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

The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount's sweetened bid to buy the entire company is "superior" to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.

Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount's offer.

"We've always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid," the streaming giant said in a statement.

Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.

'If you wanna try and outbid our deal … just make a better deal. Just put a better deal on the table," Sarandos told the trade publication Deadline Hollywood.

Netflix promised that Warner Bros. would operate as an independent studio and keep showing its movies in theaters.

But the political realities, combined with Paramount's owners' relentless drive to expand their entertainment holdings, seem to have prevailed.

Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.

On Thursday, hours before the Warner announcement, Sarandos headed to the White House to meet Trump administration officials to make his case for the deal.

The meetings, leaked Wednesday to political and entertainment media outlets, were confirmed by a White House official who spoke on condition he not be named, as he was not authorized to speak about them publicly.

President Trump was not among those who met with Sarandos, the official said.

While Netflix's courtship of Warner stirred antitrust concerns, the Paramount deal is likely to face a significant antitrust review from the U.S. Justice Department, given the combination of major entertainment assets. Paramount owns CBS and the streamer Paramount Plus, in addition to Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other cable channels.

The offer from Paramount CEO David Ellison relies on the fortune of his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. And David Ellison has argued to shareholders that his company would have a smoother path to regulatory approval.

Not unnoticed: the Ellisons' warm ties to Trump world.

Larry Ellison is a financial backer of the president.

David Ellison was photographed offering a MAGA-friendly thumbs-up before the State of the Union address with one of the president's key Congressional allies: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican.

Trump has praised changes to CBS News made under David Ellison's pick for editor in chief, Bari Weiss.

The chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, told Semafor Wednesday that he was pleased by the news division's direction under Weiss. She has criticized much of the mainstream media as being too reflexively liberal and anti-Trump.

"I think they're doing a great job," Carr said at a Semafor conference on trust and the media Wednesday. As Semafor noted, Carr previously lauded CBS by saying it "agreed to return to more fact-based, unbiased reporting."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Each spring, the land around Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County bursts into a vibrant array of native wildflowers. This year, it’s happening earlier than expected because of the recent rains.

The lake’s wildflower trail is scheduled to reopen this Friday, Feb. 27. Here’s what you should know before you go.

What the trail has to offer

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which manages the body of water in Hemet, says wildflower blooms are already dotting the hillsides around the ecological reserve at Diamond Valley Lake.

Think of a bright color wheel — that’s the kind of colorful blooms you’ll see. The hills grow orange California poppies, baby blue eyes, red bush monkeyflower and yellow tidy tips, to name a few. You’ll also get a peek at SoCal’s largest drinking water reservoir.

Known as the Judy Abdo Wildflower Trail, the 1.3 mile loop extends from the Lakeview Trail, close to the trail head and parking area. You can see a map here. The hike has some rugged terrain, but it’s rated as easy-to-moderate.

• Address: 2615 Angler Ave., Hemet
• Hours: Wednesdays through Sundays, 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

When you visit, don’t go too late! No entry is allowed after 3:30 p.m. Starting March 8, it’ll be open until 5:30 p.m. (with no entry after 4:30 p.m.).

You’ll have to pay $4 per person to use the wildflower trail. Parking costs $11 (or $5 if you’re: 62 years and older, a military member or a veteran).

Observe safely

Wildflower blooms are very popular in Southern California because of how beautiful (and Instaworthy) the scenery is, but you should tread cautiously.

About 10 years ago, Diamond Valley Lake’s trail had to be closed because crowds of visitors trampled the wildflowers. So when you visit, make sure to follow these etiquette tips so the bloom can be enjoyed by everyone.

A mammoth solar farm is moving forward in the heart of California. If built, which seems increasingly likely, it would cover 200 square miles of land and generate 21,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power entire cities. Huge batteries will store some of that power until it's needed most.

Farmers are among the project's backers. They don't have enough water to grow crops on big chunks of their land, and they're looking for new uses for it.

"We're farmers, and we would rather farm the ground," says Ross Franson, president of Woolf Farming and Processing, his family's business. "If we had the water to do it, we would farm it. But the reality is, you don't. You have to deal with the cards you're dealt."

Franson is on the board of the Westlands Water District, a farmer-run organization that's a key player in this effort, negotiating with solar companies and government regulators on behalf of its members. Westlands is an agricultural power and has long represented the interests of farmers in a large swath of land on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley, between the towns of Firebaugh and Huron. Decades ago, it helped persuade the federal government to build a giant canal to deliver irrigation water to this area from rivers far away in Northern California.

Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands Water District, on land that could become a solar farm.

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Dan Charles

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Yet these farmers are now facing a new water crisis. The canal has been delivering less water in recent years because of droughts and competing claims on that water. Until recently, the farmers had a backup water supply: They could pump water from aquifers a thousand feet underground. Now, though, a new state law is coming into force that bans overpumping from the aquifer.

So farmers in Westlands have been leaving large chunks of land unplanted. Another large piece of land, now owned by the Westlands Water District itself, has been fallowed because irrigating it could release high levels of a mineral called selenium that can poison wildlife or people. The farmers, and the district, have been looking for new ways to put that land to use.

