Some of the most memorable moments in movie history have taken place inside the courtroom: Meryl Streep’s impassioned “I’m his mother” speech in Kramer vs. Kramer; Jack Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth!” outburst in A Few Good Men; and, on the lighter side, Joe Pesci’s “two yoots” misunderstanding in My Cousin Vinny.
While we hope never to find ourselves inside a real courtroom, we can’t resist watching movie characters in the legal setting. Here are the best courtroom movies ever made.
Denial (2016)
Based on the 2005 book History on Trial: My Day in Court, Denial tells the true story of American historian Deborah Lipstadt’s court battle with Holocaust denier David Irving. Given 2021 events at the U.S. Capitol, and the fact that a 2020 survey revealed that fewer than half of Americans know how many Jews died in the Holocaust, this film is, sadly, more relevant than ever.
The Firm (1993)
The ’90s were the golden age of legal dramas, with films such as A Few Good Men, The Rainmaker, and A Time to Kill, just to name a few. One of the better offerings was Sydney Pollack’s The Firm, based on a John Grisham novel about a talented young lawyer (Tom Cruise) who joins a prestigious Memphis law firm with shady clients and even shadier practices. At 153 minutes long, the plot gets a little convoluted, but the performances more than make up for any of the screenplay’s deficiencies.
Marshall (2017)
Chadwick Boseman received praise for his turn as Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice and one of the most important figures of 20th-century U.S. history. Set in 1941, 26 years before he succeeded Tom C. Clark as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Marshall looks at one of his first cases as a lawyer, State of Connecticut v. Joseph Spell, in which an African-American chauffeur was accused of raping his boss, a wealthy white woman.
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
This Academy Award favourite about a heated custody battle contains some of the most gripping courtroom scenes in movie history. As if Meryl Streep’s performance wasn’t impressive enough, a 2016 biography on the actress revealed that she wrote her own lines for her famous “I’m his mother” speech, since writer-director Robert Benton wasn’t happy with the original version, saying that it felt like “a man trying to write a woman’s speech.” Kramer vs. Kramer swept the major categories at the Oscars in 1980.
Fracture (2007)
Hotshot deputy district attorney Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) meets his match in Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant aeronautical engineer who represents himself in court after killing his unfaithful wife. Critics praised the performances of the two leads, even if they found the plot of Fracture a little far-fetched.
Dark Waters (2019)
Most of the action takes place outside the courtroom, as corporate defence attorney-turned-environmental activist Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) works to expose chemical giant DuPont’s years of pollution, but it all leads up to one of the biggest class-action lawsuits in U.S. history. Much like the toxic “forever chemicals” DuPont dumped in the waters of West Virginia, the injustices of Dark Waters will stick with you long after the film’s over.
Erin Brockovich (2000)
Similar to Dark Waters, Erin Brockovich is the true story of one person’s determined effort to take down a powerful company for polluting a community’s water supply. Julia Roberts turns in the performance of her career as the single-mother legal assistant who blew the whole story open.
Philadelphia (1993)
Tom Hanks won his first of two Oscars for his performance as Andrew Beckett, a gay man with HIV who loses his job at a law firm because of his disease. Denzel Washington plays the personal injury lawyer who, despite his personal beliefs, agrees to represent Beckett in a wrongful dismissal suit. Although he had previously been nominated for an Oscar for Big, Philadelphia is the movie that turned Hanks into the serious leading man that we know today.
The Verdict (1982)
Twenty-five years after 12 Angry Men, director Sidney Lumet delivered another courtroom classic with The Verdict, starring Paul Newman as a washed-up, alcoholic lawyer who takes on a medical malpractice case in the hopes of rehabilitating his career and his public image. Written by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet, The Verdict was nominated for five Academy Awards, including best actor for Newman.
A Few Good Men (1992)
Directed by Rob Reiner, A Few Good Men gave us one of the most memorable lines in movie history: “You can’t handle the truth!” More than that, it gave us powerful performances from its star-studded cast, including Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, and Kiefer Sutherland. Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay to this critically acclaimed box-office hit about two Marines accused of murdering a fellow Marine.
