Best movies like The Life of Emile Zola

In this dramatized account of his early law career in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln is born into a modest log cabin, where he is encouraged by his first love, Ann Rutledge, to pursue law. Following her tragic death, Lincoln establishes a law practice in Springfield, where he meets a young Mary Todd. Lincoln's law skills are put to the test when he takes on the difficult task of defending two brothers who have been accused of murder.

Based on a true story, Vendetta tells the shocking and tragic story of a group of Sicilian immigrants working on the New Orleans docks in the 1890's. After the Chief of Police was brutally murdered, much of the city's Sicilian population was rounded up and brought in for questioning. Eventually, thirteen were formally tried for murder and nine went to trial, and while they were acquitted, a series of brutal lynchings showed they had as much to fear from the city's general populace as they did from the corrupt police force.

After an innocent man is executed in a case he was responsible for, a Scotland Yard superintendent finds himself investigating the murder of his key witness.

The true story of the influential and controversial columnist, Walter Winchell.

A merciless district attorney prosecutes a case that mirrors his own life.

England, 1891. Ascending writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) meets Lord Alfred Douglas, a young nobleman. Over the years, they will maintain an intimate relationship that will be openly criticized by Alfred's father, the Marquis of Queensberry, in such a harsh way that Wilde, instigated by Alfred, decides to sue Queensberry in 1895, accusing him of defamation.

Based on a novel by Mordecai Richler, allegedly his autobiography, it tells the story of a Jewish writer, from his life as a young boy in Montreal to his more complicated grown-up life.

An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is forced to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial under the threat of being disbarred.

Australia, 1958. When a nine year old white girl is found murdered, police are quick to arrest illiterate Aborigine, Max Stuart. Under interrogation Max admits to the killing. With a legal system compromised by intimidation tactics, the skills of his two gifted but naïve defense lawyers are put to the test.

Bob Naughton and Eddie Connolly are identical-twin brothers that were separated in infancy. Bob is raised by a rich lawyer, has all the advantages, but is a drunk with no moral character. Eddie is a pianist in a speak-easy but a man of high character. Bob commits a murder and Eddie is blamed and faces life in prison.

Star-studded thriller about the sordid murder of reckless Las Vegas casino mogul Ted Binion. This gritty film delves into the twisted world of Binion's beauty-queen-turned-stripper girlfriend, Sandy, and her secret lover. When Binion turns up dead of an overdose, all fingers point to Sandy, the beneficiary of his millions. A shockingly true tale of love gone sour and greed gone wild on the dark side of Las Vegas.

The true story of the Mauritanian Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was held at the U.S military's Guantanamo Bay detention center without charges for over a decade and sought help from a defense attorney for his release.

A small time thief from Belfast, Gerry Conlon, is falsely implicated in the IRA bombing of a pub that kills several people while he is in London. He and his four friends are coerced by British police into confessing their guilt. Gerry's father and other relatives in London are also implicated in the crime. He spends fifteen years in prison with his father trying to prove his innocence.

Steve Grey, reporter for the Daily Star, has a habit of scooping all the other papers in town. When Henry Mander is investigated for the murder of his shady business partner, Grey is one step ahead of the police to the extent that he often dictates his story in advance of its actual occurrence. He leads the police through an 'open and shut' case resulting in Mander being tried, convicted and sentenced to death. Columnist Mary Shannon is in love with Steve but she sees him struggle greatly with his last story before Mander's execution. When she starts typing out the story from his recorded dictation, she realizes why.

When Colin Warner was wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend Carl King devoted his life to proving his innocence.

A company of British soldiers in colonial India is shaken when the widow of their most honored hero is assaulted. A young officer must defend a fellow lieutenant from the charges in an unusual court-martial, while investigating the deepening mystery behind the attack.

A commanding officer defends three scapegoats on trial for a failed offensive that occurred within the French Army in 1916.

In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.

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.

2001 French documentary about the murder trial of a 15 year old black teen accused of murder in Jacksonville, Florida. Winner of 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Fact-based story of the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr., son and namesake of the famed pilot, and ensuing trial of accused and convicted killer, Bruno Hauptmann.

A senator, who became famous for killing a notorious outlaw, returns for the funeral of an old friend and tells the truth about his deed.

Don Diego Vega pretends to be an indolent fop as a cover for his true identity, the masked avenger Zorro.

A further investigation into the arrest of three teenagers convicted of killing three young boys in Arkansas who spent nearly 20 years in prison before being released after new DNA evidence indicated they may be innocent.

A horrific triple child murder leads to an indictment and trial of three nonconformist boys based on questionable evidence.

Carlos DeLuna was arrested in 1993 aged 21 for the murder of Wanda Lopez, and protested his innocence until his execution, declaring that it was another Carlos who committed the crime.

France, 1897. Colonel Georges Picquart challenges the French government when he discovers the obscure political maneuvers that led to the imprisonment of the Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus after being convicted of espionage in 1894.

An All-American football player's dreams to play in the NFL are halted when he is falsely accused of rape and sent to prison.

Successful New York attorney Sam Leibowitz travels to the South in 1933 to defend nine young black men accused of raping two women on an Alabama freight train.

Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.

Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.

Patti Petalson is a promising writer, but her marriage and conventional job keep her from her dream. She longs to return to her writing, especially after running into her first love Brian Callahan, a successful crime novelist. Kate is Patti's best friend since college; she's a tough-talking schoolteacher who plays therapist to all Patti's problems, while she's got a few of her own.

In 1894, French officer Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted for the treasonous acts of another man, Major Esterhazy. When investigations begin into the dubious evidence used in the trial, an institutional coverup begins, aided by fears of army disgrace and anti-Semitic paranoia against Dreyfus. But a determined group, headed by prominent author Émile Zola, leads a mounting public call to reopen the Dreyfus case.

An innocent man is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but as he's about to be hanged he accidentally kills his executioner. He now faces a new trial, presided over by a young and inexperienced judge.

A French doctor sentenced for treason performs brain surgery on the prison commandant's daughter.

Alfred Dreyfus, a German-Jewish captain serving in the French Army, is falsely accused of treason and made a scapegoat for military espionage in an act of institutional anti-Semitism. Sent to prison, he becomes a cause célèbre for the novelist Émile Zola, who dubs it the "Dreyfus Affair." Eventually, Dreyfus is pardoned when the military cover-up is made public, and he returns to France. But his name is forever tarnished by the accusations of treason.

Charles Lattimore, an author of a book about a famous murder trial, arranges to meet with one of his students one night. When the student is found murdered and Lattimore has no alibi, he suspects he is being framed by the subject of his book.

The movie tells the story of a woman who struggles and fights to escape the gas chamber being condemned with capital punishment because of her participation in a hold up in which a person was killed.

There is no question that the Arab terrorist portrayed by Robert Davi is guilty of killing five US citizens in Barcelona. Even his lawyers have zero respect for the rabidly sociopathic Davi. But Jewish defence attorney Ron Leibman is obsessed with the concept of Due Process, and has vowed that Davi will receive a scrupulously fair trial when the terrorist is extradited to America. The defence mounted by Leibman confounds and aggravates government prosecutor Sam Waterston--but he, like Leibman, remains a man of judiciary integrity.

"The Trials of Darryl Hunt" is a feature documentary about a brutal rape/murder case and a wrongly convicted man, Darryl Hunt, who spent nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Both a social justice story and a personally driven narrative, the film chronicles this capital case from 1984 through 2004. With exclusive footage from two decades, the film frames the judicial and emotional response to a chilling crime - and the implications that reverberate from Hunt's conviction - against a backdrop of class and racial bias in the South and in the American criminal justice system.

Sir Wilfred Robarts, a famed barrister is released from the hospital, where he stayed for two months following his heart attack. Returning to the practise of his lawyer skills, he takes the case of Leonard Vole, an unemployed man who is accused of murdering an elderly lady friend of his, Mrs. Emily French. While Leonard Vole claims he's innocent, although all evidence points to him as the killer, his alibi witness, his cold German wife Christine, instead of entering the court as a witness for the defense, she becomes the witness for the prosecution and strongly claims her husband is guilty of the murder.

This documentary recounts the difficult choice actress Mary Astor had to make after learning her personal, very intimate, diaries had been stolen. The film tells the story of Astor's 1936 child custody case.

A down-and-out student is hired to kill a wealthy woman. When someone else is suspected of the crime, the student taunts police until they realize that they may have to wrong man.

George Pearson, an employee at an underwear factory, is caught between his modern wife and his meddling mother. After buying a special yarn and getting his wife to promote it, he has an argument with his boss, Mr Dawson who insults Pearson's wife and refuses to apologise. Pearson then resigns. After finding out that the yarn is actually worth a fair amount, Mr Dawson tries to buy it from Pearson but he has some competition.

Ruth Payne, innocent to begin with, is trying to extradite herself from the clutches of a gang-mob who obtained her release from prison on a falsified confession because they thought she knew something they didn't want known.

A young woman is on trial for murder. In flashback, we learn of her struggles to overcome poverty as a teenager -- a mistaken arrest and prison term for shoplifting and lack of employment lead to involvement with gangsters. In a brothel, she meets a young lawyer, scion of a wealthy and prestigious family, who falls for her and helps her turn around her life. But her past catches up with her, and she must face the music rather than cause him scandal.

After nearly 40 years of waiting for his big chance, Wilfred Morgenhall is given the case of defending Herbert Fowle who is accused of murdering his wife. Despite Fowle's insistence of guilt, Moregenhall will not let go of the opportunity to plead his client as innocent and be a star in the courtroom.

Set in tsarist Russia around the turn of the century and based on a true story of a Russian Jewish peasant Yakov Bog who was wrongly imprisoned for a most unlikely crime - the “ritual murder” of a Gentile child in Kiev. We witness the unrelenting detail of the peasant handyman's life in prison and see him gain in dignity as the efforts to humiliate him and make him confess fail.

Inspired by a true story, a young widowed mother finds herself on trial for child pornography and abuse after allowing her best friend to photograph her daughters and friend.

A tough prosecutor who has sent dozens of criminals to prison finds himself framed on a bribery charge and winds up in prison himself.