The Bloomies: Robert Bloom picks the best in cinema...

Outstanding Films About the Law and Lawyers(1)

YEAR FILM DIRECTOR
1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Dreyer)
1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra)
1937 The Life of Emile Zola (William Dieterle)
1942 Roxie Hart (William Wellman)
1947 Miracle On 34th Street(2) (George Seaton)
  Shoeshine (Vittorio De Sica)
  Boomerang (Elia Kazan)
1948 The Winslow Boy(3) (Anthony Asquith)
  I, Jane Doe (John Auer)
1949 Pinky (Elia Kazan)
  Adam's Rib (George Cukor)
1950 Madeleine (David Lean)
1951 A Place In The Sun (George Stevens)
1952 Angel Face (Otto Preminger)
1954 The Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk)
1956 The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock)
1957 Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick)
  Witness For The Prosecution (Billy Wilder)
  Twelve Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
1958 Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
1959 Anatomy Of A Murder (Otto Preminger)
  Compulsion (Richard Fleischer)
1960 Inherit The Wind (Stanley Kramer)
1961 Judgment At Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer)
  Town Without Pity (Gottfried Reinhardt)
1962 To Kill A Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan)
  Billy Budd (Peter Ustinov)
1963 The Trial (Orson Welles)
1964 Man in the Middle (Guy Hamilton)
  Dry Summer (Metin Erksan)
1966 A Man For All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann)
  The Fortune Cookie (Billy Wilder)
1967 The Stranger (Luchino Visconti)
  In Cold Blood (Richard Brooks)
1969 Z (Costa-Gavras)
1970 The Confession (Costa-Gavras)
1971 Sacco & Vanzetti (Giuliano Montaldo)
1973 The Paper Chase (James Bridges)
1974 QB VII(5) (Tom Gries)
1975 Love Among the Ruins (George Cukor)
1976 Helter Skelter (Tom Gries)
1977 The Last Wave (Peter Weir)
1979 And Justice For All (Norman Jewison)
  Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton)
1980 Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford)
1981 Whose Life Is It Anyway (John Badham)
  Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan)
1982 The Verdict (Sidney Lumet)
1983 The Return Of Martin Guerre(4) (Daniel Vigne)
  Daniel (Sidney Lumet)
  Danton (Andrzej Wajda)
1984 A Passage To India (David Lean )
  A Soldier's Story (Norman Jewison)
1985 The Jagged Edge (Richard Marquard)
1988 A Cry In The Dark (Fred Schepisi)
  The Accused (Jonathan Kaplan)
  A Short Film About Killing (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
1989 A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy)
  The Music Box (Costa-Gavras)
1990 Reversal of Fortune (Barbet Schroeder)
  Presumed Innocent (Alan J. Pakula)
  Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami)
1991 Separate But Equal (George Stevens, Jr.)
1992 A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner)
  My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn)
1993 The Boys of St. Vincent (John Smith)
  The Story of Qui Ju (Zhang Yimou)
  In the Name of the Father (Jim Sheridan)
  Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme)
  The Advocate (Leslie Megahey)
  The Firm (Sydney Pollack)
1995 Dead Man Walking (Tim Robbins)
  Before and After (Barbet Schroeder)
  Colonel Chabert (Yves Angelo)
1996 The Crucible (Nicholas Hytner)
  The People vs. Larry Flynt (Milos Forman)
  Primal Fear (Gregory Hoblit)
  Ghosts of Mississippi (Rob Reiner)
  Andersonville (John Frankenheimer)
1997 Amistad (Steven Spielberg)
  The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan)
  The Rainmaker (Francis Ford Coppola)
  The Devil's Advocate (Taylor Hackford)
1998 A Civil Action (Steve Zaillian)
1999 The Hurricane (Norman Jewison)
  The Insider (Michael Mann)
  Snow Falling on Cedars (Scott Hicks)
  A Map of the World (Scott Elliot)
  The Confession (David Jones)
  Brokedown Palace (Jonathan Kaplan)
  The Confession (David Jones)
2000 Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh)
  Nuremberg (Yves Simoneau)
  Rules of Engagement (William Friedkin)
2001 Legally Blonde (Robert Luketic)
2002 Chicago     (Rob Marshall)
