Franz Eduard Ritter von Liszt (2 March 1851 – 21 June 1919) was a German jurist, criminologist and international law reformer. As a legal scholar, he was a proponent of the modern sociological and historical school of law. From 1898 until 1917, he was Professor of Criminal Law and International Law at the University of Berlin and was also a member of the Progressive People's Party in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies and the Reichstag.

Franz von Liszt's father was Eduard Ritter von Liszt (1817–1879), a lawyer who had completed a brilliant civil service career as the head of the newly created Austrian General Prosecutor's Office. Franz von Liszt's mother was Karolina Pickhart (aka Caroline Pickhardt) (1827–1854). Karolina, who was Eduard von Liszt's first wife, was born in Çilli, Turkey, and died of cholera in Vienna in 1854. Eduard von Liszt's second wife was Henriette Wolf (1825–1920), whom he married on 24 January 1859 in Vienna. The composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt was Franz von Liszt's cousin and also acted as his godfather.

The Austrian title of nobility Ritter was awarded to the composer Franz Liszt in 1859 by the Emperor Francis Joseph I. The composer needed the title to marry the Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein without her losing her privileges, so he solicited the nobilitation which was conceded by the emperor in recognition of his services to Austria. After the marriage fell through, the composer transferred the title to his uncle Eduard, the father of the subject of this article, in 1867 when he received the Minor Orders of the Catholic Church. The composer actually never used the title in public.

Liszt studied law in 1869 in Vienna, having among his teachers Rudolf von Ihering, who influenced him fundamentally in his views of the law and whose views he later transferred into criminal law. In 1874, Liszt, having earned a law degree and a Ph.D., quickly sought a university teaching career, which took him in 1876 to Graz, Marburg (from 1882), Halle (from 1889) and finally in 1898, at the peak of his career, to the largest law faculty of the Empire in Berlin, where he taught criminal law, international law and jurisprudence. In his 20 years there, he devoted himself almost exclusively to criminal law.

In 1882, while in Marburg, he held his first seminar on criminology and continued to work on building the scientific journal covering the entire field of criminal justice. He also founded the so-called "Marburg School" of criminal law, asserting that crime must be essentially looked upon as a social phenomenon.

In addition to the scientific aspect of the law, practical public policy also appealed to him. He was active in Berlin beginning in about 1900 in the Progressive People's Party and was a member of the City Council of Charlottenburg until 1908, when he was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives. In 1912, he was elected to the German Reichstag. However, he remained politically rather a backbencher, and always remained a thorn in the side of the governmental bureaucracy. As a liberal outsider with courage, he was sitting on the cross benches, so that in neither the established society of Prussia nor in the empire was there much support for his positions.

Liszt died on 21 June 1919, after a long illness, and was survived by his wife, Rudolfine, and two daughters, both of whom remained unmarried. This branch of the Liszt family has since become extinct.

Parts of Liszt's extensive library are housed in the Liszt Institute Library of Humboldt University of Berlin.