The Brief

In the broadest sense, John Grisham has written the same story over and over. It goes like this: A decent person finds themselves the David in a David and Goliath story where the opposition is the government, or a shady criminal enterprise, or a huge corporation. That person finds a way, at some cost and compromise, to get what is usually only a partial victory. It has worked, many times over.
His books have been adapted both for film and for television. A new series adaptation of The Rainmaker is arriving this week on USA (and streaming later on Peacock), and well, it's no Francis Ford Coppola movie.

But a lot of them are really pretty good. How good? This highly opinionated list ranks them and notes, among other factors, their "Grisham score," which reflects how much they feel, entirely subjectively, like Grisham stories.

(Disclaimers: I did not include his nonfiction or his non-legal novels, nor did I get my hands on the unsuccessful TV pilot for The Street Lawyer, starring Eddie Cibrian, or the 1995 TV adaptation of The Client, starring JoBeth Williams. (Contrary to the way it often seems, everything is not available to stream somewhere.) I also stuck to the novel adaptations, so I omitted The Gingerbread Man, an adaptation of a story Grisham had written but never published as a novel.)

9. The Firm (TV) (2012, NBC)
Plot: In 2012, NBC made 22 episodes of the sequel series The Firm as a standard network legal drama, where there was always a case of the week plus some ongoing intrigue about Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas) and the shady firm he worked for — a different shady firm than the one he had escaped years before. (Disclaimer: I have watched the first bunch of episodes and the last one and researched what happened in the interim, which is a lot more of this show than most people experienced.)
Notable supporting cast: Assistant Tammy (played by Holly Hunter in the movie) is played by Juliette Lewis. Callum Keith Rennie, stepping in for David Strathairn, plays Mitch's brother.
Bad guys: Big law firms, sometimes his own clients, Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica
The bottom line: Aside from the suspension of disbelief required to believe that Mitch would stumble his way into another law firm infested with murderers, the attempt to translate Grisham to this format, where the actual story was constantly interrupted by dull little cases for Mitch to fiddle with, did not work at all. Grisham stories are nothing if not propulsive and escalating, and this was sputtering and slow.
Highlight: The sheer audacity to start the season with an unexplained flash-forward of Mitch running with a briefcase while wearing a suit and then end the season with an unexplained flash-forward of Mitch running with a briefcase while wearing a suit in a completely different situation
Lowlight: The endlessly meandering references to "the truth" that nobody will just spit out already
Grisham score: 1

8. The Chamber (1996, directed by James Foley)
Plot: Attorney Adam Hall (Chris O'Donnell) travels to Mississippi to try to prevent the execution of his grandfather (Gene Hackman), who's long been on death row for bombing the office of a Jewish civil rights lawyer in 1967.
Notable supporting cast: Faye Dunaway as Adam's aunt, Lela Rochon as a staffer from the governor's office, and Bo Jackson (!!) as a prison guard. That's right: Bo knows acting.
Bad guys: The death penalty, racists in general and the Ku Klux Klan in particular
The bottom line: The Chamber is the most somber of the Grisham adaptations, and while there is some legal maneuvering and some mystery-solving, much of it is a character piece about a young man trying to figure out how to live alongside his family's dark legacy. The legal thriller elements don't entirely mesh with the heavy story. Still, it's an effort to get into themes, including generations of racism as well as the death penalty, that Grisham has been interested in for his entire career.
Highlight: Gene Hackman, seething and spiteful
Lowlight: Gene Hackman's alarming teeth
Grisham score: 9