A solar developer called Golden State Clean Energy seized the opportunity. Several years ago, it presented Westlands Water District with a master plan for a collection of vast solar projects.

Developers say scale will justify new power lines 

Patrick Mealoy, a partner at Golden State Clean Energy, says they had to propose a solar farm that would generate an enormous amount of power to make the case for new multibillion-dollar power lines to carry electricity from the San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Mealoy says smaller proposed projects have stalled because they weren't big enough to justify building those power lines.

"In order to actually have solar be productive, you need size and scale, a mass of projects that support the necessary investment in high voltage transmission lines to collect the electrons and move them," Mealoy says.

Getting the managers of California's electrical grid to approve construction of those transmission lines could be the project's biggest remaining hurdle. If built, the cost of those power lines, along with the benefits of greater electricity supply, eventually will show up in consumers' electricity bills.

Franson says his immediate reaction to the proposal was "Yes, we need to do this." Negotiating the details and completing an environmental review took several years, but in December, the Westlands Water District's board voted to move ahead.

Golden State is the plan's architect, but other solar developers will build sections of it. Construction could take a decade. Even though the Trump administration has abolished some financial incentives for solar projects, Mealoy says it's still a solid business opportunity.

"The state needs it. It's permitted. It's the right place for it. I'm excited about this," he says.

Grace Wu, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says "this is a fantastic place for solar" because the fallowed farmland isn't high-value habitat for wildlife.

Farmworkers wonder if they will also benefit

About 150 farmers within the Westlands Water District, including Jeremy Hughes, have signed up to put solar on some of their land. "We look at it as a new crop. We're harvesting electricity," Hughes says. The guaranteed income from those acres makes it possible to keep farming the rest of his land.

"Because of solar, we can continue farming in Westlands. It'll keep the farming community alive," says Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands Water District.

In the small towns nearby where many farmworkers live, however, there are worries that local residents won't see many benefits from the project. Among those towns is Huron, home to about 6,000 people. Rey León grew up here, working in his family's restaurant. Now he's the town's mayor.

Rey León is the mayor of Huron, Calif., home to many farmworkers who aren't yet sure what they will get out of solar coming to the region.

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Dan Charles

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"I'm worried about Huron," he says. This solar deal may be great for the landowners of Westlands, he says, but less farming means fewer jobs for people who worked in the fields and orchards. León wants some of the solar revenue to flow to this community for education and training, to help people find jobs in this new solar industry.

"We are shareholders," he says. "We kept these communities alive, these economies robust. There's no excuse to leave us out."

Westlands and Golden State Clean Energy have been discussing what they call a community benefits package, but officials haven't released any details.

A possible model for other parts of California

Caity Peterson, at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), says other farming communities in California may try to imitate what Westlands is doing. Because they, too, will have to stop pumping so much water from the ground as the new state law comes into force. "There's going to be some kind of right-sizing of agricultural land in the San Joaquin Valley," she says.

According to a study that PPIC carried out, farmers in the valley will have to stop growing crops on between 500,000 and 1 million acres. There will be a lot of dry, sunny land in California, just waiting for a solar developer.

Copyright 2026 NPR

A truly Los Angeles twist on March Madness is back, but this year, Angelenos are invited to weigh in on the worst intersections in greater L.A.

Whether you feel personally victimized by the Virgil Avenue, Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards intersection by the Los Feliz border, which a city official called a “‘nightmare,” or break into anxious sweats every time you get in line for the Burbank Boulevard Costco — you can soon channel some of that frustration into a social media match-up.

After Koreatown was voted as having the city’s worst parking last year, the latest competition run by Americana at Brand Memes on Instagram is upping the stakes with infamous intersections.

The anonymous account holder, who goes by Mr. Glen Dale, told LAist the “One Bad Intersection After Another” bracket is designed to be a democratic process for people to collectively crown the worst in L.A. once and for all.

“No matter who wins, it's all bad,” Mr. Glen Dale said.

Voting kicks off this weekend, and the winner will be crowned by April.

How it works

The competition is divided into four rounds based on the general geographic area, with nine intersections in each round.

Starting Sunday, @americanaatbrandmemes will post the competitors on Instagram with a poll attached around 11 a.m. each day throughout March.

The polls will be open for 24 hours, and the intersection with the most votes will move on to the next round to face off against the others.

To complete this year’s lineup, Mr. Glen Dale again started with a list of his personal worst before turning to his followers for some suggestions.

The intersection of Harvey Drive and East Broadway toward the Glendale In-N-Out was a popular proposal, for example, but Mr. Glen Dale said he felt that may be too niche for the bracket.

“I tried not to narrow in too much on one area,” he said. “And then tried to use my own experience to be like, ‘Oh yes, these ones feel like hallmarks.’”

If your personal worst isn’t in the competition, you can also suggest an intersection in the comments by writing “WILDCARD: (your suggestion).” The suggestions with the most likes will be added to the competition, with a wildcard slot in each of the four rounds.

