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Fiction and film

Novels, plays, films and TV series built on a will or an inheritance fight. The people in them are invented; they are here as estate stories from popular culture.

10 storiesEvery story with sourcesFilter all stories

What do the fiction and film estate cases show?

A will that cuts out the family for a carer invites both a contest and, in fiction, a frame-up. A mortgage on one estate and a marriage into the other gave a stranger control of both families' land within one generation.

Stories
10
Years
1300 to 2021
Main regions
Europe, North America, East Asia
Legal traditions
Common law, Royal and church law
Updated
30 October 2026

Every case in fiction and film, best-known first

Best-known first: cases from 1900 on, then the United States, then Europe, and the people most read about on English Wikipedia each month. Fiction, scripture and legend come last.

Ames Mansion Borderland: Ames Mansion, Borderland State Park, Easton, MassachusettsFiction · 2019 · Massachusetts, USA (setting)In Knives Out, a novelist leaves everything to his nurse, his grandson frames her so the slayer rule will cut her out, and the plan failsKnives Out is a 2019 mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson. Harlan Thrombey, an 85-year-old crime novelist, dies the morning after his birthday party at his Massachusetts mansion.thewealthadvisor.com and 2 moreWuthering: Title page of original edition of Wuthering Heights (1847)Fiction · 1847 · West Yorkshire moors, England (setting)In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff takes both families' estates through a mortgage, a marriage and a dying boy's will, and a lawyer showed in 1926 the law holds upWuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë, published on 24 November 1847 under the name Ellis Bell. In 1926 the barrister C. P. Sanger worked out its legal plot.legislation.gov.uk and 3 moreMontecristo-80: isola di Montecristo - Autore: Ambrogio VolpiFiction · 1844 · Château d'If, Marseille, France, and the island of MontIn The Count of Monte Cristo, a cardinal poisoned for his money left his heir only a breviary, and the will hidden in it passed to a prisonerThe Count of Monte Cristo is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, written with Auguste Maquet and serialised in the Journal des Débats from 1844 to 1846.Project Gutenberg and 3 moreRecueil."Noblesse oblige" film de Robert Hamer: Sujet : Kind hearts and coronets (film) Contient : coupures de presse Langue : françaisFiction · 1949 · Chalfont, England (fictional dukedom)In Kind Hearts and Coronets, a disowned daughter's son sets out to kill the eight relatives ahead of him in line and becomes a dukeKind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British film from Ealing Studios, directed by Robert Hamer and loosely based on Roy Horniman's 1907 novel Israel Rank.Project Gutenberg and 2 moreBrewster'sMillions: First edition cover of Brewster's Millions.Fiction · 1902 · New York City, USA (setting)In Brewster's Millions, a man must spend a $1 million inheritance in a year with nothing to show for it in order to inherit $7 millionBrewster's Millions is a comic novel by George Barr McCutcheon, published in 1902 under the pen name Richard Greaves. Montgomery Brewster's grandfather leaves him one million dollars "without a restriction." His uncle, James T.Project Gutenberg and 2 moreMap of Italy, marked on the globeFiction · 2021 · New York, USA, and Tuscany, Italy (setting)In HBO's Succession, the children's veto over the family company sat in their parents' divorce deal, and their father and mother renegotiated it awaySuccession is an HBO drama created by Jesse Armstrong about Logan Roy and the fight among his children to succeed him at Waystar Royco.nyunews.com and 3 moreHavishamFraser: Miss Havisham and Pip, in an illustration for the Household Edition of Dickens's Great Expectations.Fiction · 1860 · Kent and London, England (setting)In Great Expectations, Pip's secret fortune comes from a transported convict, and the Crown takes it when the convict is condemnedGreat Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens, serialised in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861. Two inheritances drive it.legislation.gov.uk and 2 moreHamlet Q1 Frontispiece 1603: Frontispiece to the First Quarto (1603) of William Shakespeare's HamletFiction · 1599 · Denmark (setting)In Shakespeare's Hamlet, an uncle kills the king, marries the widow and is chosen king over the son, and the crown ends with a foreign princeHamlet is a play by William Shakespeare, written between about 1599 and 1601 and first printed in 1603. It comes from the legend of Amleth in Saxo Grammaticus's Latin history of the Danes, retold in French by Belleforest in 1570.Project Gutenberg and 3 moreCharles Dickens: Dickens Gurney headFiction · 1852 · London, England (Court of Chancery)In Dickens's Bleak House, the Jarndyce will case runs for generations until the legal costs have swallowed the estateBleak House is a novel by Charles Dickens, published in twenty monthly parts from March 1852 to September 1853. Its centre is Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a Chancery suit over a fortune left under conflicting wills.Project Gutenberg and 3 morePortraits of Famous Men: Bao Zheng: Portraits of Famous Men: Bao ZhengFiction · 1300 · Kaifeng, Henan, China (court of Bao Zheng in the play)In the Yuan play The Chalk Circle, a wife poisons her husband and claims his concubine's son to take the fortune, and Judge Bao tests the two mothersThe Chalk Circle is a fictional zaju play from the Yuan dynasty, attributed to Li Xingdao (also given as Li Qianfu). Zhang Haitang is sold into prostitution after her father dies.www2.kansai-u.ac.jp and 2 more