7. The Rainmaker (TV) (2025, USA/Peacock)
Plot: Rudy Baylor and his girlfriend finish law school and get jobs in the same evil big law firm. He gets fired and soon finds himself working for a scrappy small firm run by Bruiser (Lana Parrilla), representing a woman whose son supposedly died of an overdose but who is sure there was foul play. Boyfriend and girlfriend end up on opposing sides of the case. He also meets a young woman in an abusive marriage. (Note: They have only offered critics the first five episodes.)
Notable supporting cast: John Slattery plays the head of the big bad firm. Dan Fogler plays a nurse with a dark heart and ... a lot going on.
Bad guys: Not entirely clear yet, but certainly big law firms and insurance companies
The bottom line: This series isn't bad, exactly, but the plot is completely different from the book and movie. Where the tone of the original story is of a scrappy underdog against a big law firm, the series becomes more of a clash between Rudy and his girlfriend about the ethics of their different choices. It also introduces a confusing plot full of murders rather than the bureaucratic evil of the original story, in which a corporate handbook telling workers to refuse claims was enough to cause a tragic death. Moreover, the story of the abused wife felt a little extraneous to the original, and it feels even more extraneous here.
Highlight: John Slattery being an only slightly more wicked version of Roger Sterling from Mad Men 
Lowlight: Turning Bruiser into a woman who very quickly ends up in a sex scene in lingerie for no particularly compelling reason
Grisham score: 3

6. Runaway Jury (2003, directed by Gary Fleder)
Plot: Nick Easter (John Cusack) maneuvers his way onto the jury for a big civil case against a gun manufacturer and starts scheming to sell the verdict to the highest bidder.
Notable supporting cast: Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman as the opposing lawyers, Rachel Weisz as Easter's girlfriend and co-conspirator, Nora Dunn as a fellow juror with a flask on her at all times.
Bad guys: Gun manufacturers and their lawyers
Bottom line: There's a pretty big dropoff in quality from The Client to here. It's tough to build an underdog story around a guy who's trying to rig a trial and extort money, even if he thinks it's for a good cause. The movie never quite figures out how Cusack and Weisz are so sure that things are going to turn out the way they plan, and it makes their machinations seem a little less clever. There is also nothing here of Grisham's usual insistence that doing something good requires giving something up, which means his flair for a bittersweet ending doesn't quite come through.
Highlight: Hackman and Hoffman having a spicy confrontation in a courthouse restroom
Lowlight: A somewhat muddled ending
Grisham Score: 6

5. The Client (1994, directed by Joel Schumacher)
Plot: Lawyer Reggie Love (Susan Sarandon) agrees to represent 11-year-old Mark Sway (Brad Renfro), who has information about a mob murder and is being pressured by an ambitious prosecutor (Tommy Lee Jones) to cooperate, risking his own safety.
Notable supporting cast: Mary-Louise Parker as Mark's mother, Bradley Whitford as one of the prosecutor's lackeys, Anthony Edwards as Reggie's assistant, Anthony LaPaglia as an incompetent wannabe mobster
Bad guys: Mafia, grandstanding prosecutor
Bottom line: It makes sense that Grisham would do a book where the underdog is a kid; nobody is more vulnerable and nobody needs more help to navigate the system. Unsurprisingly, Tommy Lee Jones, who appeared in this movie the year after The Fugitive, lends even a very obnoxious prosecutor some welcome notes of humor.
Highlight: The goodbye scene between Renfro and Sarandon, which is genuinely moving
Lowlight: A very silly action sequence set in a boathouse
Grisham Score: 9

4. A Time To Kill (1996, directed by Joel Schumacher)
Plot: Samuel L. Jackson plays Carl Lee Hailey, a father on trial for shooting the violent racists who brutally assaulted his young daughter. Attorney Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) and a helpful law student (Sandra Bullock) defend him.
Notable supporting cast: Kiefer Sutherland as a creep who's trying to reinvigorate the local Klan, Oliver Platt as Jake's cynical buddy, Ashley Judd as Jake's wife, Kevin Spacey as the district attorney
Bad guys: Racists in general and the Ku Klux Klan in particular, an unethical showoff prosecutor
Bottom line: Despite its clunky racial politics, the adaptation of Grisham's first novel makes it easy to understand how Matthew McConaughey instantly became a leading man. Still, much of the most effective drama comes from Jackson, including in a terrific scene where he visits the deputy, played by Chris Cooper, who lost a leg in the shooting — an outcome Carl Lee did not intend but takes responsibility for.

