• Fabricant 100: Luka invites Ashibi to another room, while questioning No 100 on camera. With her contractor away, she shows knowledge of stopping all Fabricants at once by taking down No 1, but withheld that information from Ashibi because she doesn't care about human victims, and she needs No 1's help to take Ashibi's body. Despite this, he still trusts her, as at least she'll act predictably.
• Subverted in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, where the Tachikomas discuss the fact that video footage is practically useless as evidence due to how easily it can be tampered with. Indeed, the Laughing Man's MO relies entirely on this, as he hacks into any recording devices around him (including other people's cyberbrains) and edits himself out of the footage, effectively letting him become invisible.
• Maria no Danzai:
  • Okaya and his gang would regularly record Kiritaka as they tormented him, before either sending the videos to him or posting them on the internet. For whatever reason, they did not seem to consider the possibility that Kiritaka would gather as many videos as he could get his hands on in order to eventually use them as evidence to turn them all in at the same time. Which he would've done if he hadn't gotten himself killed at the start of the story, as he still lacked concrete evidence on Okaya himself. On the other hand, he did keep a flash drive with a copy of all the videos he had collected hidden in a secret location, which he wrote down on his diary... which his grieving mother Mari would find after his death. The videos prove to be more than enough evidence for Mari to deduce the true circumstances of her son's "suicide", and she makes the decision to avenge her son by murdering his bullies herself.
  • Yashima once stole a few items from a convenience store in desperation, and had the rotten luck of being recorded by Kowase. Since that day he has been blackmailing Yashima to give him money, along with occasionally beating her up or even sexually abusing her.
  • After Yuda tells Maria how he came to learn about her, along with how he murdered Iijima for knowing that Maria was connected to Shikimi, he begs Maria to use him as her accomplice in order to kill off the rest of Okaya's friends. Maria responds by revealing that she recorded his confession to Iijima's murder on her phone and warning him not to associate himself with her again, under threat of incriminating him for the murders she's already committed.
• Zombie Land Saga: Okoba finds photos of all of Franchouhcou's members when they were alive, piecing together that they must have all been revived somehow. It's not until he catches video of Tae's head coming off that he suspects they're zombies.

• Captain America (1968): During the "Secret Empire" arc, Cap is framed for murder and goes on the run. Falcon is the only one to stick with him, and the two meet up in an abandoned factory, where Sam explains he's with Steve. Unfortunately, the minute he says that, Moonstone reveals himself and says he's got everything he needs to frame both of them.
• Batman: Hollywood Knight: The final confrontation is on a movie set and Byron turns on the boom cameras first so they will show he is acting in self-defense and capture the villains talking about their past crimes.

Crossovers

• Equestria Ninja Girls: Spy Racers: Echo kicking Mussels butt and Gary plowing down the soldiers are both seen by the Ninjas and the other Spies through camera and drone feed.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Trip records several of Chloe's classmates bragging to her little brother Parker about how they bullied her... and how much they enjoyed it. Several other bystanders also record their Engineered Public Confession on their cell phones.
• Marinette's Island Adventure: When the Police dug into Marinette’s disappearance, they didn’t just discover the bought plane ticket, but also CCTV footage of Bustier and her class forcing Marinette onto the plane to Camp Wawanakwa, which ended up causing Bustier and Damocles to be investigated.
• Meanwhile, Back on Earth:
  • Phillip Whittebane/Emperor Belos is hated by the world due to his cold-blooded murder of his own brother, his hazing of his grimwalkers including Hunter, and his attempted genocide of all of the inhabitants of the Boiling Isles, among other things, being broadcasted on the internet and television.
  • In flashbacks from first Andrias's and then Leif's perspective, we get a first-hand look at just how oppressive and nightmarish the Newtopian Empire was at its height towards its conquered worlds, and (as is shown with the plight of the olms) many times its own people, with the former having all of their resources extracted and their people used as slaves at the whims of a small elite.
• Metal Gear: Green: When meeting Grizzly (who was known as Freezer Boy in his past life), Momo asks about the so-called relationship with Heart Star, only to find out Grizzly not only hated her guts, but had evidence of her bragging about running a money laundering scheme for years. Said money laundering scheme is an international charity hundreds of heroes and her family have donated to for said years.
  Grizzly: A crappy hero. Do you know that international charity she's running? Not a single dollar goes to those in need. The entire thing is nothing but a massive laundering scheme.
  Momo: That, that can't be true. My family has donated to that charity for years, as have hundreds of other well-known heroes. How could that money not reach those in need? How could you know that?
  Grizzly: Because little miss bitch bragged about it in class all those years ago. Hell, I've got the entire thing on camera!
• My Hero Academia: Unchained Predator: The whole world got to watch the Slayer turn the ransom demand the Steel Sabers were planning into a grizzly Public Execution. In Chapter 13, Mera basically said that the public's gonna have night terrors for at least 15 years because of the Slayer's antics.
• In Steven Universe: and the Hunters of Arcadia, the trollhunters go to Beach City to investigate the images of Jamie in his true form posted on Keep Beach City Weird.
• When the heroes confront William Stryker in TMDDF: Danny Chooses Alex After the Many Dates, Alex makes sure to record his confession of having Nightcrawler attack the president in order to scare him because she knows that, as a high-ranking government official, he'll get off scot-free without any proof to their accusations.
• With Pearl and Ruby Glowing:
  • Jojo put a camera in Vlad's office so he could record him the next time he abused him. When he gets footage of Vlad abusing Rudy instead, he shows it to Horton, who reports it to the police and gets Vlad arrested.
  • When Jasper used Sexual Extortion against Lapis in exchange for not hurting Steven, Lapis hid a camera and recorded the act in order to blackmail Jasper into backing off. However, when the video ended up online, people still blamed Lapis, framing it as her tricking Jasper into a "sex tape" even though she's sixteen and Jasper's an adult and her parole officer.
  • A.J. Gadgets uses a tape recorder to record Ms. Murphy's abuse of the other autistic kids and plays it in front of his parents.

