After Jalen Jordan retained Street for a traffic violation, evidence links Jordan to two dead boys.
They have a collision on the highway that throws both their lives into disarray, as they go increasingly ballistic on one another. | Stars: The film is damn enjoyable, but it’s also an ordeal, and like any good legal ordeal, it leaves everyone feeling just a little sullied. | $170.69M, PG-13 | Now, some might argue that we’ve occasionally stretched the definition of a legal “thriller,” so let’s get this out of the way: if a lawyer, a legal proceeding, or a legal concept is at the center of a movie, and if that movie has more dramatic and/or thrilling moments than comedic and/or romantic moments (sorry, Legally Blonde, you deserved a spot in the top 5), then ipso facto, that movie is a legal thriller. | Gross: If you were unaware that Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling faced off in a Hitchcockian neo-noir involving a perfect crime, a hotshot prosecutor working one last case before cashing in with a private firm, and some truly enviable interior design concepts, consider this your wakeup call.
A fast-track lawyer can't lie for 24 hours due to his son's birthday wish after he disappoints his son for the last time. There’s something about Grisham and Ford County that’s magic.
Sidney Lumet
Viewed solely as a courtroom movie and a vehicle for Chadwick Boseman’s charisma, Matthew McConaughey is in the Legal Thrillers Hall of Fame, thanks to, Michael Mann’s follow-up to the epic (some might argue, over the top, even grotesque and/or wonderful).
| $70.41M, R |
(Remember, this was aiming to be an ‘important’ 90s movie.)
Stars: Even the most gifted minds can crack under the pressure. After a young woman suffers a brutal gang rape in a bar one night, a prosecutor assists in bringing the perpetrators to justice, including the ones who encouraged and cheered on the attack. Matthew McConaughey, A teenage street hustler has been murdered in a San Francisco shelter for boys, and the priest who runs the Tenderloin-district home is accused. | | But the New Era Is Different.
| Gross: But it’s soon clear that home security is the problem. As the jury is about to reach a verdict, the Electrician makes a devastating, unpredictable move that leaves the entire nation is reeling and Andie’s world shattered. | An emotional legal thriller reminiscent of Grisham’s early classics, Methos put himself among the top legal thriller writers of the 2000s with this one. | A young lawyer joins a prestigious law firm only to discover that it has a sinister dark side. Stars: Rusty kept his wife’s death a secret for nearly a day, perhaps allowing poison to clear, and giving Tommy and his deputy cause to investigate. A very dramatic rendition of Irving v Penguin Books Ltd, in which an American professor, Deborah Lipstadt, was sued for libel by a Holocaust denier she’d called out in various public forums, and who brought her to court in Britain, where she soon learns about some very important distinctions between libel law in the US and the UK. Diesel is in his element, playing Jackie DiNorscio, the man who decided to defend himself pro se and had some solid zingers, lifted straight out of some truly unusual court records. Though she tries to get dismissed, DeGrasse is chosen as juror 11 in a landmark trial against a notorious mob boss known as The Electrician. Stars: John Cusack, When The Ford County Times went bankrupt in 1970, the weekly was picked up by young college dropout Willie Traynor.
Stars: |
Sydney Pollack
154 min
$56.70M, R $14.55M, R Director: Djimon Hounsou, $181.41M, PG-13
| A lawyer sees the chance to salvage his career and self-respect by taking a medical malpractice case to trial rather than settling. $52.93M, R While she is there, she figures out that there is more to her than just looks. Alan J. Pakula 324,814 | Michael is a “fixer” at a white-shoe firm in New York, but he doesn’t have any super powers. | Three years after the events in A Time to Kill, Brigance is dragged into a Ford County, Mississippi, conflict just as riveting when Seth Hubbard, a wealthy man dying of lung cancer, leaves a new, handwritten will before hanging himself from a sycamore tree. Bernie Coulson, John Mahoney, Votes: A law student uncovers a conspiracy, putting herself and others in danger. 141 min Fracture is widely available on streaming services and you deserve it. Ralph Macchio, 127 min | When Street’s put on trial for the death, Street must escape the enemy he made in the DAs office is out for revenge. An altar boy is accused of murdering a priest, and the truth is buried several layers deep. Crime, Drama, Thriller.
