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Law in Pop Culture

Which law-related films have won Oscars? You may be surprised (photo gallery)

By Lee Rawles

February 27, 2025, 1:17 pm CST

With the 97th Academy Awards happening this Sunday, we’re on the lookout for future legal classic movies. Will Zoe Saldaña win the “best actress in a supporting role” award for her turn as a lawyer in Emilia Pérez? Will Conclave—which we would argue features a lot of canon law—take home an Oscar in one of the eight categories that it’s been nominated for? We’ll have to see.

But while we wait for the winners of the 97th Academy Awards to be announced, we thought we’d highlight some winning legal movies from the past.

Surprisingly, some of the films that we picked for our top 25 legal movies were not Oscar winners when they came out. For example, 12 Angry Men and Inherit the Wind never got those gold statuettes from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Verdict was released the same year as Gandhi, and Ben Kingsley walked away with that year’s “best actor” award, rather than Paul Newman.

So what law-related movies did grasp that golden statuette? Scroll through and see some of our favorite honorees.

See also:

Top 25 Legal Movies

The 25 Greatest Legal Movies: Expanding the Boundaries

The 6 Types of Lawyers You See in the Movies

10 Decades of the Most Important Legal Films

12 pivotal movie scenes with lessons for lawyers

25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers

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