20 Best Courtroom Dramas That Will Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat
Universal Pictures
Your honor, if it pleases the court, we have evidence that proves that the following films are some of the best courtroom dramas of all time. It’s no surprise why so many great movies take place inside a courtroom. The legal system is built for drama—a trial provides a natural framework for a narrative with plenty of opportunities for unexpected twists and reveals. A real-life trial is often fascinating to watch, so of course a dramatization, either of a real trial or a fictional scenario, would be entertaining, too.
But not all legal movies are courtroom movies. There are lots of great legal thrillers, such as Michael Clayton and The Pelican Brief , that don’t have all that much action taking place inside an actual courtroom, while great legal procedural films such as Erin Brockovich and Dark Waters also largely focus on the work lawyers do outside of the court. The following list of 20 movies, though, all have major scenes that take place inside the halls of justice. Read on to learn about the best courtroom movies.
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The Best Courtroom Dramas Ever Made
Sidney Lumet’s 1957 film takes place almost entirely inside one room as a jury of 12 men deliberate over whether or not to convict a young man accused of murder to death. At the onset, 11 of them are ready to cast guilty votes, but one juror, played by Henry Fonda , has doubts. He presses his fellow jurors to consider the evidence, leading to a heated debate with immense consequences. 12 Angry Men isn’t just one of the best courtroom movies of all time—it’s one of the best films ever made.
Jodie Foster stars as a woman who has been the victim of a violent sexual assault by a gang of men, only to find that her checkered past makes her an unsympathetic accuser. Her lawyer ( Kelly McGillis ) encourages her to take a plea bargain that lets her assailants off with a much lighter sentence than they deserve. When Foster’s character has an encounter with one of her attackers afterward, her lawyer sees a chance to do right by her client and get a second chance at justice. The Accused was critically acclaimed, and Foster won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance.
Known for Jack Nicholson’s iconic outburst on the witness stand during the climatic moment, A Few Good Men is one of the most re-watchable movies there is. Tom Cruise stars as a hotshot Navy lawyer who must defend two Marines accused of killing a fellow soldier, in the process uncovering a dark secret. Rob Reiner directed the 1992 film, an adaptation of Aaron Sorkin’s play of the same name from a few years earlier.
This acclaimed 2023 French film, which has dialogue in French, English, and German, is worth watching as an American if only to see just how different—and wild—trials are in France. Sandra Hüller stars as a woman on trial for the death of her husband, who fell (or was he pushed?) to his death at their remote mountain home. Beyond being a crackling legal drama, Anatomy of a Fall , which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, is a deft exploration of guilt, relationships, and the truth.
Anatomy of a Fall ’s title is clearly inspired by that of Anatomy of a Murder , which came out more than 60 years earlier—and for good reason. The film, directed by Otto Preminger , is one of the great trial movies, telling the story of a Michigan lawyer defending an Army lieutenant who murdered a man accused of raping his wife.
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The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is the final film from director William Friedkin , released posthumously in 2023 (and it was a posthumous release for actor Lance Reddick as well). An adaptation of a play from the ‘50s, the movie is extremely stripped-down, taking place entirely in a courtroom as a lieutenant stands on trial to determine whether the mutiny he led against a decorated (if erratic) captain during a storm was justified. It’s a testament to the source material, the actors, and Friedkin’s direction that the film is tense and utterly gripping despite consisting almost entirely of testimony with no cutaways or effects.
Can a horror movie be a courtroom movie? The Exorcism of Emily Rose says yes. This 2005 movie from Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson focuses on the trial of a Catholic priest who has been charged with negligent homicide for the death of a young woman during an attempted exorcism. Faith and law combine in this unique—and chilling—mixture of two classic film genres.
Oliver Stone’s conspiracy theory masterpiece has received criticism for some of the conclusions it draws about the assassination of John F. Kennedy , but that has no bearing on how fascinating and watchable his 1991 movie is. Kevin Costner stars as Jim Garrison , the New Orleans district attorney who was responsible for the only trial ever held about the 1963 assassination. JFK is well over three hours in length, but they fly by, especially the electrifying final section that covers the trial itself.
