Very Long List of Law-Related Films
This is a current law student's list of films involving the law in some form or another. I ranked each using multiple criteria, giving little weight to the extent of the legal activity in the film. In short, once considered a legal film, I merely ranked it according to personal taste. For example, The Rainmaker earned extra points because I am a student at Memphis Law, the same school the main character attended. That is hardly useful criteria to most. Ultimately, I simply aimed to aggregate several scattered and incomplete law film lists. I am adding movies to this list all the time, therefore I have not seen many of the films in the bottom half.
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- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsMatt DamonDanny DeVitoClaire DanesAn underdog lawyer takes on a fraudulent insurance company.
- DirectorRob ReinerStarsTom CruiseJack NicholsonDemi MooreMilitary lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee defends Marines accused of murder. They contend they were acting under orders.
- DirectorIrwin WinklerStarsRobert De NiroJessica LangeCliff GormanThe story about a cheating and incompetent lawyer (Harry Fabian) who suddenly gets obsessed on becoming a boxing promoter.
- DirectorAdam KassenMark KassenStarsChris EvansMark KassenVinessa ShawA David and Goliath law drama about a drug-addicted lawyer who takes on a health supply corporation while battling his own personal demons.
- DirectorSidney LumetStarsAndy GarciaRichard DreyfussLena OlinA newly elected District Attorney finds himself in the middle of a police corruption investigation that may involve his father and his partner.
- DirectorJoel SchumacherStarsSusan SarandonTommy Lee JonesBrad RenfroA young boy who witnessed the suicide of a mafia lawyer hires an attorney to protect him when the District Attorney tries to use him to take down a mob family.
- DirectorRobert MulliganStarsGregory PeckJohn MegnaFrank OvertonAtticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.
- DirectorBilly WilderStarsJack LemmonWalter MatthauRon RichA crooked lawyer persuades his brother-in-law to feign a serious injury.
- DirectorSteven ShainbergStarsJames SpaderMaggie GyllenhaalJeremy DaviesA young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one.
- DirectorJoel SchumacherStarsMatthew McConaugheySandra BullockSamuel L. JacksonIn Canton, Mississippi, a fearless young lawyer and his assistant defend a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his ten-year-old daughter, inciting violent retribution and revenge from the Ku Klux Klan.
- DirectorAlan J. PakulaStarsHarrison FordRaul JuliaGreta ScacchiAs a lawyer investigates the murder of a colleague, he finds himself more connected to the crime than anyone else.
- DirectorGeorge CukorStarsSpencer TracyKatharine HepburnJudy HollidayDomestic and professional tensions mount when a husband and wife work as opposing lawyers in a case involving a woman who shot her husband.
- DirectorJonathan LynnStarsJoe PesciMarisa TomeiRalph MacchioTwo New Yorkers accused of murder in rural Alabama while on their way back to college call in the help of one of their cousins, a loudmouth lawyer with no trial experience.
- DirectorOtto PremingerStarsJames StewartLee RemickBen GazzaraAn upstate Michigan lawyer defends a soldier who claims he killed an innkeeper due to temporary insanity after the victim raped his wife. What is the truth, and will he win his case?
- DirectorMichael AptedStarsGene HackmanMary Elizabeth MastrantonioColin FrielsAn attorney representing a traumatized accident victim finds that his opponent is a very familiar defense attorney - his own daughter.
- DirectorSidney LumetStarsVin DieselPeter DinklageRon SilverIn the late 1980s, a low level gangster named Jackie DiNorscio defends himself in court in what became the longest criminal trial in American judicial history.
- DirectorMarc RoccoStarsChristian SlaterKevin BaconGary OldmanAn eager and idealistic young attorney defends an Alcatraz prisoner accused of murdering a fellow inmate. The extenuating circumstances: his client had just spent over three years in solitary confinement.
- DirectorTony GilroyStarsGeorge ClooneyTilda SwintonTom WilkinsonA law firm brings in its "fixer" to remedy the situation after a lawyer has a breakdown while representing a chemical company that he knows is guilty in a multibillion-dollar class action suit.
- DirectorSidney LumetStarsPaul NewmanCharlotte RamplingJack WardenAn outcast, alcoholic Boston lawyer sees the chance to salvage his career and self-respect by taking a medical malpractice case to trial rather than settling.
- DirectorSydney PollackStarsTom CruiseJeanne TripplehornGene HackmanA young lawyer joins a prestigious law firm only to discover that it has a sinister dark side.
- DirectorClarence BrownStarsDavid BrianClaude Jarman Jr.Juano HernandezIn 1940s Mississippi, two teenage boys and an elderly woman combine forces to prevent a miscarriage of justice and clear a black man of a murder charge.
- DirectorNorman JewisonStarsDenzel WashingtonVicellous ShannonDeborah Kara UngerThe story of Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.
- DirectorJonathan DemmeStarsTom HanksDenzel WashingtonRoberta MaxwellWhen a man with HIV is fired by his law firm because of his condition, he hires a homophobic-small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.
- DirectorMilos FormanStarsWoody HarrelsonCourtney LoveEdward NortonThe story of controversial pornography publisher Larry Flynt, and how he became a defender of free speech.
- DirectorRobert LuketicStarsReese WitherspoonLuke WilsonSelma BlairElle Woods, a fashionable sorority queen, is dumped by her boyfriend. She decides to follow him to law school. While she is there, she figures out that there is more to her than just looks.