In 1976, Dallas policeman Robert Wood routinely stopped a car for a motoring offence and in seconds was shot dead. Later, a known delinquent, 16-year-old David Harris, was arrested after boasting about the murder. Under questioning, Harris protested his innocence and blamed a hitch-hiker he had picked up, Randall Adams. Adams was tried and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. Twelve years after the crime, documentary film-maker Errol Morris re-opened the case and produced this stunning film, an unsurpassed blend of interviews and reconstruction. Our journey into the case is also Morris's, as he slowly uncovers a symphony of doubt and a miscarriage of justice. The sense of unease, heightened by an enthralling collection of witnesses, accumulates so that a random murder in Dallas puts all of America under the microscope. The picture earned its ultimate prize, not an Oscar but a retrial, and, in the end, Adams's release.

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