One of the more consequential trials in modern history serves as the subject of Judgment at Nuremberg , a 1961 film that offers a fictionalized take on the military tribunals that sought to bring the Nazis and their collaborators who were responsible for the Holocaust to justice. Directed by Stanley Kramer , the film explores guilt, culpability, and the nature of evil.
Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep star in this Best Picture-winning drama as a married couple going through a contentious divorce. A landmark movie, Kramer vs. Kramer is a nuanced, thoughtful, and heart-wrenching examination of modern relationships and parenting, and it features an especially ugly courtroom scene.
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Many movies about court cases, due to the potential gravity of the trial, are pretty serious affairs. Legally Blonde , the 2001 legal rom-com starring Reese Witherspoon , is a delightful breath of fresh air. Witherspoon, here at her most charming, plays sorority girl Elle Woods, and the film follows her as she heads to Harvard Law and triumphs not just in the courtroom but against dumb blonde stereotypes—while also teaching the “bend and snap” move.
Yes, technically the beloved 1947 Christmas movie is also a courtroom drama, too. A department store Santa claims to be the real Saint Nick, a delusion (or is it?) that leads to him being sent to a mental hospital. It’s up to an attorney who has become close with the woman and her daughter who have taken this Kris Kringle in to defend him in court by proving, legally, that there is a Santa Claus.
It’s not just the defendants and prosecutors who clash in this classic 1992 comedy. Cultures clash too, after two New Yorkers are arrested and tried for a murder they didn’t commit down in Alabama. Their only hope at acquittal? One of them has a cousin, Vinny ( Joe Pesci ), who just passed the bar and travels from Brooklyn with his wife ( Marisa Tomei , who won an unexpected Oscar for the role) to help his family out. Comedy ensues.
The first half of Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 anti-war masterpiece is a thrilling, harrowing action epic. Kirk Douglas plays a French commander in WWI who has been ordered by his superiors to lead his men across the trenches in an attack that is doomed to failure. It’s an incredible action set piece, especially for the era in which it was made, and it’s followed by a legal drama for the ages. Douglas must attempt to defend three of his men in a rigged court-martial to prevent them from being executed as punishment for the so-called “cowardice” that led to the attack’s failure.
Tom Hanks stars as Andrew Beckett, a Philadelphia lawyer who sues his former employer after being wrongfully terminated because he is a gay man with AIDS—a disease that was horribly stigmatized during the ‘80s and ‘90s. Jonathan Demme’s film, which co-stars Denzel Washington as a lawyer who overcomes his own prejudices to help Beckett, was a massive success at the box office and praised for how it thoughtfully presented those with AIDS, who were otherwise marginalized and shunned in popular culture.
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Edward Norton made an auspicious film debut as an altar boy accused of brutally murdering a Chicago archbishop in this 1996 movie. Richard Gere plays a high-profile defense attorney who sees the case as a chance to defend an innocent, for once. A mystery with thrills and twists, Primal Fear is worth watching for its stunning ending alone.
Author John Grisham is responsible for dozens of legal thrillers—many of which became acclaimed movies, including 1997’s The Rainmaker , directed by Francis Ford Coppola . Matt Damon plays Rudy Baylor, a young underemployed lawyer who stumbles upon a massive insurance scandal and must square off against corrupt corporate America in all its might.
Another film based on a John Grisham novel, Runaway Jury stars Gene Hackman as a crooked jury consultant attempting to rig the outcome of a major case against a gun manufacturer for negligence following a mass shooting. However, John Cusack’s character sits on the jury, and he appears to have his own agenda and the ability to sway opinions inside the deliberation room.
Harper Lee’s seminal novel is many things—a coming-of-age tale, an exploration of race in the Deep South, etc.—but it’s also a thrilling courtroom drama. Gregory Peck plays father and lawyer Atticus Finch in the Oscar-winning 1962 adaptation, and it’s stirring to watch him attempt to defend Tom Robinson, a Black man falsely accused of raping a white woman whose guilt is all but assumed because of his race. The American Film Institute named Peck’s Atticus Finch the No. 1 cinematic hero in 100 years of American movies, and it’s easy to see why.
