A. bombing he did not commit results in the imprisonment of his father as well. Meanwhile, a British lawyer fights to clear their names and free them.
From the incisive Henry Drummond and the droll Mr. Lincoln to the callow Danny Kaffee and the regal Atticus Finch, lawyers have provided some of Hollywood’s most memorable cinematic heroes and some of its most honorable and thoughtful films.
- Falsely Accused!
- Mangrove
- Anatomy of A Murder
- The Devil’s Advocate
- My Cousin Vinny
- Jagged Edge
- The Trial of The Chicago 7
- Just Mercy
- Belle
- Bridge of Spies
This is one of the earliest surviving courtroom dramas, and intriguingly it shows that cinema as a technology has been tied up with ideas of truth and reality since its very earliest days. A scientist is showing off his cinema camera in his lab to some friends. They go to leave, but when one walks back into the room, the scientist is dead. The woma...
The first of Steve McQueen's Small Axe anthology films for the BBC tells the story of the Mangrove Nine, a group of protestors who in 1970 rallied to the aid of a Notting Hill restaurant which was repeatedly raided by police in a concerted effort to intimidate and degrade the Caribbean community in the area. The police didn't appreciate their prote...
Along with 12 Angry Menthis is probably the foundation stone of the classical courtroom drama. A folksy, charming lawyer takes on a near-impossible case which strikes at the very heart of our notions of morality, and in the process of defending the little man points to how brutal the big man – usually the state – can be. This folksy, charming lawye...
Keanu Reevesis in his cocky-and-confused pomp as a hotshot and morally ambiguous lawyer presented with the career opportunity of a lifetime by a charismatic, enigmatic and possibly demonic New York CEO, played by Al Pacino. It’s flashy, kitschy and hammy in the best possible ways, as Pacino alternates shouting and mumbling in an attempt to seduce K...
From the lesser-known courtroom-comedy-drama stable (of which we can’t think of many more entrants), this hugely likeable and often very funny film has a plot straight out of a brainstorm meeting; what if two New York college students driving through rural Alabama were accused of a murder they didn’t commit, butcould only afford to hire their uncon...
This seemingly forgotten Eighties courtroom thriller is a classic of its type; scripted by Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) as a modern take on Anatomy of a Murder, it stars Glenn Close as a trial lawyer reluctant to take on the case of a man (a young and inscrutable Jeff Bridges) accused of brutally murdering his wife. The reason she’s uncertain bec...
Aaron Sorkin knows his way around a rat-a-tat walk-and-talk drama, and his new one for Netflixopens with perhaps the most rat-a-tat walk-and-talk sequence he’s yet attempted. This is the story of how seven anti-Vietnam protestors (plus Black Panthers founder Bobby Seale, who was cut out part-way through the trial) were tried for conspiracy and inci...
Michael B Jordan is young Harvard grad Bryan Stevenson, who heads to Alabama to give ordinary people a chance to represent themselves properly in court. The case of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) soon gives him exactly the cause he was looking for: McMillian is on Death Row based on the shakiest of evidence. On taking up the cast, though, Stevenson ...
Amma Asante’s mid-Georgian period piece is a fictionalised slice of the life of Dido Lindsay (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), daughter of an enslaved African woman in the West Indies and a white Royal Navy officer. As she grows up she becomes an heiress and slightly uneasy society staple. She learns about an atrocity at sea in which enslaved people were thrown f...
In his late period, Steven Spielberg’s pretty conclusively shifted gears into assured and quietly impressive political dramas. Between Lincoln and The Post came Bridge of Spies, about the 1957 trial of alleged Russian spy Rudolf Abel. Tom Hanks does his Tom Hanks thing as the folksy small-time insurance lawyer trying to stoutly defend a man most in...
- tom.nicholson@hearst.co.uk
- 3 min
- My Cousin Vinny. Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Ralph Macchio. 477 votes. This comedic courtroom drama follows the story of two college students from New York who are accused of murder in rural Alabama, leading their loud-mouthed, inexperienced attorney cousin to come to their rescue.
- A Few Good Men. Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore. 828 votes. A gripping military courtroom drama with an all-star cast, it centers around the trial of two Marines accused of murdering a fellow soldier, with a rookie Navy lawyer assigned to their defense.
- 12 Angry Men. Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley. 824 votes. In a sweltering New York City jury room, 12 jurors deliberate the guilt of a young man accused of killing his father, initially convinced of his guilt except for one holdout.
- To Kill a Mockingbird. Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford. 637 votes. Adapted from Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, this Southern Gothic tale follows the courageous attorney Atticus Finch as he defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in Depression-era Alabama.
- My cousin Vinny (1992) Directed by Jonathan Lynn and written by Dale Launer, My Cousin Vinny follows two young New Yorkers, Bill Gambini and Stan Rothenstein, who are arrested and put on trial for murder while traveling in rural Alabama.
- 12 angry men (1957) This classic courtroom drama was directed by Sidney Lumet and details the deliberations of 12 men, all of whom are part of the jury deciding the fate of a poor young man who’s been accused of murder.
- Anatomy of a murder (1959) Deemed one of the greatest courtroom dramas of all time and based on the novel with the same title, Anatomy of a Murder follows Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler (played by James Stewart), who has his work cut out for him after agreeing to defend Lt.
- The Lincoln lawyer (2011) Directed by Brad Furman, The Lincoln Lawyer stars Matthew McConaughey as Mick Haller, a defense attorney who runs his law practice out of a Lincoln Continental.
Mar 5, 2024 · Movies set in a law or court-based arena are ripe for potent cinematic drama. After all, there’s some sort of conflict—often an actual lawsuit—at the center. But the great films have more than that. First, there is the case at issue, and the stakes can often be life-and-death.
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Jun 13, 2024 · A list of the best law movies ever made, ranked by movie fans with film trailers when available. This law movie list is ordered by popularity, so only the greatest movies about law are at the top of the list.
