The Insider (1999)

The sequel to Michael Mann's epic Heat was a legal thriller based on a Vanity Fair piece based on a 60 Minutes segment about intense corporate espionage. That's a strong pedigree, and the film works as a legal thriller because to the central legal topic, which involves an attempt to circumvent attorney-client privilege by using a deposition. This was, at its core, a Big Tobacco film, made during a period in the 1990s when it appeared that enormous civic activities and daring whistleblowers acting in tandem with semi-righteous media would actually be able to solve some of our social issues. The Insider offers precisely the proper balance of legal knowledge and skepticism to avoid feeling stale. It turns out that corporate schemes are timeless.