Paul Newman stars in this Sidney Lumet drama as an alcoholic lawyer who surprises even himself when he opts to take a medical malpractice case to trial rather than settle for a hefty sum as expected, because he’s been moved to do the right thing after seeing the victim’s plight. Charlotte Rampling co-stars.
30 Travel Movies to Help Inspire Your Next Trip
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One of the great things about movies is that they can take you places without you having to squeeze into an uncomfortable airplane seat or with all the other hassles that real-life travel entails. There are lots of great movies about people setting out to see the world , so let the big screen scratch your wanderlust by checking out these 31 films.
Some of the movies on this list are romantic, following two people as they come together in that special way that happens when you’re away from home. Others are about journeys of self-discovery, showing what can happen when you hit the road solo. Some movies are uproarious comedies that will transport you away from your troubles as you laugh along to the antics on screen. There are also movies that are less of a vacation than they are an adventure, sure to get your blood pumping. And there are some scary movies about travel—the sort that might make you think, “You know, actually, maybe let’s make this one a staycation.”
Don’t bother packing your bags. All you need to do is hit “play” to embark on any one of these 30 great travel movies.
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Romantic Travel Movies
Diane Lane stars in this charming 1996 movie as a recently divorced woman who travels to Italy in an attempt to break out of her post-divorce funk. (In her defense, her husband was cheating on her and he got to keep the house, so she’s right to be miffed.) Once in Tuscany, though, she somehow becomes the owner of a villa, and as she begins to make a new life for herself, the potential for new love emerges amidst some of the most beautiful scenery and delicious-looking wine ever put to film. It’s the type of movie that will have you looking up flights to Florence.
A destination wedding counts as travel, and the breakout comedy of 2023 was shot on location in Australia. Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney play two people who left on bad terms after a one-night stand only to have to make nice when their mutual friends get married. Anyone But You is enough to make you want to take a trip Down Under, although perhaps without all the rom-com shenanigans.
Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz play lovelorn women who swap homes so that they can get away from their respective heartbreaks over Christmastime. When Winslet’s Iris and Diaz’s Amanda get to Los Angeles and London, respectively, they find new love in Jack Black and Jude Law’s characters. The 2006 movie, from the great Nancy Meyers , works extra well as a travel movie because, thanks to the house-swapping premise, it’s a reminder that everyone’s home is somebody else’s trip.
The first of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy introduces audiences to Ethan Hawke’s Jesse and Julie Delpy’s Céline as they meet on a train from Budapest and decide to spend the night together wandering Vienna. Widely regarded as one of the more romantic movies ever made, Before Sunrise will also make you want to explore Vienna with someone you’ve just met—someone who maybe you could see yourself spending the rest of your life with.
Technically, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris is a travel movie (because Owen Wilson’s character is visiting Paris with his fiancee, played by Rachel McAdams ) and a time travel movie (because he goes back in time to 1920s). It’s a romantic movie both because of the relationship Wilson’s Gil strikes up with Marion Cotillard’s Adriana and because of how it romanticizes Paris and nostalgia—and deftly interrogates that romanticism.
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Movies About Traveling Solo
Dev Patel stars in this 2016 film, which is based on the true story of Saroo Brierley , who was separated from his parents in India at a very young age and adopted by an Australian couple. Once he grew up, he went back to his birth country in an attempt to find his biological parents. Saroo’s trek through India and into his own forgotten past is a tear-jerking, emotional travel story, and Lion was rewarded with six Oscar nominations.
This 2014 adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail stars Reese Witherspoon as Strayed sets out to hike from Southern California to Washington State in an attempt to find herself. The tour of the West Coast’s trails is a tour-de-force for the actor as her character remakes her life one hiking boot-clad step at a time.
In 1977, Robyn Davidson set out on a nine-month journey across the unforgiving Australian Outback with her dog and four camels. She later wrote about her adventure in National Geographic and in her memoir Tracks . In 2013, her story was adapted into a film with the same name. Mia Wasikowska plays Davidson in the movie, which features stunning cinematography of the Australian desert in all its harsh beauty.
