# What is the best John Grisham movie adaptation?

> Hollywood bought nearly every Grisham bestseller in the '90s and threw A-list casts at them. A few still play as great legal thrillers, and one swaps the courtroom for Christmas lights.

*By YPB Team · Published October 27, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-john-grisham-movie-adaptation*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **A Time to Kill** — score 1000/1000
   The 1996 courtroom drama based on Grisham's first novel, with Matthew McConaughey defending a Black father (Samuel L. Jackson) in Mississippi.
2. **The Firm** — score 763/1000
   Sydney Pollack's 1993 thriller starring Tom Cruise as a young lawyer who discovers his Memphis firm works for the mob.
3. **The Client** — score 485/1000
   Joel Schumacher's 1994 film with Susan Sarandon as a lawyer protecting an 11-year-old boy who knows where a senator's body is buried.
4. **The Gingerbread Man** — score 397/1000
   Robert Altman's 1998 Savannah thriller with Kenneth Branagh, made from an original Grisham story.
5. **The Chamber** — score 291/1000
   A 1996 drama with Chris O'Donnell as a lawyer trying to save his Klansman grandfather (Gene Hackman) from execution.
6. **Christmas with the Kranks** — score 291/1000
   The 2004 holiday comedy with Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis, based on Grisham's novel Skipping Christmas.
7. **The Rainmaker** — score 291/1000
   Francis Ford Coppola's 1997 film with Matt Damon as a rookie lawyer taking on a corrupt insurance company.
8. **The Pelican Brief** — score 0/1000
   Alan J. Pakula's 1993 conspiracy thriller with Julia Roberts as a law student and Denzel Washington as the reporter who helps her.
9. **Runaway Jury** — score 0/1000
   The 2003 legal thriller pitting Gene Hackman's jury consultant against John Cusack and Rachel Weisz in a gun-industry trial.

Tags: movies, books, 90s, thriller, john grisham