The most memorable movies in which people are wrongfully accused

Hey, why not start with the movie literally called “Wrongfully Accused?” Even if it is a spoof movie about such films, one largely parodying the next movie on our list. This is a late-period Leslie Nielsen movie, so you can probably guess both the style of the comedy as well as the quality of the comedy. Still better than “Dracula: Dead and Loving It,” though.

Here now is the quintessential movie of this ilk. It even has the quintessential moment in such a film. Harrison Ford’s Dr. Richard Kimble says to Tommy Lee Jones’ Sam Gerard, “I didn’t kill my wife!” Gerard responds “I don’t care.” “The Fugitive” is so good it didn’t merely become a hit and later a cable TV staple to this day. It got Oscar nominations, and Jones won Best Supporting Actor.

The theme song to the TV show version of “The A-Team” had a narration that laid it out for us. This was a quartet not just accused of a crime they didn’t commit, but were convicted. Then, they broke out of military prison and became soldiers of fortune dedicated to helping out those in need. They adapted it into a film, one that had Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper in it. It’s decent enough, though it didn’t really make a mark after years of development hell.

Speaking of movies with unexpected Oscar winners, Marisa Tomei’s winning turn as Mona Lisa is a lot of fun, though of course she is not at the center of the action. This legal comedy is focused on Joe Pesci’s Vinny, a New Yorker through and through, coming down to a small town in the South to try his first case to help out his cousin and his cousin’s friend. However, the reason Vinny’s services are needed is that the two young men have been charged for a murder neither of them committed.

Did you know that, three years before starring in “The Fugitive,” Harrison Ford starred in another “I didn’t commit that murder!” movie. Alan J. Pakula, who knew his way around directing thrillers, was the steady hand helming this movie. Ford plays a prosecuting attorney (with the improbable name Rusty Sabich) who finds himself charged with murdering a female colleague that he had a brief affair with.

The titular Emile Zola was not the one facing a wrongful accusation. He was a writer and public intellectual in France, hanging around with Paul Cezanne and the like. However, he then inserts himself into the Dreyfus Affair, an instance wherein Captain Alfred Dreyfus is convicted for treason under dubious evidence. While the movie elides the role anti-Semitism played in the actual Dreyfus Affair, “The Life of Emile Zola” became the first Warner Bros. movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture.

After becoming a full-fledged movie star, Michael B. Jordan went the “serious movie” route, perhaps hoping for an Oscar play. To be fair, he had previously earned strong reviews for the movie “Fruitvale Station.” Jordan plays the real-life lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who specialized in representing people on death row who couldn’t afford an attorney. The centerpiece of “Just Mercy” is Stevenson’s attempt to overturn the conviction of a man played by Jamie Foxx who is in prison for murder.

This movie is on the right side of “Dumb thriller untethered to reality.” Of course it stars Ashley Judd. Completely misusing the legal concept of double jeopardy, Judd plays a woman convicted of murdering her husband, who has faked his death and left her holding the bag. Ahh, but since you can’t be convicted of the same crime twice, that means once Judd is out of prison she can get away with murdering her husband. In the world of this movie, at least.

Alfred Hitchcock was a big fan of mistaken identities, wrongful accusations, and misreading of circumstances having disastrous results. For “Dial M for Murder” he adapted a play and cast Ray Milland and Grace Kelly in the lead roles. Milland uses a mix of blackmail and financial incentive to get an old college friend to murder his wife, played by Kelly. However, when Kelly manages to kill the would-be murderer, Milland has to figure out a new plan on the fly to avoid being caught, and it involves planting seeds to lead to another conviction.

Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson starring in a movie that features roles for the likes of Henry Rollins and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Yeah, that’s about as mid-‘90s as it gets. A so-so attempt to satirize sensationalistic TV news, “The Chase” stars Sheen as a man wrongfully convicted of a crime, but then opts to kidnap a wealthy heiress and lead cops on a lengthy police chase. Which, you know, isn’t the best way to avoid criminal conviction.

It was improbable that “Bad Boys” would get a third movie, but after that happened it was not surprising there was a fourth movie. Although, the fact that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock right before the movie was to begin filming could have put the kibosh on things. The tagline for “Ride or Die” was “Miami’s finest are now its most wanted,” which gives you a sense of where the plot goes. Smith and Martin Lawrence’s cops set out to prove their former captain, now dead, wasn’t part of a criminal conspiracy, which of course puts them in the line of fire.

This is a 1980s action-comedy starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell as two hotshot cops who are rivals, so of course it is dumb as hell. That’s why a lot of people love it. Ray Tango and Gabe Cash may not like each other, but they have to work together after Jack Palance’s crime boss frames them for murder.

In addition to being a book read by many high schoolers, “To Kill a Mockingbird” was turned into a successful film. It was nominated for eight Oscars, with Gregory Peck winning Best Actor for his turn as Atticus Finch. The legal drama sees Finch fighting against the current in a racially-charged criminal trial that seems like a quixotic quest, but one worth undertaking.

Sidney Poitier directed “Stir Crazy!?!?” This is the second of the three films that paired Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder together. They play friends who are wrongfully convicted of a bank robbery and are sent to prison. It’s basically “What if a Richard Pryor character and a Gene Wilder character went to prison?” and doesn’t really do much more than that.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made four movies together. Three of them, “To Have and Have Not,” “The Big Sleep,” and “Key Largo,” are all considered noir classics. Then, there’s “Dark Passage.” This is a solid movie, if not on the same level of quality. It largely hooked itself to a gimmick but didn’t have a ton more going for it. The beginning of the film is first person through the view of a man who escapes prison to clear his name for killing his wife. Once he undergoes plastic surgery to change his appearance, we finally see his face and now he’s Bogart.

“The Running Man” was recently remade, but really the Stephen King book was adapted once more. In the story, and the new movie, there isn’t the framing for a crime element. In a dystopian future, Arnold Schwarzenegger is Ben Richards. When he refuses to follow orders, the corrupt government frames him for gunning down civilians and he is sent to prison. Eventually he escapes and ends up on "The Running Man" game show and it’s completely bananas, but technically it is a movie based on a guy being wrongfully accused of a crime.

We’ll end here with a twist on a trope. This is a small Canadian comedy that has become a cult classic. Dave Foley, of “Kids in the Hall” and “NewsRadio” fame, plays a guy who is angry after being passed over for a promotion. He flips out, even saying “I swear I will kill you.” Later, when he goes to have it out with his boss once more, he finds him murdered. Foley assumes he will be charged with the crime and so he flees, fully expecting he will be pursued “The Fugitive” style. What he doesn’t know is that security cameras show that he clearly did not do it, and in fact shows who did it. Thus begins a comedy of misunderstanding centered on a guy on the run from nobody because he assumed he would be wrongfully accused.