Best movies like The First Line

An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

Esther Clay, wife of District Attorney John Clay and mother of attorney Bob Clay, is having an affair with Jack Keene. Scorned by him Esther kills Jack. Bob comes to her defense and confesses to the shooting. The father prosecutes the son who receives a life imprisonment sentence. Jack Keene's butler Druggett knows the truth and blackmails Esther. Bob's girlfriend Peg Harper summons John Clay to the scene...

A high-profile defense attorney determined to change her image takes on a pro bono case, which soon threatens both her and her family.

A woman claims she had an affair with a married neurosurgeon and stands trial for allegedly harassing him.

After his young son dies from the negligence at a hospital, Harry Fertig takes matters into his own hands and kills the doctors responsible. Slick lawyer Roy Bleakie, looking only to win a case and not caring of the matters involved, is assigned Fertig's case. Shocked to hear that his client wants to plead guilty, the case causes Bleakie to question his own morals by defending an honorable man.

A World War II vet is pushed to the limit when gang members and drug dealers take over his neighborhood.

After young Robert Graham commits a murder while drunk and defending his girlfriend, he is prosecuted by ambitious Mark Brady and sentenced to 10 years. Six years later, Brady becomes the prison warden and offers the beleaguered Robert a job as his chauffeur. Robert cleans up his act, but, on the eve of his pardon, his cellmate drags him back into the world of violence, and he faces a difficult choice that could return him to prison.

A young drifter and small-town waitress witness a corrupt sheriff murder his own deputy. Framed for the murder and pursued by the sheriff, they run for their life to try and stay alive.

Attorney Anthony Keane agrees to represent Londonite Mrs. Paradine, who has been fingered in her husband's murder. From the start, the married lawyer is drawn to the enigmatic beauty, and he begins to cast about for a way to exonerate his client. Keane puts the Paradine household servant on the stand, suggesting he is the killer. But Keane soon loses his way in the courtroom, and his half-baked plan sets off a stunning chain of events.

A Senator, accused of bribery on circumstantial evidence and sent to prison, decides to commit suicide so that his daughter will feel free to marry the son of a judge. A story told through the eyes of ten people, all familiar with the victim and all with varying versions.

The hard-boiled owner of a big-city speakeasy is reunited with her daughter, who has been raised to believe that her mother is dead, then finds herself accused of murdering her daughter's no-good boyfriend.

Katy Devoux runs a gambling-drinking joint in British Columbia. She is a fair-playing business woman, but is ashamed of the source of her income, so she has had her daughter Nona raised in the states. Jeff Bowman, an unprincipled scoundrel and business rival, arranges for her daughter to come to town in hope of bringing shame to the mother. He overplays his hand and is killed by Tim Reed, a faithful retainer of Katy's and in love with Nona. The plea is self defense.

This Universal programmer was based on a Collier's Magazine story by journalist Quentin Reynolds. This story in turn was ostensibly based on a true incident, in which a gangster "returned from the dead" to save an innocent young man from the electric chair. The nurse of the film's title is Katharine McDonald, who falls in love with her prizefighter-patient Lee Burke as he recovers from a beating received in a fixed prizefight. Katharine must fend off the advances of criminal attorney John Dodge, another patient who also loves her and becomes jealous of Lee. But when Lee is framed for the murder of his disgruntled manager, Slice, by a henchman of the fight-fix leader, Joe Largo, Dodge takes on his defense and works with Katherine to discover the real killer. Convicted and sentenced to death, Burke is about to walk the "last mile", as Katharine encourages mortally wounded Largo to a deathbed confession.

After he mends a marital rift between a vacationing young couple, the bored, fragile wife falls hopelessly in love with the husband's ex-colleague who is married to a long-suffering and emotionally and physically scarred woman. The couple soon runs off to Greece together to pursue the romance.

Louis Friedlander-directed film

An attorney's immature college-student daughter becomes romantically involved with a mobster, unaware that a nightclub singer also loves him - or that her father is secretly the mob's leader.

An actor plots "the perfect crime" by confessing to murders he didn't commit.

