Best Wrongful Conviction Movies & TV Shows

Framed in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park.

"The Trials of Darryl Hunt" is a feature documentary about a brutal rape/murder case and a wrongly convicted man, Darryl Hunt, who spent nearly twenty years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Both a social justice story and a personally driven narrative, the film chronicles this capital case from 1984 through 2004. With exclusive footage from two decades, the film frames the judicial and emotional response to a chilling crime - and the implications that reverberate from Hunt's conviction - against a backdrop of class and racial bias in the South and in the American criminal justice system.

An ex-tennis pro carries out a plot to have his wife murdered after discovering she is having an affair, and assumes she will soon leave him for the other man anyway. When things go wrong, he improvises a new plan—to frame her for murder instead.

Year three at Hogwarts means new fun and challenges as Harry learns the delicate art of approaching a Hippogriff, transforming shape-shifting Boggarts into hilarity and even turning back time. But the term also brings danger: soul-sucking Dementors hover over the school, an ally of the accursed He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named lurks within the castle walls, and fearsome wizard Sirius Black escapes Azkaban. And Harry will confront them all.

This docu-series explores and exposes flaws in the American justice system through emotional, in-depth examinations of the death row cases of Darlie Routier and Julius Jones.

Behind prison walls, corruption, sex and power make criminals out of the guards and heroes out of the guarded. For more than a decade, the lawless guards inside a maximum security women's prison have reigned with impunity - rape, sex for money and illegal favors have become the norm until one woman decides to battle the system. Leading a group of inmates on a risky life-or-death struggle for justice, a ten year silence is finally broken, exposing the twisted truth to the world and enabling the prisoners the freedom to live without fear.

A prisoner becomes a lawyer, litigating cases for other inmates while fighting to overturn his own life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit.

The powerful true story of Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who goes to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned — including Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death despite evidence proving his innocence. Bryan fights tirelessly for Walter with the system stacked against them.

A small time thief from Belfast, Gerry Conlon, is falsely implicated in the IRA bombing of a pub that kills several people while he is in London. He and his four friends are coerced by British police into confessing their guilt. Gerry's father and other relatives in London are also implicated in the crime. He spends fifteen years in prison with his father trying to prove his innocence.

A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

Filmed over 10 years, this real-life thriller follows a DNA exoneree who, while exposing police corruption, becomes a suspect in a grisly new crime.

One of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history where hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting due to a defective IT system.

Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.

Christine Collins is overjoyed when her kidnapped son is brought back home. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her isn't her child, the police captain has her committed to an asylum.

After 19 years on Death Row for the rape and murder of his teenage girlfriend, Daniel Holden is going home. His conviction has been vacated due to new DNA evidence. Now he has to return to a world he no longer knows and his reentry into the outside world may be as unforgiving as prison. Daniel is haunted by the past, dogged by the present, and uncertain of the future. As he struggles to adapt to his new life, his homecoming reignites the fears of a small town and threatens to shatter his family’s fragile peace. Daniel’s alleged crime divided a community. Will his freedom tear it in half?

A horrific triple child murder leads to an indictment and trial of three nonconformist boys based on questionable evidence.

Madeline Scott, a fierce and uncompromising lawyer with a hunger for justice, runs an underdog criminal defense firm. There is no one who understands the power of setting an innocent person free more than Madeline. At age 18, she was wrongfully convicted, along with her brother, in a sensational murder case. Madeline defends others as she fights to maintain her innocence and searches for the real killer in her own case.

A fictional drama, covering a 30-year period, about a poverty-stricken teenager forced to give up her illegitimate son at birth, and the climb to wealth and power as the wife of a newspaper publisher who helps her locate her son, in whose future she becomes obsessed.

Wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death, Richard Kimble escapes from the law in an attempt to find the real killer and clear his name.

The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.

A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.

A further investigation into the arrest of three teenagers convicted of killing three young boys in Arkansas who spent nearly 20 years in prison before being released after new DNA evidence indicated they may be innocent.

Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.

The documentary tells the hitherto unknown story behind an extraordinary and desperate fight to bring the truth to light. Told and made by those who lived it, the filmmakers' unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense, allows the film to show the investigation, research and appeals process in a way that has never been seen before; revealing shocking and disturbing new information about a case that still haunts the Unitedstatian South.

An All-American football player's dreams to play in the NFL are halted when he is falsely accused of rape and sent to prison.

A man convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and works with a woman to try and prove his innocence.

