When it comes to accurately portraying what it's like in a courtroom, these films pass the bar. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top films that reflect what it’s really like for lawyers, both inside the courtroom and out.
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00:00You want answers? I think I'm entitled.
00:02You want answers! I want the truth!
00:04You can't handle the truth!
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks
00:10for the top films that reflect what it's really like for lawyers,
00:13both inside the courtroom and out.
00:15Are you sure? I'm positive.
00:21Number 10. Judgment at Nuremberg.
00:23Is it not true that the prosecution asked you to come here?
00:27That it was very disagreeable for you to come here?
00:31It is always very disagreeable to live over those times.
00:35Judgment at Nuremberg tells the fictionalized tale of the Third Nuremberg Trial.
00:40In the film version, several German judges are on trial
00:43for sentencing so many people to concentration camps.
00:46Both the prosecutors and the court are under pressure to go light on the judges.
00:50With the Cold War ramping up, West Germany was an important geopolitical ally.
00:54The country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of oneself.
01:00It's what it stands for.
01:02It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult.
01:06Their struggle reflects that of the defendants.
01:08Can judges truly be independent while operating in large political systems?
01:13The prosecutor refuses to bend under pressure,
01:16and chooses instead to make his case.
01:18His cross-examinations are a textbook example
01:21of how to flesh out a witness's story to maximum effect in court.
01:25The prosecution is not calling the defendants to account
01:28for violating constitutional guarantees or withholding due process of law.
01:34The prosecution is calling them to account for murder.
01:38Number 9. Michael Clayton.
01:40So what are you? What are you? You're not a lawyer?
01:43Not the kind you need.
01:45What kind is that?
01:45A trial lawyer.
01:47Somebody who can see this all the way through. That's not what I do.
01:49Tony Gilroy's film follows George Clooney's Michael,
01:52a fixer at a big city law firm.
01:54It's a tale of murder, guilt, and backroom deals.
01:58When a lawyer handling a lawsuit for a Monsanto-like company has a breakdown,
02:02Michael is enlisted to clean up the mess.
02:04The true-to-life legal grind behind the scenes of a big case
02:07provides the backdrop to murder and intrigue.
02:10Hundreds of millions are at stake,
02:12and the lawyers at the firm spend long, frantic hours on the case.
02:16The company's internal lawyers use whatever means necessary to protect it.
02:20You- you have to contain this.
02:23Contain?
02:24Right. Well, that's my question.
02:29What are the- what's the option that we're looking at along those lines?
02:34The film leaves the audience uneasy.
02:37We all know just how much of a legal shield money can provide powerful bad actors.
02:42I have no criminal record in the state of New York,
02:45and the single determining criterion for involuntary incarceration is danger.
02:50Is the defendant a danger to himself or others?
02:54You think you got the horses for that?
02:59Leonard Vaux left the house at 7.30 and returned at 25 minutes past 9.
03:04Did he in fact return at 25 past 9?
03:08No. He returned at 10 minutes past 10.
03:11Astine, what are you saying? It's not true!
03:13You know it's not true!
03:15The 1957 Agatha Christie adaptation,
03:18Witness for the Prosecution certainly takes some dramatic liberties.
03:21Charles Lawton stars as a barrister hired to defend Tyrone Power in a murder trial.
03:26Marlena Dietrich plays the eponymous witness,
03:29the defendant's wife who testifies against him.
03:32Leonard has a way with women.
03:34I only hope he will have an all-woman jury.
03:37They will carry him from the courtroom and try him.
03:39She later appears in disguise to present the defense with exculpatory evidence.
03:44It's a classic noir.
03:45Lawton navigates a labyrinth of deceit to finally find the truth.
03:49The legal realism of the film takes the form of a philosophical debate.
03:53Lawton sees the legal system as a vessel for truth and justice.
03:57Dietrich is a realist.
03:58To her, justice comes to those who seize it.
04:02We see that the legal system, susceptible to legal trickery,
04:05often promotes closure over justice.
04:08Leonard is free and we did it.
04:09We?
04:09Remember, when I came to see you and you said that no jury would believe an alibi
04:13given by a loving wife no matter how much she swore her husband was innocent?
04:17That gave me the idea.
04:19What idea?
04:20The idea that I should be a witness, not for my husband, but for the prosecution.
04:25Number 7.
04:26Erin Brockovich
04:27Erin Brockovich is the true story of the legal fight on behalf of the residents of Hinkley,
04:32California.
04:33With the help of a plucky, brash and bold Brockovich and her law firm,
04:37the residents sue Pacific Gas and Electric Company, or PG&E.
