In 1976, a Dallas police officer was murdered at a routine traffic stop. The boy who murdered him, 16-year old David Harris, pinned the crime on Randall Adams, an itinerant worker who was subsequently sentenced to death. He sat in prison, waiting for his execution, for 13 years. That’s when documentary filmmaker Errol Morris came along, dove into the case, and released a documentary called The Thin Blue Line. The documentary was so compelling, so meticulously researched, that Adams’ case was reopened. A year after the documentary came out, Adams was released from prison, a free man once again.

Morris got an innocent man off death row with his film. Could there possibly be anything more inspirational than that?

~ Evan Derrick