The Thin Blue Line
E921351
The Thin Blue Line is a groundbreaking 1988 documentary film by Errol Morris that reexamines a wrongful murder conviction and helped popularize the use of stylized reenactments in nonfiction cinema.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Thin Blue Line canonical | 3 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11361485 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Thin Blue Line Context triple: [Errol Morris, notableWork, The Thin Blue Line]
-
A.
The Thin Blue Line
The Thin Blue Line is a British sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson as an inept yet well-meaning police inspector in a small-town police station.
-
B.
Mississippi Burning
Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime thriller film, loosely based on the real-life 1964 murders of civil rights workers in Mississippi, that explores racism and FBI investigation in the Deep South.
-
C.
Fruitvale Station
Fruitvale Station is a 2013 American drama film that chronicles the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, a young Black man fatally shot by transit police in Oakland, California.
-
D.
Men in Blue
Men in Blue is the popular nickname for the India national cricket team, known for its blue jerseys and passionate global fanbase.
-
E.
When They See Us
When They See Us is a critically acclaimed 2019 Netflix miniseries that dramatizes the wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration of the Central Park Five, highlighting systemic racism and injustice in the U.S. criminal legal system.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Thin Blue Line Target entity description: The Thin Blue Line is a groundbreaking 1988 documentary film by Errol Morris that reexamines a wrongful murder conviction and helped popularize the use of stylized reenactments in nonfiction cinema.
-
A.
The Thin Blue Line
The Thin Blue Line is a British sitcom starring Rowan Atkinson as an inept yet well-meaning police inspector in a small-town police station.
-
B.
Mississippi Burning
Mississippi Burning is a 1988 American crime thriller film, loosely based on the real-life 1964 murders of civil rights workers in Mississippi, that explores racism and FBI investigation in the Deep South.
-
C.
Fruitvale Station
Fruitvale Station is a 2013 American drama film that chronicles the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, a young Black man fatally shot by transit police in Oakland, California.
-
D.
Men in Blue
Men in Blue is the popular nickname for the India national cricket team, known for its blue jerseys and passionate global fanbase.
-
E.
When They See Us
When They See Us is a critically acclaimed 2019 Netflix miniseries that dramatizes the wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration of the Central Park Five, highlighting systemic racism and injustice in the U.S. criminal legal system.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
documentary film
ⓘ
feature film ⓘ |
| awardReceived | Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| cinematographyBy | Stefan Czapsky NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| criticalReception | widespread critical acclaim ⓘ |
| describedAs | groundbreaking documentary ⓘ |
| director | Errol Morris NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| distributor | Miramax Films ⓘ |
| editedBy | Paul Barnes NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| features |
interviews with lawyers
ⓘ
interviews with police officers ⓘ interviews with the accused ⓘ interviews with witnesses ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
Dallas Police Officer Robert W. Wood murder case
ⓘ
criminal justice system in Texas ⓘ flaws in eyewitness testimony ⓘ prosecutorial misconduct ⓘ |
| genre |
crime documentary
ⓘ
documentary ⓘ true crime film ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
fallibility of the justice system
ⓘ
unreliability of memory and testimony ⓘ |
| includedInList | Sight & Sound greatest documentaries polls NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| influenced |
nonfiction cinema
ⓘ
subsequent documentary filmmakers ⓘ true crime television series ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| musicBy | Philip Glass NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| notableFor |
influence on true crime documentaries
ⓘ
reinvestigation of a murder case ⓘ use of stylized reenactments in documentary film ⓘ |
| portrays |
David Ray Harris as alternative suspect
ⓘ
Randall Dale Adams as wrongfully convicted NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| productionCompany | Miramax Films NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| releaseDateUS | 1988-08-25 ⓘ |
| releaseYear | 1988 ⓘ |
| resultedIn |
public scrutiny of Adams conviction
ⓘ
renewed legal attention to Randall Dale Adams case ⓘ |
| runningTimeMinutes | 101 ⓘ |
| setInLocation | Dallas, Texas NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| style |
dramatic reenactments
ⓘ
interview-based documentary ⓘ nonlinear narrative ⓘ |
| subject |
David Ray Harris
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Randall Dale Adams NERFINISHED ⓘ murder of Robert W. Wood NERFINISHED ⓘ wrongful conviction ⓘ |
| writtenBy | Errol Morris NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Thin Blue Line Description of subject: The Thin Blue Line is a groundbreaking 1988 documentary film by Errol Morris that reexamines a wrongful murder conviction and helped popularize the use of stylized reenactments in nonfiction cinema.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.