Highlight: Carl Lee's speech correcting Jake's mistaken impression that Carl Lee considers them a team
Lowlight: Even in a story taking place in a hot climate, a garish quantity of sweat
Grisham Score: 9

3. The Firm (1993, directed by Sydney Pollack)
Plot: New associate Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) discovers that his fancy law firm is up to its eyeballs in organized crime and murder and so forth. You know how it is.
Notable supporting cast: Gene Hackman (who also appears in Runaway Jury and The Chamber) as a tragically compromised attorney, Ed Harris as an FBI guy, Jeanne Tripplehorn as Mitch's wife, Wilford Brimley as the firm's dangerous enforcer
Bad guys: Mafia and their lawyers
Bottom line: The Firm was the book that made Grisham a superstar, and the movie is solid. It does change Grisham's ending, making it easier for Mitch and his wife to continue in a relatively normal life. That either sells out Grisham's repeated theme of sacrificing the life you've built to do the right thing or makes considerably more sense in real life, depending on whom you ask. Also, if you think Tom Cruise has a quirky running style in the Mission: Impossible movies, wait until you see him running in The Firm.
Highlight: Tom Cruise beating Wilford Brimley unconscious with a briefcase
Lowlight: Tom Cruise (or, as it would appear, Tom Cruise's stunt double?) doing gymnastics on the sidewalk while out on the town
Grisham Score: 12 (yes, 12 out of 10)

2. The Rainmaker (1997, directed by Francis Ford Coppola)
Plot: Newly minted Memphis attorney Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) takes the only job he can get, working for a flashy ambulance-chaser named Bruiser (Mickey Rourke). But when Bruiser skips town, Rudy is left alone with paralegal Deck (Danny DeVito) to represent a family whose son died after his insurance company denied coverage for a bone-marrow transplant.
Notable supporting cast: Jon Voight, as the insurance company lawyer, has never been more slimy (even while being eaten by a snake in Anaconda). Roy Scheider briefly appears as an executive so heartless even his folksy blue cardigan seems to hate his guts. Also features Claire Danes as a young woman whose abusive husband (Andrew Shue) has put her in the hospital.
Bad guys: Insurance company and their lawyers
Bottom line: The most successful of the courtroom Grishams, The Rainmaker perfectly captures the writer's vision of the scrappy lawyer outmatched by wicked profiteers, as well as his vision of the law as a grind of depositions and discovery. Here, the biggest drama comes not from chases or guns or even courtroom speeches, but from finding the missing section that's vanished from a company handbook. Damon is excellent and may have the best take on the quintessential Grisham underdog that an actor has come up with so far.
Highlight: A violent outburst from Randy Travis, playing a potential juror
Lowlight: A violent outburst from Andrew Shue
Grisham Score: 10

1. The Pelican Brief (1993, directed by Alan J. Pakula)
Plot: Darby Shaw (Julia Roberts) is a law student who stumbles upon the answer to who killed a pair of Supreme Court justices. When those responsible figure out that she's onto them, they come after her, and she goes to journalist Gray Grantham (Denzel Washington) for help.
Notable supporting cast: Stanley Tucci, as an assassin, has never been more evil. Also on hand are a young Cynthia Nixon as Darby's friend, John Lithgow as Gray's editor, and Sam Shepard as Darby's doomed boyfriend. (Sorry, doomed boyfriend; you're doomed.)
Bad guys: Oil magnate and his lawyers, corrupt president and his toadies
Bottom line: The most successful of the non-courtroom Grishams, The Pelican Brief doesn't just bring together two very charismatic leads at the height of their powers. It is carefully plotted and well-paced, and it reveals its larger conspiracy piece by piece. It is a great ride.
Highlight: A parking-garage chase that lets Pakula wink at All The President's Men
Lowlight: Some of Tucci's disguises, which are (intentionally) unattractive
Grisham Score: 10
Copyright 2025 NPR

Two of the nation's latest food recalls concern cheese — and lots of it.