Primal Fear – Primarily remembered for an incredible twist in the film’s final minutes, this 1996 film … Secret Service agent Joseph Reeder heroically took a bullet for a president, but he’s been speaking out against that president for stacking the SCOTUS with ultra-conservative judges. Biography, Drama, Sport. Biography, Drama, History. Chock full of psychological suspense, and gloriously infused with dread throughout, The Watching is a must for legal thriller fans. It’s about two actors—an old lion and a young one—facing off in an enclosed space and getting angrier and angrier with each other, and also manipulating the law.
183,340 Noah fights to discover the truth and get justice—no matter the cost. Drama, Mystery, Thriller. Stars: This one is a mostly forgotten Grisham adaptation done by none other than Robert Altman, who, as he did with Chandler’s classic The Long Goodbye, gave this noir-ish thriller his own particular twist, with unusual blockings, uncanny frames, and some searching conversation about the nature of justice, adultery, and all that other good stuff. 70,028 Rachel Weisz does an admirable job in the lead role, and the movie handles some provocative ideas with aplomb, but loses a few points for a sloppy presentation of legal concepts: presumption of innocence, freedom of speech, to name a few of the more important ones. This is a big important legal movie, of the 1990s variety. Jack Nicholson, Jonathan Lynn Renée Zellweger, Gary Oldman,
1. Steven Spielberg This intriguing plot and attention to detail make this a great read for those who love legal thrillers. Richard Gere, Dawn Didawick, Votes: 89,918
Robert Duvall, Director: Director: Crime, Drama, Mystery. Ambitious Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Samantha Brinkman lands a high-profile double-murder case in which one of the victims is a beloved TV star and the defendant is a decorated veteran LAPD detective—the kind of media sensation that will make her a celebrity criminal lawyer. John Travolta, Also, the legal world is captured perfectly. Laura Linney, | The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) / (2015).
Crime, Drama, Mystery. | From page-turning mysteries by John Grisham and Jo Nesbo, find a story that transports you in and out of the courtroom. The star of the show might well be Kenneth Branagh’s deep South accent, as he tries to convince family and colleagues that he didn’t cross an ethical line with his client in an elaborate scheme and cover-up. Gene Hackman, |
Drama, Thriller. 171,298 Sycamore Row by John Grisham. Director: Joel Schumacher A series of anonymous letters are claiming her innocence and caught up in a deadly conspiracy, and Dani is pushed to the edge while trying to prove Molly’s innocence. Stars:
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Does she have a stalker, or is she simply imagining it all?
| Selma Blair, 115 min Witherspoon and Firth double down on some strange Memphis accents, and the whole project is a little heavy-handed, and doesn’t stand up too well against the better documentaries covering the trial and the satan ritual scare that briefly sent the region into a frenzy. The best legal thriller I’ve read in the last five years. Right at the tail end of an epic run through 1990s cinema, Melanie Griffith went for a powerhouse role as a defense attorney struggling to figure out a years-long conspiracy, as old clients come out of the woodwork and pressure comes down from high places.
He wants to sway Hirschfeld’s critical vote on the Supreme Court’s determination of the validity of the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would criminalize abuse of political power. Director: Merwin Was Stripped Naked by a Charismatic Buddhist Leader, September's Best Reviewed Science, Technology, and Nature Books, September's Best Reviewed Memoirs and Biographies, Five Books, One Play, and One Film on the Meaning of Texas. 90,341 Here they are, in a very specific order: the 20 best legal films of the last 20 years. | Drama, History, Thriller. Rick Treon is a former journalist who now writes mystery thrillers.
The movie was criticized at the time for its lack of a satisfying ending. Crime, Drama, Thriller. Denzel Washington, | Gross: Though everyone involved in the small-town investigation and trial tries to stop her, she and local lawyer/love interest re-open the case and free House—which eventually leaves her fighting for her life in the same room her sister occupied before her death. Matt Damon, But for now, we thought it important to dispel rumors of the genre’s demise.