After seven years in prison, David Collins is acquitted of the murder of his wife. Now, he must fight to rebuild his shattered life while police search for the real murderer.

Tom Holmes is someone guided by honesty and moral rectitude, a heroic veteran of the World War I marked by the unbearable suffering caused by his battle wounds, a traumatized but courageous man who will experience, in the years to come, the pain of misfortune but also the happiness of success and hope and love for other human beings.

Based partially on the story of Bonnie and Clyde, Eddie Taylor is an ex-convict who cannot get a break after being released from prison. When he is framed for murder, Taylor is forced to flee with his wife Joan Graham and baby. While escaping prison after being sentenced to death, Taylor becomes a real murderer, condemning himself and Joan to a life of crime and death on the road.

Revisiting the 1994 Arkansas murder of three 8-year-old boys and the three teenagers convicted of the crime. A follow up to Paradise Lost, Revelations features new interviews with the convicted men, as well as with the original judge and police investigators.

A feature-length documentary about the Free Kevin movement and the hacker world.

After a long time in the army, an Afro-American soldier returns to his hometown, where, years ago, his brother was executed for the rape and murder of two white girls. The commando believes his brother to have been innocent and seeks a proof for that, but there are some people in the town who will stop at nothing to hide the secrets of their past...

A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of murdering her boss. Her husband John would spend the next few years trying to get her released, but there's no evidence that negates the evidence against her. When the strain of being separated from her husband and son gets to her, John decides to find a way to break her out.

When Betty Anne Waters' older brother Kenny is arrested for murder and sentenced to life in 1983, Betty Anne, a Massachusetts wife and mother of two, dedicates her life to overturning the murder conviction. Convinced that her brother is innocent, Betty Anne puts herself through high school, college and, finally, law school in an 18 year quest to free Kenny. With the help of best friend Abra Rice, Betty Anne pores through suspicious evidence mounted by small town cop Nancy Taylor, meticulously retracing the steps that led to Kenny's arrest. Belief in her brother - and her quest for the truth - pushes Betty Anne and her team to uncover the facts and utilize DNA evidence with the hope of exonerating Kenny.

A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband.

The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

A man is wrongly convicted for murder and sent to prison, where he is accused of murdering a brutal guard he killed in self-defense.

On parole after three years in prison, a football player (Robert Kent) encounters the man (Sidney Blackmer) who framed him.

A luxury home, a handsome husband and terrific children. But it all comes crashing down when she is accused of being a mastermind behind a brutal triple-homicide and is arrested and handcuffed in front of her own children. A gripping story of passion and betrayal as a woman fights to clear her name and avoid the death penalty for a crime she didn't commit.

Dr. Frank Brace (Joe King) is an important doctor with son Jerry (Gordon Oliver) as well as foster son Steven (Donald Woods). The sons are both interns at Frank's hospital. Steven is the better doctor who takes blame for Jerry's mistakes.Steven has his license revoked when he is blamed for two deaths. Steven goes through years of hell trying to redeem himself.

This true crime documentary series investigates cases where people convicted of murder claim their confessions were coerced, involuntary or false.

After her fiance is falsely imprisoned, a pregnant African-American woman sets out to clear his name and prove his innocence.

In the town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock can speak to the dead, but no one other than his eccentric new friend believes his ability is real. One day, Norman's eccentric uncle tells him of a ritual he must perform to protect the town from a curse cast by a witch centuries ago.

Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson is forced to remember the very similar disappearance of Clare Kemplay, who was found dead in 1974, and the subsequent imprisonment of local boy Michael Myshkin. Washed-up local solicitor John Piggott becomes convinced of Myshkin's innocence and begins to fight on his behalf, unwittingly providing a catalyst for Jobson to start to right some wrongs.

Monty is a mechanic struggling to make ends meet as he raises his three young daughters. When the court awards custody of his daughters to his shady ex-wife, Monty desperately tries to win them back with the help of Julia, a beautiful, Ivy League-educated attorney. Monty and Julia couldn't be less alike, but a flame is ignited...touching off a firestorm of love and conflict.

Julian Kaye has always been an object of desire, so much so that people are willing to destroy him in order to have him. Exonerated, after 15 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, he now faces the challenge of picking up the pieces as the detective who put him behind bars tries to unravel the mystery that led to his wrongful incarceration.

A hardened crook behind bars comes up against a reform-minded warden.

A wrongfully convicted boy is sent to a brutal desert detention camp where he must dig holes in order to build character. What he doesn't know is that he is digging holes in order to search for a lost treasure hidden somewhere in the camp.