04:40The town represented a large cancer cluster in a county where PG&E
04:44illegally dumped hexavalent chromium into the water.
04:47PG&E told her about the chromium.
04:49Well, get this, they had a seminar.
04:51They invited about 200 residents from the area,
04:54had it at the plant in this warehouse,
04:56telling them all about chromium-3 and how good it is for you,
04:59when all the time they're using chromium-6.
05:01The difficulty in such cases is proving causality.
05:05First of all, since the Demur, we have more than 400 plaintiffs,
05:08and let's be honest, we all know there are more out there.
05:11They may not be the most sophisticated people,
05:13but they do know how to divide,
05:14and $20 million isn't shit when you split it between them.
05:18As any Stats 101 student will tell you,
05:20correlation doesn't necessarily prove causation.
05:23Through months of legwork and investigation,
05:25Brockovich eventually located internal company documents that proved the case.
05:29He's gonna make them pay $333 million.
05:34Number 6.
05:35The case at the heart of Sidney Lumet's The Verdict is a simple one at its core.
05:40A woman is improperly given anesthesia during childbirth,
05:43resulting in a coma and long-term care.
05:46But this is 1982 Boston, and the hospital is Catholic.
05:50The wheels of politics and corruption turn against
05:52the plaintiff's lawyer, played by Paul Newman.
05:55That poor girl put her trust into the hands of two men who took her life.
06:02Corrupt medical professionals alter intake forms.
06:05A corrupt judge stymies the plaintiff at every turn.
06:08A corrupt firm spies on the plaintiff's lawyer.
06:23Still, while The Verdict is overly dramatized,
06:26there are many nuggets of truth within.
06:28In real life, the powerful do often have disproportionate advantage in court.
06:33They try to play the long game,
06:34playing plaintiffs and their counsel against one another.
06:37All I want on this trial is a fair shake, okay?
06:40Push me into court five days early.
06:42I lose my star witness, and I can't get a continuance, and I don't care.
06:46I'm going up there, I'm gonna try it, I'm gonna let the jury decide.
06:49Number 5.
06:50A few good men.
06:51I don't understand.
06:52You're admitting evidence of a flight that never existed.
06:55Oh, we believe it did, sir.
06:56A few good men, like most lawyer movies, suffers from Perry Mason syndrome.
07:01In real life, a star witness is rarely goaded into impeaching themselves on the stand.
07:06You want answers?
07:07I think I'm entitled.
07:08You want answers!
07:09I want the truth!
07:10You can't handle the truth!
07:12Setting that aside, the Aaron Sorkin play-turned-Rob Reiner film
07:16is a favorite among lawyers.
07:18Few legal dramas are willing to examine the nature of culpability within systems.
07:23The defendants in the case are accused of murdering a Marine
07:26whose incompetence threatened unit cohesion.
07:28The death was the result of a disciplinary hazing gone too far.
07:32I think Santiago should be transferred off the base immediately.
07:35He's that bad, huh?
07:36The hazing, a code red, was ordered both by the defendant's lieutenant and their colonel.
07:41The film explores this culpability,
07:44forcing us to examine our institutions and the people who comprise them.
07:48Any chance Lieutenant Kendrick left your office and said,
07:50The old man is wrong.
07:53No.
07:53Number 4.
07:54Anatomy of a Murder.
07:56What's your experience as a defense lawyer?
07:58Not very much.
08:00How do I know you can handle my case?
08:02Well, I guess you don't know.
08:05Shall we talk about it?
08:06Unlike many movies of the era,
08:08Anatomy of a Murder was shot entirely on location.
08:11It was shot in a real courtroom in Michigan,
08:14where the story takes place.
08:15Jimmy Stewart stars as a small-town lawyer defending an army lieutenant in a murder case.
08:20It was written by John D. Volker,
08:22a former Michigan State Supreme Court justice.
08:25He based the story on a real case.
08:27Stewart uses the temporary insanity defense.
08:30As a result,
08:31he expertly deconstructs witness testimony to frame his client's state of mind.
08:36Suppose you just go ahead and file that formal petition anyway.
08:40Of course, you're a little late, aren't you?
08:42Well, maybe his honor will overlook that.
08:44And then I'd sort of like the jury to see that you think our insanity plea has some merit.
08:49He examines the timeline of events in excruciating detail
08:53and battles the prosecution to include evidence for motive.
08:56Anatomy of a Murder is very much a movie written by a lawyer made for other lawyers.
09:02Your honor, I don't feel I can dignify this creature with any more questions.
09:07Number 3.