The recalls are distinct, citing different food safety concerns: One involves hundreds of thousands of containers of shredded mozzarella and multi-cheese blends, while the other affects several brands of grated Pecorino Romano.

But both target products that have sell-by dates in 2026 and are sold in major retailers in more than a dozen states.

Here's what to know:

The shredded cheese recall

Great Lakes Cheese, an Ohio-based company that calls itself "the nation's leading natural cheese packager," initiated a recall of half a dozen kinds of shredded cheese products — from mozzarella to pizza-style — in early October because they may contain fragments of metal.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) upgraded its risk classification to Class II, the second-highest, meaning consumption of the product could cause "temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences."

The affected cheeses are sold under dozens of brand names at nationwide retailers including Target, Walmart, Publix and Aldi.

The FDA says they were distributed to 31 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, as well as Puerto Rico.

The recalled bags, with varying sell-by dates in February and March 2026, include:

• Low-moisture part-skim shredded mozzarella from the following brands: Always Save, Borden, Brookshire's, Cache Valley Creamery, Chestnut Hill, Coburn Farms, Econo, Food Club, Food Lion, Gold Rush Creamery, Good & Gather, Great Lakes Cheese, Happy Farms by Aldi, H-E-B, Hill Country Fare, Know & Love, Laura Lynn, Lucerne Dairy Farms, Nu Farm, Publix, Schnuck's, Simply Go, Sprouts Farmers Market, Stater Bros. Markets and Sunnyside Farms.
• Italian style shredded cheese blend under the brand names: Brookshire's, Cache Valley Creamery, Coburn Farms, Great Value, Know & Love, Laura Lynn, Publix, Simply Go and Happy Farms by Aldi.
• Shredded pizza-style cheese blend from Food Club, Econo, Gold Rush Creamery, Great Value, Laura Lynn and Simply Go.
• Mozzarella and provolone shredded cheese blend from Freedom's Choice, Good & Gather, Great Lakes Cheese and Great Value, as well as a mozzarella and parmesan blend from Good & Gather. 
  

The full list of products is on the FDA's website. The FDA has not published a press release or responded to NPR's request for comment about the recall. NPR reached out to Great Lakes Cheese but did not hear back by publication time.

The Pecorino Romano recall

One of several brands of grated Pecorino Romano being recalled over listeria concerns.

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Food and Drug Administration

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The Ambriola Company, a New Jersey-based cheese distributor, announced last week that it was recalling some of its products after routine testing confirmed the presence of listeria, which can cause potentially life-threatening infections.

It said while no illnesses had been reported, it was recalling products processed at that same facility "out of an abundance of caution." Those products were distributed to retail stores — and other distributors — between Nov. 3 and Nov. 20, the FDA says.

"We take food safety very seriously and immediately alerted stores and distributors to remove the affected products from shelves," Ambriola CEO Phil Marfuggi said in a statement. "We are working closely with the FDA and continuing to test our products and facilities to fully understand the situation."

The recalled products are sold — both in plastic containers and pound-sized plastic bags — under the brand names Ambriola, Locatelli, Pinna, Boar's Head and Member's Mark.

They have expiration dates ranging from February to May 2026. It's not clear exactly where the cheeses ended up, though Walmart says some are sold at Walmart locations in 14 states and Sam's Club locations in 27 states.

Wegman's has also issued a recall of Locatelli-brand Pecorino Romano — over the same listeria concerns — that it says was sold in stores in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C. between Nov. 14 and Nov. 24.