Bridge of Spies (2015)
With the Cold War legal drama Bridge of Spies, director Steven Spielberg examines a different kind of war: the “Cold war of words.” Tom Hanks plays American lawyer James B. Donovan, “recruited to defend an arrested Soviet spy in court, and then help the CIA facilitate an exchange of the spy for the Soviet captured American U2 spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers.” Mark Rylance turns in an Oscar-winning performance as the KGB spy Rudolf Abel.
Just Mercy (2019)
After graduating from Harvard Law School, Bryan Stevenson moves to Alabama to help defend the wrongfully accused who can’t afford adequate legal representation, such as Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian, an African-American man on death row for the murder of a white woman. Just Mercy hinges on the emotional performances of its two lead actors, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx.
Primal Fear (1996)
Edward Norton earned his first Oscar nomination for his incredible performance as Aaron Stampler, a 19-year-old altar boy from Kentucky charged with the grisly murder of a priest. Based on the 1993 William Diehl novel, Primal Fear rises above the crime procedural formula thanks to its “three-dimensional characters,” rendered by a stellar cast that includes Richard Gere, Laura Linney, and John Mahoney.
The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
Based on the 2005 novel by master of legal thrillers Michael Connelly (Bosch), The Lincoln Lawyer sees Matthew McConaughey in a role he was born to play: suave L.A. criminal defence attorney Mick Haller, who doles out justice from the back of a Lincoln Town Car. Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe, Josh Lucas, John Leguizamo, Bryan Cranston, and William H. Macy round out the superb cast in this entertaining legal drama, which will keep you guessing until the very end.
A Time to Kill (1996)
Before he was the Lincoln lawyer, Matthew McConaughey was Jake Brigance, a young but confident lawyer who defends a Black man (Samuel L. Jackson) accused of killing the two white men who raped and beat his 10-year-old daughter in a small Mississippi town. Directed by Joel Schumacher, A Time to Kill was a box-office hit and earned a positive review from Roger Ebert, who called it “a skillfully constructed morality play that pushes all the right buttons and arrives at all the right conclusions.”
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)
Thanks to an incredible ensemble cast that includes Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Rylance, Frank Langella, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this Aaron Sorkin film about the 1969 trial of seven defendants charged with conspiracy for their part in the countercultural protests at the ’68 Democratic National Convention “is both a courtroom drama for the ages and an urgent shot across the bows.”
The Accused (1988)
Jodie Foster broke free from her teen star image with her gut-wrenching performance as victim of sexual assault in The Accused, which is at times hard to watch yet entirely compelling. The film, which deals with themes of sl*t shaming and victim blaming, is loosely based on the real-life story of Cheryl Araujo. Despite earning her the Oscar for best actress, Foster was initially disappointed with her performance and worried that it might ruin her career.
My Cousin Vinny (1992)
With scene-stealing performances (especially from Marisa Tomei, who took home the Oscar for best supporting actress) and memorable lines (“What is a yoot?”), My Cousin Vinny is the type of movie you can watch over and over again and never get tired of it. Surprisingly, the film has been praised for its accurate depiction of courtroom procedures, thanks to director Jonathan Lynn’s legal background—he studied law at Cambridge University.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Based on the groundbreaking novel by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird is just as powerful and, unfortunately, relevant today as it was nearly six decades ago. Gregory Peck won the Oscar for his performance as Atticus Finch, the Alabama lawyer tasked with defending a Black man against a false charge of sexual assault in the Depression-era South. Finch was named the greatest hero character of all time by AFI.
12 Angry Men (1957)
This timeless Sidney Lumet classic isn’t just the greatest courtroom drama of all time; it’s one of the greatest films of all time, period. 12 Angry Men, about a jury of 12 men tasked with deciding the fate of an 18-year-old accused of stabbing his father to death, will make you feel like you’re one of the jurors in the room. The film is the fifth-highest rated movie on IMDb and came in at #87 on AFI’s “100 Years...100 Movies” tenth anniversary list.
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