09:08My Cousin Vinny
09:09I didn't pass my first time out.
09:11That's okay, you probably passed a second time, right?
09:13I'm afraid not.
09:16Three times a charm?
09:18For me, it isn't.
09:19Legal thriller is a tried-and-true genre.
09:22Legal comedies, however, are few and far between.
09:25That could explain why lawyers love My Cousin Vinny.
09:28Are you sure?
09:30I'm positive.
09:32When two college kids from New York are charged with murder in Alabama,
09:36one calls his cousin Vinny in to defend them.
09:38Despite playing absurdity for laughs,
09:41My Cousin Vinny portrays a shockingly realistic trial compared to other films.
09:45We follow Vinny, a lawyer in his first trial ever,
09:48as he builds a case from the ground up.
09:50Your clients are charged with first-degree murder.
09:52How they plead.
09:54My your honor, my client-
09:55Don't talk to me sitting in that chair.
10:02He told me to sit here.
10:03All the while, like many lawyers in similar situations,
10:07he has to battle the bias of both the judge and the jury.
10:10His cross-examination techniques are true-to-life,
10:13as is his reliance on expert testimony and investigation to make his case.
10:17You could positively identify the defendants for a moment of two seconds
10:24looking through this dirty window, this crud-covered screen.
10:31Who tells you that you have the right to play like this with a man's life?
10:36Don't you care-
10:37Now wait a minute.
10:39You can't talk like that to me.
10:40I can talk like that to you.
10:43It's a little difficult to imagine a film that takes place in a single room
10:46capturing an audience's attention,
10:48and yet 12 Angry Men pulls it off easily
10:51thanks to great writing and incredible performances.
10:54At the end of a murder trial concerning a teen accused of killing his father,
10:57the jury must come to a verdict on a hot summer day.
11:00This boy's been hit so many times in his life
11:02that violence is practically a- it's a normal state of affairs with him.
11:06I just- I can't see two slaps in the face provoking him into committing murder.
11:10Their inner biases bubble to the surface as they deliberate,
11:14eventually turning into angry arguments.
11:16You sat in court with the rest of us.
11:18You heard what we did.
11:19The kid's a dangerous killer.
11:20You could see it.
11:21He's 18 years old.
11:23As one holdout juror convinces them one by one
11:26to reconsider seemingly straightforward evidence, tensions mount.
11:30The heavy responsibility of a juror is front and center
11:34as they debate a young man's future.
11:35You saw this kid just like I did.
11:37You're not gonna tell me you believe that phony story
11:40about losing the knife and that business about being at the movies.
11:43Look, you know how these people lie.
11:45It's born in them.
11:46Before we unveil our top pick, here are some honorable mentions.
11:50Inherit the Wind.
11:51This Spencer Tracy-led classic dramatizes the Scopes Monkey Trial.
11:55Can't you understand that if you take a law like evolution
12:00and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools,
12:02tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools?
12:06And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it?
12:08A Civil Action.
12:10Travolta stars as a lawyer who pays the price
12:12as a David taking on a Goliath corporation.
12:15The purpose of these questions is not to embarrass or humiliate you,
12:19but rather to verify the information you've declared as your assets.
12:22I understand.
12:24Because what you're asking your creditors to believe with this petition is...
12:29Well, it's hard to believe.
12:32I know.
12:33On the Basis of Sex.
12:34This biopic highlights Ruth Bader Ginsburg's fight for women's rights.
12:38When I was in law school, there was no women's bathroom.
12:47It's amazing to me now that we never complain.
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13:13Before 2015, author Harper Lee wrote exactly one novel,
13:17and it became a cornerstone of American literature.
13:21In 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird was adapted into a film starring Gregory Peck.
13:26The American Film Institute considers the movie the best courtroom drama of all time.
13:31To Kill a Mockingbird is loosely based on events during Lee's childhood in the South.
13:35It's the story of how racism infected every aspect of the legal system.
13:39This case should never have come to trial.
13:42The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence
13:47that the crime Tom Robertson is charged with ever took place.
13:53There are two juries in To Kill a Mockingbird,
13:56the biased jury in the film, and the audience.
13:59Atticus Finch loses the former and wins over the latter
14:02thanks to a combination of solid lawyering and moving oratory.
14:06As in real life, the innocent can still be found guilty.
14:10In this country, our courts are the great levelers.
14:16In our courts, all men are created equal.
14:24Which movie court case got to you the most?
14:26Be sure to let us know in the comments.
14:28Your Honor, my clients didn't do anything.
14:30Once again, the communication process is broken down.
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