The FDA urges customers to toss or return the cheese for a refund, and contact their doctor if they develop symptoms of a listeria infection, which usually start within two weeks of eating contaminated food and can include fever, headache, stiff neck and muscle aches.

In the meantime, Ambriola says it has suspended production and distribution of affected products as it conducts a "thorough review of all sanitation and food safety procedures."
Copyright 2025 NPR

How far would you travel for a good steak?

For actor and director Eric Wareheim, best known as half of the pioneering duo Tim & Eric, the answer turned into a three-year journey across the United States, a sprawling tour of iconic dining rooms, veteran servers and the rituals that define America’s most enduring steakhouses.

The result is his new book, Steakhouse: The People, the Places, the Recipes.

Wareheim joined LAist 89.3’s AirTalk recently, talking to host Larry Mantle about how the project grew from a simple “best of” list into a full cultural record.

“Every city has five more, not on anyone’s list,” he said, describing the scale of the country’s steakhouse universe.

Understanding the appeal

For Wareheim, a great steakhouse is built on atmosphere as much as what’s on the plate. Newer restaurants may source fancier meat, he said, but the old-school places offer a different kind of comfort — a sense of continuity that’s increasingly rare.

A suited-up Wareheim sampling prime cuts as he documents America’s great steakhouses.

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Marcus Nilsson

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What became clear in reporting the book, he said, is that steakhouses serve as more than dining rooms. They’re gathering places for birthdays, anniversaries and decades-long family traditions. They’re neighborhood anchors. And they’re deeply specific to their cities, each one carrying its own rituals, quirks and regulars.

An archival look at the people who built the classic American steakhouse, one dining room meeting at a time.

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The local perspective

It didn’t take long for AirTalk listeners to jump in with their own L.A. favorites.

• George Petrelli’s Steakhouse in Culver City: “They bring the meat in and butcher everything right there in the shop — cutting, dressing, even grinding the beef on the premises,” said Douglas in Long Beach.
  
• 555 East in Long Beach, which recently marked its 40th anniversary: “It was a grand celebration for the regulars — incredible prime rib, as much as you wanted, plus all sorts of other good things. Their steaks were terrific, and for dessert, they served a molten, individually baked pudding in its own little casserole dish," raved Harriet in Seal Beach.
  
• Dear John’s in Culver City: “So dark you can’t see for the first five minutes,” joked Michael in Sherman Oaks.
   
• Magic Lamp in Rancho Cucamonga: Its classic neon signage was singled out by Eric via email.
  
• Dan Tana’s in West Hollywood: "The best New York strip in town," said Jennifer in Silver Lake.

• Valley Inn Restaurant and Martini Bar in Sherman Oaks: Rose emailed that it was once the favorite steakhouse of legendary UCLA coach John Wooden. 
  
• Betsy in Altadena: Praised by local resident Peggy as her new go-to, calling its real-wood, fire-seared steaks “a bright spot amongst the ashes” — a nod to the community recovering from the Eaton Fire.
  
• Wareheim himself shouted out Taylor’s in Koreatown, the first steakhouse he and his comedy partner Tim Heidecker visited years ago. This formative experience planted the seed for the book.

From neon signs to prime rib rituals, Wareheim’s book captures the soul of the American steakhouse.

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Courtesy Ten Speed Press

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In addition, Steakhouse also makes mention of plenty of other L.A.–based restaurants that make beef their specialty, including:

Clearman’s Steak ’n Stein (Pico Rivera — classic mid-century steakhouse known for prime rib).
Soot Bull Jip (Koreatown — Korean barbecue)
Langer’s Delicatessen (MacArthur Park — famed pastrami)
Thien An Bo 7 Mon (Rosemead — Vietnamese seven-courses-of-beef restaurant)
Niku X (Downtown L.A. — high-end dry-aged/robot-assisted steakhouse)
Musso & Frank Grill (Hollywood — iconic old-school chophouse)
Majordomo (Chinatown — modern Korean-American takes on large-format beef)

Veteran servers

Wareheim argued that the heart of any steakhouse isn’t the cut of meat — it’s the staff. Many of the places he visited have servers who’ve been there 30 or 40 years, passing down the rhythms of the room like a craft.