An attorney defends a hoodlum of murder, using the oppressiveness of the slums to appeal to the court.

John Nelson, a well-to-do businessman, is escorting a woman he knows as Ethel Barry to the door of her apartment suite when a man steps out of the shadows and angrily demands to know where she has been. The embarrassed Nelson excuses himself and goes to his rooms in the same hotel. The woman rushes into his apartment followed by the man who met her in the hall. The man threatens her with violence and Nelson comes to her defense. In the ensuing fight, the man is knocked out of the window and falls to his death to the pavement many stories down. He is charged with the killing and his only witness that can prove self-defense for him has disappeared, and can not be found.

When a handsome attorney sets off to find a former lover, he finds himself caught in a web of deceit and murder.

A crusading reporter plans his own arrest and conviction for first degree murder, trying to show that the death sentence should be outlawed when based on circumstantial evidence alone, but his plan goes awry.

A man is wrongly convicted for murder and sent to prison, where he is accused of murdering a brutal guard he killed in self-defense.

Xristos is married to the rich Rena. In fact the rich is his mother-in-law, who has big business abroad. In Greece the mother-in-law gives the hotel's managment to Xristos but also loads to him all the work. Desperate, he decides to slam the yoke and kill her ...

A crusading DA falls for a defense attorney with a criminal past.

Based on Aristophanes's play, Athenian women band together to encourage their men to stop fighting the Spartans by withholding sex from them when they return from the front.

Attorney Joshua Scranton hires "Budge" Edwards and Larry Donovan, who has just bought into Edwards' detective agency, to protect Estelle Hudson, a client of his who is to inherit three-million dollars the next Thursday. He tells them he has reason to believe the girl is in danger from five relatives who stand to benefit from her death.

Four Athenians run away to the forest only to have Puck the fairy make both of the boys fall in love with the same girl. The four run through the forest pursuing each other while Puck helps his master play a trick on the fairy queen. In the end, Puck reverses the magic, and the two couples reconcile and marry.

Prince Jan is spying on beautiful tour guide Elena from his helicopter while touring Greece. He escapes from his entourage and joins the girl's group, posing as a humble visitor. The two fall in love, but Prince Jan, knowing that he has duties and responsibilities to his country, leaves her, never revealing his true identity.

Surrounded by wealth, an impecunious young lady leaves home and the suave man of her dreams to spread her wings in Athens. But, he refuses to give up on her. Will she ever know that love awaits at the villa with the four marble stairs?

The son of Sheriff Clay Hartley, of the frontier town Elder, has gotten into bad company and hangs out with an outlaw gang in which, Collins, owner of the Golden Rule Saloon, is the secret head. Sheriff Hartley suspects him, but has been unable to gather the needed evidence. Collins instructs his gang, including young Hartley, to hold up the stagecoach on its return trip from Missionary Flats and take the cargo of gold dust it is carrying. Sheriff Hartley is notified of the planned holdup by one of his deputies who has been spying on Collins, and organizes a posse. A deputy-sheriff is killed in the ensuing gunfight between the lawmen and the outlaws, but Deputy Joe Larkin, pursues and captures Clay Hartley Jr. The latter is quickly tried and convicted of the killing of the deputy, and sentenced to be hung. Sheriff Hartley has only a few hours to prove his son was not the killer. He enlists the aid of Collins' step-daughter, Joan, who is in love with Hartley's son.

A modest film of three independent parts showing sad couple stories.

A spoiled rich girl falls in love with a poor, good-looking but also talented pianist, rejecting a wealthy suitor from her own class. However, a combination of her parents' pressure and a misunderstanding with her beloved leads her to accept the proposal of a wealthy businessman. At the same time, an accident obliges the young pianist to abandon his piano for quite a long time. And although the young girl stands by him in his time of need, she leaves him the moment he recovers. However, on the night of his first concert, she returns to his side, determined to spend their life together.

A deaf, dumb and blind man, Jacques Vauthier (Kieron Moore), confesses to committing a murder, apparently without motive. He depends on his defense attorney, Delfot (Michael Redgrave), to unravel the mystery behind his actions.