Some popular wildcard suggestions include the Cypress Park roundabout at Riverside Drive and San Fernando Road, the Glendale Boulevard and Riverside Drive intersection with the wonky left-turn lanes in Silver Lake, and for another year in a row — all of Koreatown.

“I always put [wildcards] in there because I'm always like there's something I'm not thinking of that someone's going to suggest,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “This is a fluid list, we could change it.”

The intersection voted as L.A.’s worst of the worst will be crowned on Americana At Brand Meme’s account by April 1.

The East Side-ish Round

The first round focuses on the “East Side-ish” of L.A., including Silver Lake, Highland Park, East L.A., Echo Park and Eagle Rock.

The rounds are broken up by “side-ish” so people can focus their debates on the intersections, not the geographic boundaries of the bracket, according to Mr. Glen Dale.

The options include:

• Virgil Avenue / Sunset Boulevard / Hollywood Boulevard vs Sunset Boulevard / Sanborn Avenue / Santa Monica Boulevard
• Stadium Way / Academy Road vs Glendale Boulevard / Fletcher Drive / Silver Ridge Avenue
• Telegraph Road / Atlantic Boulevard / Triggs Street / Ferguson Drive vs wildcard vs Huntington Drive / Garfield Avenue / Atlantic Boulevard
• York Boulevard / N Avenue 50 vs Glendale Boulevard / Alvarado Street vs Avenue 42 / Eagle Rock Boulevard

Mr. Glen Dale said Avenue 50, which came up often in followers’ suggestions, could get its own bracket because the intersections in the area don’t seem to communicate with each other.

“You'll be sitting at a red light and seeing a green in front of you and being like, oh, when I get to that one it's going to be red,” he said. “But, you know, I ended up with York and 50 … [it] felt like a good representation of that street as a whole.”

The West Side-ish Round

The competition heads to Beverly Hills, Culver City, Westchester, Venice, Westwood Village and Brentwood for the second, “West Side-ish” round.

The options include:

• Beverly Hills 6 way stop vs Pacific Coast Highway / Chautauqua Boulevard / West Channel Road
• Washington Boulevard / Culver Boulevard vs Exposition / Robertson / Venice Boulevards
• Sunset Boulevard / Bellagio Drive / Bellagio Road / Bellagio Way vs wildcard vs Abbot Kinney Boulevard / California Avenue
• La Cienega Boulevard / Centinela Avenue / La Tijera Boulevard vs Wilshire / Westwood Boulevards vs San Vicente Boulevard / Montana Avenue

“It will be the Beverly Hills 6 stop,” one Instagram commenter wrote. “It is known.”

The Central LA-ish Round 

The third, “Central LA-ish” round takes us into the heart of Hollywood, West Hollywood, the border of Miracle Mile and Carthay Circle as well as the border of Wilshire Center and the Dayton Heights neighborhood.

The options include:

• Hollywood Boulevard / Highland Avenue vs Highland / Franklin Avenues
• Fairfax Avenue / La Cienega Boulevard vs Fairfax Avenue / Olympic / San Vincente Boulevards
• Jefferson Boulevard / La Brea Avenue vs wildcard vs La Cienega / Sunset Boulevards
• Franklin Avenue / Vine Street / 101 Freeway vs Virgil Avenue / Beverly Boulevard / Temple Street vs Santa Monica Boulevard / Western Avenue

The Los Angeles Times released a report this week ranking L.A.’s worst intersections based on traffic data, with the troublesome top spot going to Highland and Sunset in Hollywood.

The Valley-ish Round

Last but not least, the “Valley-ish,” which includes intersections in North Hollywood, Burbank, Studio City and Sherman Oaks.

This round also features my personal nemesis — Barham and Cahuenga boulevards.

I take this route relatively often to get from Burbank to West Hollywood and have to give myself a pep talk every time. The seemingly-constant congestion over the hill, driver confusion about what lanes lead where and people cutting into lines of cars just before a turn makes the experience feel like it takes years off my life.

The options include:

• Lankershim Boulevard / Vineland Avenue / Camarillo Street vs Burbank / Lankershim Boulevards / Tujunga Avenue
• Victory / Burbank Boulevards / Victory Place / 5 Freeway / Costco vs Ventura Place / Radford Avenue / Trader Joe’s / Sephora parking lots
• Harvey / W Broadway vs wildcard vs Sepulveda / Burbank Boulevards
• Mulholland Drive / Coldwater Canyon Avenue vs Barham / Cahuenga Boulevards vs Vineland Avenue / Magnolia Boulevard

Mr. Glen Dale agreed with my assessment, describing the Barham Boulevard intersection as his “white whale.”

“I hate going through that intersection, and it's not even that it's scary like other ones where you don't know what's happening,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “No matter which way you're going, everyone is converging onto Barham, and it just creates this madness.”

But Lankershim / Vineland / Camarillo appears to be an early follower favorite, as one commenter wrote, it “takes 2-3 business days to get through” and another added, “I’m rioting if [the intersection] doesn’t win.”