“You want to go to a serious server, a lifer who knows exactly what the best thing is,” he said. “You can let go and just let these veterans guide you. And that’s a good feeling.”

The Trump administration has started the process of dramatically easing fuel economy requirements for new vehicles, part of the administration's broader pivot away from cleaner cars.

At the White House on Wednesday, surrounded by the executives from several major car companies, President Donald Trump said the move would save consumers money by making cars cheaper.

"We're officially terminating Joe Biden's ridiculously burdensome — horrible, actually — CAFE standards that impose expensive restrictions," Trump said, referring to the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules, often called CAFE standards. "And all sorts of problems, all sorts of problems for automakers."

Previous research from Consumer Reports has challenged the argument that regulations make cars more expensive. Stringent fuel economy standards also carry an economic benefit in the form of lower fuel costs over time.

CAFE standards require that the entire fleet of vehicles sold by a given automaker, on average, get more fuel-efficient over time. Automakers who fall short have previously needed to either pay hefty fines, or buy credits from a company that over-performs on efficiency, like Tesla and other all-electric automakers.

The Trump administration has already defanged the existing CAFE standards by eliminating the fines associated with them, as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Under Former President Joe Biden, the rules called for vehicles to get 2% more efficient every year; the Trump administration is now proposing to revert to the 2022 baseline and increase by .5% annually.

The proposed change now enters a period of public comment; the Department of Transportation will collect input from companies and citizens before finalizing the rule.

The administration has already been working to roll back tailpipe standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, which are designed to cut pollution from vehicles. The two sets of rules have overlapping effects, with both of them pushing automakers toward cleaner vehicles.

Meanwhile, during the second Trump presidency Congress has also eliminated the consumer tax credit for purchasing electric vehicles, decided to end a tax credit for installing an EV charger in June 2026, earlier than planned, and voted to strike down federal waivers that let California require automakers to build zero-emission vehicles. The Trump administration also temporarily delayed a program to use federal money to build a high-speed EV charger network.

The policy shift was no surprise. Trump campaigned against what he called the "electric vehicle mandate," and promised to rescind policies — including fuel economy standards — that encouraged or incentivized EVs.

Trump has framed the policy rollback as a gift to the auto industry. And that's partially true: Large trucks and SUVs may be inefficient, but they're popular and profitable, and selling more of them without any penalty is a financial boon to automakers. In earnings calls this fall, multiple executives noted that the regulatory rollback will boost earnings and help offset the cost of tariffs.

Electric vehicle adoption in the U.S. has moved slower than automakers had expected. Some automakers have said made some of the Biden-era policies not just challenging but unworkable.

In a statement provided by the White House, Ford CEO Jim Farley praised "President Trump's leadership in aligning fuel economy standards with market realities."

But automakers are also navigating a changing global market, with many countries continuing to prioritize climate action. The popularity of high-quality, affordable Chinese EVs has raised questions about whether legacy automakers can compete. So Farley's statement also promised that "We can make real progress on carbon emissions and energy efficiency while still giving customers choice and affordability."

For companies, which need to plan their future vehicle lineups years in advance, it's challenging when rules whipsaw back and forth with each change in administration. That's been the reality for years now: The Obama administration set ambitious fuel economy rules, which Trump 1.0 reversed, Biden reinstated, and now Trump 2.0 is seeking to "reset."

Farley obliquely noted that risk in a conversation with investors in October. He explained why Ford was continuing to move ahead with plans for an affordable electric pickup, despite regulations shifting to no longer support EVs. "We expect adoption will increase over time and the market continue to evolve," Farley said. "And maybe the regulations evolve."

Copyright 2025 NPR