  Evelyn     (Bruce Beresford)
2003 Intolerable Cruelty (Joel Coen)
2004 Vera Drake (Mike Leigh)
2005 North Country (Niki Caro)
  The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Scott Derrickson)
  Hunt for Justice (Charles Binamé)
2006 Sophie Scholl: The Last Days (Marc Rothemund)
  Comedy of Power (Claude Chabrol)
2007 Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy)
  Rendition (Gavin Hood)
  Steel Toes (David Goev & M. Adams)
2008 The Reader (Stephen Daldry)
  Changeling (Clint Eastwood)
  Flash of Genius (Marc Abraham)
  Nothing But The Truth (Rod Lurie)
  American Violet (Tim Disney)
  An American Crime (Tom O'Haver)
2009 Provoked (Jag Mundhra)
2010 The Social Network (David Fincher)
  You Don't Know Jack (Barry Levinson)
  Conviction (Tony Goldwyn)
  Lemon Tree (Eran Riklis)
  The Stoning of Soraya M. (Cyrus Nowrasteh)
  Storm (Hans Christian Schmid)
  The Chicago 8 (Pinchas Perry)
2011 The Conspirator (Robert Redford)
  Win Win (Tom McCarthy)
  In the Family (Patrick Wang)
2012 Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
  Flight (Robert Zemeckis)
  A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
  Bernie (Richard Linklater)
  Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan)
2013 Phil Spector (David Mamet)
  Closed Circuit (John Crowley)
  The Citizen (Sam Kadi)
2014 Belle (Amma Asante)
  The Judge (David Dobkin)
  Gone Girl (David Fincher)
  In the Name of My Daughter (André Téchiné)
  Big Eyes (Tim Burton)
  To Kill A Man (Alejandro F. Almendras)
2015 Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg)
  Woman in Gold (Simon Curtis)
  Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Renit and Shlomi Elkabetz)
  Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
  Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako)
  Black or White (Mike Binder)
  True Story (Rupert Goold)
  Labyrinth of Lies (Giulio Ricciarelli)
  Misconduct (Shintaro Shimosawa)
2016 A War (Tobias Lindholm)
  Loving (Jeff Nichols)
  Freeheld (Peter Sollett)
  Court (Chaitanya Tamhane)
  Confirmation (Rick Famuyiwa)
2017 The Night Of(5) (Steve Zaillian)
  The People vs Fritz Bauer (Lars Kraume)
  The Post (Steven Spielberg)
  Molly's Game (Aaron Sorkin)
  Gifted (Marc Webb)
  Marshall (Reginald Hudlin)
  Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Dan Gilroy)
  Little Pink House (Courtney M. Balaker)
  The Third Murder (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
2018 Manhunt: Unabomber(5) (Greg Yaitanes)
  On the Basis of Sex (Mimi Leder)
  The Insult (Ziad Doueiri)
  In the Fade (Fatih Akin)
  22 July (Paul Greengrass)
  Lizzie (Charles W. MacNeil)
  Sweet Country (Warwick Thornton)
2019 When They See Us(5) (Ava DuVernay)
  Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)
  The Best of Enemies (Robin Bissell)
  Richard Jewell (Clint Eastwood)
  Brian Banks (Tom Shadyac)
  Official Secrets (Gavin Hood)
  The Children Act (Richard Eyre)
  Trial By Fire (Edward Zwick)
  Saint Judy (Sean Hanish)
  Bombshell (Jay Roach)
  A Regular Woman (Sherry Hormann)
  The Collini Case (Marco Kreuzpainter)
2020 Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Cretton)
  The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)
  Dark Water (Todd Haynes)
  The Comey Rule(5) (Billy Ray)
  The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio)
  The Last Vermeer (Dan Friedkin)
  Defending Jacob(5) (Martin Tyldum)
2021 The Last Duel (Ridley Scott)
  An Act of Defiance (Jean van de Velde)
  The Mauritanian (Kevin Macdonald)
  Worth (Sara Colengelo)
  Mangrove (Steve McQueen)
  Percy vs Goliath (Clark Johnson)
2022 Till (Chinonye Chukwu)
  The Duke (Roger Michell)
  Argentina, 1985 (Santiago Mitre)
  The Good Nurse(5) (Tobias Lindholm)
  Where the Crawdads Sing (Olivia Newman)
 

1. Documentaries not included.

2. Remade in 1994 - inferior to 1947 version

3. Remade in 1999 by David Mamet

4. Remade in 1993 as U.S. Civil War Movie - Sommersby (Jon Amiel)

5. TV miniseries in which all episodes have the same director and writer. Equivalent to a long movie.


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