10 Best Legal Thrillers Ever Made, Ranked
“I speak. You do not speak. Your job is to just sit there and look innocent.”
A legal thriller is a crime movie where the plot mostly follows a criminal investigation or the drama of a courtroom trial. Similar to a murder mystery, part of the draw for the audience is being able to guess the outcome of the case. In most legal thrillers the audience is put in a jury seat, making guesses about whether the defendant is innocent or guilty before the outcome is revealed.
These legal thrillers are the best in the subgenre. Ranked with the best legal thriller of all time at the end of this list:
10. The Client (1994)
An eleven-year-old boy, Mark Sway (Brad Renfro) witnesses a mafia lawyer kill himself to avoid being murdered by the mob. A US attorney (Tommy Lee Jones) selfishly tries to use Mark to take down the mafia and advance his career. Susan Sarandon plays Mark’s lawyer Regina “Reggie” Love, who advocates for him and tries to keep him safe.
9. Presumed Innocent (1990)
A legal thriller following a prosecutor, Rozat “Rusty” Sabich (Harrison Ford) who is charged with murdering a coworker he had been having an affair with (Greta Scacchi). Sabich fixes the investigation so that his detective friend is in charge and can hide Sabich’s affair. It becomes apparent that Sabich wasn’t the only person who had an affair with the victim and the real killer may be someone he knows.
In 2024, Presumed Innocent was made into a miniseries with Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard for AppleTV+.
8. The Pelican Brief (1993)
After two Supreme Court Justices are assassinated, law student Darby Shaw (Julia Roberts) writes a legal brief theorizing why the two men were targeted and shares it with her boyfriend/law professor, Thomas Callahan (Sam Shepard) who clerked for one of the deceased justices. Callahan is then killed by a car bomb and Darby realizes her theory was accurate and goes into hiding. She works with a reporter named Gray Grantham (Denzel Washington) to uncover the truth.
7. Michael Clayton (2007)
Considered one of the best screenplays of all time, Michael Clayton stars George Clooney as the title character. Clayton is a “fixer” at a Manhattan law firm who narrowly escapes being killed by a car bomb one night while helping a client get out of a hit and run. A flashback shows Clayton attempting to help one of the firm’s lawyers (Tom Wilkinson) who has a mental breakdown while working on a multi-billion dollar lawsuit.
6. The Firm (1993)
A legal thriller based on the John Grisham novel of the same name. Tom Cruise stars as Mitch McDeere, a top Harvard Law School graduate who is recruited by a boutique law firm in Memphis, Tennessee. The firm seems like a dream come true: they pay off McDeere’s law school debt and purchase him a Mercedes. McDeere eventually learns that this is because the firm’s primary client is a mafia family. McDeere then begins the dangerous process of trying to extricate himself and his wife from the firm’s clutches.
5. Fracture (2007)
A psychological legal thriller following William “Willy” Beachum (Ryan Gosling), a hot shot deputy district attorney who has recently accepted a job offer to leave public service for a prestigious corporate law firm. Before beginning his new role, Beachum must win his final case. The case is a murder trial involving wealthy engineer Theodore “Ted” Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) who seems to have orchestrated the perfect murder.
4. A Few Good Men (1992)
A legal drama based on Aaron Sorkin’s play of the same name. Tom Cruise stars as Daniel Kaffee, an inexperienced JAG Corps Lieutenant assigned the case of Private William Santiago (Michael DeLorenzo), who is found dead after either a bullying incident or direct orders to use violent extrajudicial punishment. Kaffee faces a brick wall when trying to investigate the case and it becomes clear a cover up is involved. The film received four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
3. A Time to Kill (1996)
A black child in Mississippi is beaten and raped by two white men. The girl’s father, Carl Lee Hailey (Samuel L. Jackson), takes a gun to the courthouse and murders the rapists, seriously injuring a deputy in the process. Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) is hired to defend Hailey. Despite racist backlash from the community, including the abduction of Brigance’s law clerk Ellen Roark (Sandra Bullock), Brigance works hard to win Hailey’s freedom.
2. The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
A legal thriller based on the book of the same name by Michael Connelly. Mickey Haller (Matthew McConaughey) is a defense attorney working in Los Angeles County out of his chauffeured Lincoln town car. Haller generally defends working class people, but is hired to represent wealthy socialite Louis Roulet (Ryan Phillipe) who is charged with assaulting a sex worker (Margarita Levieva). Everything is not as it seems and Haller and his investigator (William H. Macy) must uncover the truth behind Roulet’s crimes.
1. Primal Fear (1996)
One of the best twist-endings of any legal thriller comes from this movie about arrogant Chicago lawyer Martin Vail (Richard Gere). Vail takes the case of defending a 19-year-old stuttering altar boy, Aaron Stampler (Edward Norton), in the murder case of an Archbishop. The lawyer is convinced of Stampler’s innocence and dedicates himself to winning the trial.