A lot of solo travel stories are tales of self-discovery where the voyager has learned something by the time they reach their destination. Into the Wild offers no such catharsis, instead telling the true story of Christopher McCandless , a man who hiked across America and eventually ended up in the Alaskan wilderness—an environment he was not prepared for. It’s a poignant, tragic counterpart to the more common celebrations of wanderlust you tend to see in pop culture.
Julia Roberts stars as Elizabeth Gilbert in this 2010 adaptation of her memoir of post-divorce travel and self-discovery. Feeling her life is aimless and without purpose, Liz elects to travel around the world, stopping in Italy, India, and Bali where she eats, prays, and well, you can probably guess.
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Travel Horror Movies
Ari Aster’s supremely disturbing folk horror movie stars Florence Pugh as a young woman who is begrudgingly invited by her not-great boyfriend and his friends to go to Sweden to observe a commune’s midsummer festival. Upon getting there, Pugh’s Dani soon learns that the Hårga are not all sunshine and flowers, and that there are dark rituals and sinister plots. It’s the type of movie that will make you think twice about a Nordic vacation, and you’ll never look at a taxidermied bear the same way.
This 2005 horror movie, from director Eli Roth , is one of the biggest examples of the so-called “torture porn” subgenre, but there’s more to Hostel than just blood and guts. (There are a lot of blood and guts, though.) The film follows some American backpackers who, while traveling in Eastern Europe, become the victims of a shadowy organization that lets the ultra-rich live out their most depraved fantasies by torturing and killing unsuspecting tourists. Let’s just say that Hostel is not exactly a great promotional tourism campaign for Slovakia—something that the country was actually pretty upset about .
This 2022 film, released by the horror-centric streaming service Shudder, follows a social media influencer who, when traveling in Thailand, meets and befriends a young woman. It’s the type of movie that lives or dies on its twists, but let’s just say that Influencer is what you would get if The Talented Mr. Ripley were set in the social media age and a full-on horror film instead of a thriller.
The Creator director Gareth Edward’s 2010 debut follows a photojournalist as he tries to escort a young woman through Mexico, which has been taken over by kaiju-sized alien monsters. There are moments of beauty and discovery along their journey, as well as high-stress moments of terror when they encounter these creatures, which Edwards brings to life on a shoestring budget—though you can’t tell that by watching.
It’s right there in the title: John Landis’ 1980 comedy horror is about an American in London, although he’s not a werewolf when he first arrives in the UK. No, that happens after he’s mauled by a strange beast in the moors of Yorkshire—and that same beast kills the friend he was backpacking with. When he recovers in London, things get gnarly in the light of a full moon.
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Comedy Movies About Traveling
If you like the misadventures of the Griswold family’s first vacation attempt, great news: There are five sequels to this 1983 Chevy Chase comedy. Before the European , Vegas , or Christmas Vacation , though, Clark Griswold tries to drive his family from Chicago to southern California. Their journey makes for some classic comedy, though it might hit a bit too close to home if you’ve had to endure a family vacation that went awry.
A lot of Wes Anderson’s movies are about travel, including his most recent film, Asteroid City , and The Grand Budapest Hotel . His ultimate travel movie, though, is 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited , which stars Owen Wilson , Adrien Brody , and Jason Schwartzman as three estranged brothers who agree to make a trip through India together in the hopes of reconnecting after their father’s death.
Lots of movies are about travel, but are they about a big adventure, the way Tim Burton’s directorial debut is? Paul Reubens stars as his Pee-wee Herman character, who hits the road in an attempt to recover his beloved bicycle, which has gone missing. Following a psychic’s totally legit vision of his bike in the basement of the Alamo, Pee-wee encounters a ghost trucker, biker gangs, and all the madness of a Hollywood backlot.
Netflix’s Oscar-nominated animated movie has a setup that’s not too dissimilar from that of National Lampoon’s Vacation . Aspiring filmmaker Katie Mitchell can’t wait to get away from her family and start film school. Her dad, voiced by Danny McBride , feels his daughter slipping away and opts to have the whole fam drive her across the country rather than take a plane to school. At the same time, an A.I. gone rogue has started a robot uprising. Oops!
