All professions are given their life-affirming, redemptive, good-triumphing-over-evil screen tests from time to time: the press in Spotlight; teachers in Mr. Holland’s Opus; doctors in Patch Adams, dying baseball players in The Pride of the Yankees; even prostitutes in Pretty Woman. Yet with all that sugarcoated predictability and the inevitable Hollywood plotlines, law films are not without their own unique charms—the various subgenres and artistic tropes that make such movies both familiar and entertaining.

Related feature article: The 6 types of lawyer movies

Quiz: Which movie lawyer are you?