Léonard Landry can win almost any case. He knows every loophole, every procedural slip and every judge’s weak spot, and he runs on vodka with three exact turns of black pepper and a steady supply of cocaine. Then, halfway through a frantic morning of two hearings at once, he collapses in open court, and his habit spills out in front of the bench.
The Good Lawyer (Un bon avocat), Tristan Séguéla’s French legal thriller, lands on Netflix in the UK today, Monday 9 November, after a premiere out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. It reunites the director with his Tapie star Laurent Lafitte, and while the plot eventually piles on more than it can hold, Lafitte is so good that the film rarely stops being fun.
Laurent Lafitte plays a man who could talk his way out of anything, and for most of the running time he talks the film out of its own problems too.
Movie at a Glance
- UK availability: Streaming on Netflix from Monday 9 November 2026
- Director: Tristan Séguéla
- Writers: Marcia Romano, Simon Jacquet, Tristan Séguéla and Stéphane Sebag
- Starring: Laurent Lafitte, Anthony Bajon, Mélanie Laurent and Carole Bouquet
- Language: French, with English subtitles
- Runtime: About 110 minutes
- Netflix UK age rating: 15
- Genre: Legal thriller
Viewer Match
- Best for: Fans of slick courtroom thrillers, flawed-genius leads and twisty John Grisham-style plotting.
- Maybe skip if: You need a legal drama to stay strictly plausible, or you find showy, restless direction tiring.
- Mood and pace: Wired and fast in the first act, steadier in the middle, then a final stretch of rapid twists.
- Cinema or streaming? A comfortable Netflix night in: it was made for the small screen and plays well there.
- Spoiler level: Spoiler-free: we only cover the set-up shown in the trailer.
One Week to Save a Career
After rehab, Léonard has a week to prepare for the trial that will decide whether he keeps his place at the Bar, or loses it along with his freedom. He needs a defender, and the obvious choice is Iris Saint-Didier (Mélanie Laurent), the formidable head of the Bar and a former lover, who wants nothing to do with him. She has a much bigger case on her desk: the boss of an oil company, played with icy poise by Carole Bouquet, is accused of complicity in a massacre in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When Léonard realises he holds a piece of that puzzle, he sees leverage, and a payday.
Helping him, and frequently driving him, is Noé (Anthony Bajon), a young intern whose idealism is about to take a battering. Their mismatched partnership gives the film its heart. Bajon is a quiet, watchful foil, and the banter between the two men keeps things human when the plot starts to sprawl.
Laurent Lafitte at Full Power
This is Lafitte’s film from start to finish. In the opening stretch he is a blur of jittery charisma, firing off arguments and insults with the same speed, and Séguéla matches him with a restless camera and hard, punchy editing. After rehab the performance cools into something more interesting: Léonard is still arrogant and still brilliant, but now he is also trying, clumsily, to be a better man. The title is not purely ironic. He really is a good lawyer, and the question the film keeps asking is whether he can be a good person as well.
Mélanie Laurent is sharp and unsentimental as Iris, and Bouquet makes every scene she is in feel colder and more dangerous. Amine Bouhafa’s score keeps the energy high, and the courtrooms and corridors have a polished, glossy look that suits a mainstream thriller.
Too Many Cases at Once
The trouble is that the script, like its hero, tries to juggle too much. It is a story about addiction, a mentor-and-pupil drama, a corporate conspiracy thriller with a political edge and a race-against-time legal procedural, and it never fully commits to any of them. The Congo storyline, which should carry the most weight, is handled in broad strokes, and the drug-gang villains who drift in and out are little more than cartoon threats.
In the final act the twists arrive thick and fast, and some of them stretch plausibility a long way. If you go with it, they are good fun. If you stop to think, the whole case starts to look shaky. The flashy visual style can also be wearing: not every scene needs a whip-pan and a burst of music to make its point.
Spoiler-Free Verdict
The Good Lawyer is a glossy, entertaining French legal thriller lifted by a superb, live-wire performance from Laurent Lafitte. Its plot gets crowded and its twists strain belief, but as a Netflix night in it delivers.
- Performances: 8/10
- Direction: 6/10
- Screenplay: 5.5/10
- Score: 6.5/10
- Cinematography: 6.5/10
- Entertainment Value: 7/10
- Overall score: 6.5/10
Star rating: 3/5
Verdict badge: Stream It
One-line verdict: Objection overruled: Lafitte’s magnetic turn wins the case for a thriller that overplays its hand.
Watch the Official Trailer
Watch Léonard fight for his career in the official French trailer.
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Would you hire Léonard Landry if you were in trouble, or is a brilliant lawyer with no self-control too big a risk? Share your spoiler-free reaction to The Good Lawyer.