In addition to featuring a hall-of-fame cameo from Matt Damon as the singer of “Scotty Doesn’t Know,” Eurotrip is a classic, if not especially intelligent, teen sex romp. It’s not the movie to watch if you want to get a feel for Europe, but it is what you put on when you want to enjoy some good, dumb laughs.
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Adventure Travel Movies
Ben Stiller directed and stars in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty , an imaginative adaptation of a 1939 short story about a mild-mannered man who gets lost in his daydreams. When circumstances force Walter to embark on a trip around the world, he starts living his daydreams for real, going to Greenland and the Himalayas. Featuring a fantastic soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography of some truly beautiful, off-the-beaten-path places, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the type of movie that might make you stop just thinking about taking a trip and actually buy a ticket.
William Friedkin , best known for directing The Exorcist , also helmed this 1977 thriller about possibly the worst road trip of all time. When four people, all on the run from their various sordid pasts, find themselves trapped in a remote oil village in Colombia, they are desperate to get out by any means necessary. The opportunity presents itself when the bosses need people to drive boxes of dynamite that are extremely unstable and could blow at any minute across miles of rainforest. There is one sequence in Sorcerer that’s some of the most unbelievably tense filmmaking you’ll likely ever see. (Note that it’s a remake of another classic film, Wages of Fear , should you want another movie that’ll keep you on edge.)
Johnny Depp stars as an average man who finds himself smack in the middle of an international criminal incident when on vacation in Europe after a woman, played by Angelina Jolie , tries to trick the authorities into thinking Depp’s the fugitive they’re looking for. Thrills, laughs, and a little romance ensue.
Charlie Hunnam plays real explorer Percy Fawcett in this adaptation of the book by the same name from author David Grann , who also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon . The film follows the British explorer in the early 1900s as he tries, time and time again, to prove the existence of a mythical city deep in the jungles of Brazil. Think of it as a somber, reflective take on a real-life Indiana Jones, one whose obsession with traveling to hostile environments in search of knowledge may prove to be his undoing.
This gripping survival drama about the infamous 1996 Mount Everest Disaster, as documented by Jon Krakauer in the book Into Thin Air, is the type of film that will probably make you consider an all-inclusive beach resort for your next vacation rather than mountain-climbing.
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Movies About Roadtrips
This biopic follows the man who would become the Che Guevara when he, as a young man in the early ‘50s, travels across South America with his friend Alberto Granado . The film, which is based on Guevara’s trip diary, is both a road movie and a coming-of-age film about an important historical figure, as we see him become radicalized by the poverty and inequality he sees on this journey.
Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan star in Ethan Coen’s romp from earlier this year, and it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call Drive-Away Dolls “ The Big Lebowski , but just the silly parts.” Set in the late ’90s, it follows two lesbian friends who learn that the car they’ve rented has a human head and a briefcase in the trunk—and that some shadowy types really, really want whatever’s in that case back.
Burt Reynolds stars in this 1977 classic, which was the second-highest-grossing movie of its release year after the original Star Wars . He plays a legendary bootlegger who accepts a job to smuggle 400 cases of Coors from Texarkana to Atlanta in under 28 hours. Along the way, he encounters a runaway bride played by Sally Field , and Sheriff Buford T. Justice, who wants to stop the Bandit. Smokey and the Bandit also features an incredible theme song, “ East Bound and Down ,” and while the lyrics describe the plot of the movie almost beat-for-beat, you’ll find that it’s a fitting song to blast on your own car stereo when you’re on the road.
Il Sorpasso , which is sometimes given the English title The Easy Life , is a masterpiece of 1960s Italian cinema. It follows a boisterous middle-aged man who decides to take a timid, bookish college student he meets under his wing for a good time out on the road—whether or not the younger man actually wants to tag along or not. Hilarious and poignant when you might not expect it, Il Sorpasso ’s well worth the watch.
This seminal adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name stars Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as they drive to Sin City under the influence of an absurd amount of drugs. In that way, it’s the ultimate travel movie. It’s about a trip, but it’s also about a trip .
