Greatest Legal Movies Ever Made

Despite the best detective movies, having some of the greatest sleuths ever portrayed on screen, these detectives are very different. In the greatest legal movies ever made, the private eye investigators tend to be the lawyers or prosecutors in a court case. They often showcase both experienced investigative skills and legal insight, denoting the layers of a particular case oftentimes quicker than the detectives themselves. This is because they enlist brilliant skills in uncovering a suspect's innocence while denoting some of their own personal shortcomings in the process.

Whether washed up, totally drunk, or brand new to the firm, the following films portray characters at their most vulnerable, as they try to unravel their clients' innocence with the utmost urgency, or try to defend justice as best as possible. These are the best legal movies ever made, capturing the heart and essence of the courtroom in its most compulsory and enigmatic aura.

Based on the award winning bestseller, To Kill a Mockingbird brings Atticus Finch alive with Gregory Peck's exemplary performance as the back country lawyer struggling to defend justice against small town prejudices. Through the eyes and ears of his two children, Jem and Scout, Atticus' story in defending an innocent African American male will always bring out the detested feelings of racism so prevalent in the American south.

Harper Lee would be ecstatic to find that her book was made into one of the greatest legal movies ever made, serving its purpose as displaying the areas at fault in American criminal justice system.

Philadelphia brings top listed actors Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks into one powerhouse film that challenges the modern views of sexuality. Hanks plays a homosexual lawyer, named Andrew Beckett, who contracts HIV and must hide his condition, since he is a well-known and profitable attorney. After being discovered and quickly fired, Beckett sues for sexual discrimination.

Washington plays Joe Miller, the only other lawyer who will help Beckett on his case, and they come face to face with one of Beckett's most illustrious prior colleagues, Mary Steenburgen's Belinda Conine. In challenging our views about sexual representation, especially in the workplace and inducting an amazing cast of characters, Philadelphia proves to be one of the greatest legal movies ever made.

Arguably the most profound and insightful of all the greatest legal movies ever made, A Time to Kill represents the grueling discriminations still rampant in parts of the American south, while also inciting one of the most thought provoking criminal investigative stories ever told. It's the very first book published by John Grisham, which actually led him into stardom later on in his career.

After the rape and mutilation of his daughter, Samuel L. Jackson's Carl Lee Hailey bursts into the courtroom, literally guns blazing, to avenge his baby girl. The double murder, and injury upon one of the courthouse clerks, puts Carl Lee in a devastating predicament. With his duaghter beaten, his family poorer than ever before in his absence, and his own innocence on the line, Hailey has nowhere else to turn. Matthew McConaughey steps in as Jack Brigance, an exceptionally young and unknowledgeable Mississippi attorney who takes on one of the biggest cases not only of his life, but of the small town he and his family currently reside in.

With one of Jack Nicholson's most iconic lines ever spoken on film, "You can't handle the truth!" no other movie can ever claim to be as downright dramatic and informative of the military justice system than A Few Good Men. It's one of the greatest legal movies of all time for that simple reason.

Tom Cruise plays Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a military defense attorney who represents two marines charged with killing a fellow soldier. Though Kaffee is a specialist at ringing in plea bargains, Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway talks him into investigating further, for she believes the murder was an order from a mysterious superior that was merely carried out by Kaffee's clients.

Rather intriguing and uncommon from normal legal films, 12 Angry Men portrays the sequences following a court case, in which the 12 man jury must deliberate on either convicting or acquitting the defendant.

Throughout their stay in the cramped room diagnosing the court case with deliberate intricacies and precision, one juror constantly seems to be at odds with everyone else. Played by Henry Fonda, this juror's conviction in the case seems to drive the others into a maddening frenzy, wherein personal issues collide and the fate of one boy rests in the chaos of this one locked room.

Tasked with investigating the rape and murder of his colleague, prosecuting attorney Rusty Sabitch feels at odds with himself and his career, since he was in a lengthy affair with said colleague before her untimely death. After the evidence starts pointing at him, Rusty will do everything in his power to prove his innocence, even if that means turning to an unlikely defense attorney for assistance.

Presumed Innocent is one of the greatest legal movies of all time, because it's not only a thrill ride, but it also drops seedy hints of romance and dark drama into the mix, drawing out an epic story with an ending that is still spellbinding to this day.

Meet Micheal, a highly successful former prosecutor turned 'fixer' for a high level law firm. Dealing with his own financial and mental issues, he's thrusted into a spiral of guilt after a lawyer has a meltdown during a class action lawsuit. It's up to him to make things right, both within his life and for the lives of many others.

Of the most interesting in the greatest legal movies ever made, Michael Clayton takes the cake. George Clooney stars in this thrilling movie about family, forgiveness, and multi-million dollar conspiracies that can make or break the psyche at will.

John Travolta is Jan Schlichtmann, a personal injury attorney who leaps into a case of epic proportions. What he first believes is a simple case, one that seemed straightforward from the start, turns out to be a maze of undefinable realms, creating a lawsuit that drives Jan's determination through the roof.

A Civil Action is an unorthodox depiction of how stately politics and the environment simply do not mix. While reviews aren't as well received as others on this list of the greatest legal movies of all time, A Civil Action is still a superb film that draws out some of the basic shortcomings still apparent in the American court system.

Mathew McConaughey stars as one of Michael Connelly's most inspiring characters, whom most have labeled 'the Lincoln lawyer,' since he works out of an old, beat up Lincoln town car.

In one of the greatest legal movies ever made, Mick Haller is thrown into a mix of conspiracy and crime. What he believes is a case that will rack him in the big dough he needs to take that step up, actually turns out to be something much more deep and darker than he ever imagined. Luckily for him, his days defending petty crooks may have paid off more than his newly acquired Beverly Hill client could ever do for him.

Probably the funniest on this list, My Cousin Vinny hilariously showcases one of the greatest legal movies ever made by satirizing the very nature of the modern and flawed criminal justice system.

Bill and Stan get arrested for an accusation of murder in Alabama. The police pressure them into giving testimonies of an event they neither were present for, nor had anything to do with, which leads Bill into calling his older cousin, the failed personal injury attorney Vinny. From start to finish, it's an epic thrill ride of hilarious hijinks and satirical comedy that will make you question the evolution of our penal system.

Based on the book of the same name, Anatomy of a Murder takes you into the courtroom, wherein the defendant claims he lost his sanity in the aftermath of his wife's rape. Starring James Stewart as the legal eagle, this movie thickens the more you watch it, and as a timeless classic, it greatly represents an adaption of one of the best books to question the American legal system.

Since it questions the nature of conviction and the psyche, Anatomy of a Murder is one of the greatest legal movies ever made.

The Judge is a breathtaking work of filmography that puts two of the greatest actors in one of the greatest legal movies ever made.

Robert Duval plays a bemused judge living in Indiana, while Robert Downey Jr. plays his son, Hank, who just returns home after the death of his mother. The two are very much at odds with one another, since Hank has grown up to become a shady attorney. However, they must discover a balance for this tension after his father is arrested for a hit-and-run death, and Hank takes him in as his client.