Carrie

• Carrie: Awakening: Freddy Holt and his date Holly Marshall keep filming the aftermath of the prank, such as how Tommy was hurt and who is laughing, mainly to have evidence to turn over to the police once they start investigating (although the subsequent massacre makes that a moot point) and then to record proof that telekinesis is real.

Danganronpa

• Danganronpa: Losers Reunion: In the third arc, Angie plays the snitch, informing Monokuma of an incident of somebody destroying school property that had escaped his notice and causing the culprit to be punished harshly. Their conversation was caught on the school's security cameras, and Miu discovered the exchange while hacking in, presenting the evidence to the rest of the students and exposing Angie as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.

Disgaea

• Wolf in the Streets, Sardine in the Sheets: Valvatorez baits Majorita into bragging about how Void framed Killia and Christo for the murders Void himself had committed, as well as how she killed Usalia's parents. He recorded the whole conversation using an app on his phone.

Disney Animated Canon

• Fox in the Bunnyhouse: When Robin is abducted, the kidnapper fails to notice a mouse who witnesses and records the crime on his phone. This leads to Amber alerts rapidly being issued as footage of the kidnapping is shown on the news.
• In The Sound Designer, Milo's audio recordings capture proof of how the pet store was robbed. Judy hires him to help with other investigations as well.

Fairy Tail

• Alternate Tail Series: Thomas Ore not only bullied Levy throughout her childhood, he hired a wizard to brainwash Joseph into arranging a marriage between them, then had Joseph murdered. He also hired the Phantom Lord's forces to kidnap her. After defeating him, Levy reveals that all of his Evil Gloating about his schemes was caught on a recording lacrima inside her pen.

Genshin Impact

• In Catching Air, Xiao accidentally left the recorder in his suit on while speaking with Arsenic, with the whole conversation being archived in the Ordo Favonius' database. While the information was very useful, Xiao's reluctant to reveal this to anyone because he let Arsenic go rather than attempting to capture them.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

• The Devil's in the details: Having been raised by a lawyer (and being very clever himself), whenever Peter is backed into a corner, expect to have him secretly recording everything that was happening on his phone.
  • When he first meets Tony, he has their conversation recorded to ensure that Tony can't strong-arm him into Avengers business (complete with a legally binding restraining order against him).
  • In Back in the Ring, Matt catches a loan company in the act of attempting to take May's home with a fraudulent mortgage loan claim allegedly signed by Ben after his death. When the manager attempts to get away with it by putting it into a protracted in-company investigation, Peter reveals that he recorded the entire thing with threats to use it against him.

Miraculous Ladybug

• Burning Bridges, Building Confidence: Having been warned about Lila before meeting her, Cole makes a point of audio-recording every conversation she has with her to collect evidence proving that she's a Consummate Liar. She also geotags pictures of her and her friends whenever they're out having fun, and uses one such picture to prove that they couldn't have cornered and threatened Lila in the bathroom like she claims they were doing at the time.
• Chloé's Lament: Death and Changes has this prove to be the downfall of several antagonists:
  • Bob Roth goes out of his way to inform Alya of his history of Con Artistry "off the record" just so the Smug Snake can taunt her about her inability to do anything about his brazen corruption. He fails to notice Chloé is secretly recording the whole conversation, including his threats against Alya.
  • Anyone whom the akuma Cover Up licks is effectively erased from the memories of everyone else. However, he suffers a massive Villainous Breakdown when he's tricked into believing his rampage is being broadcast live, realizing he can't possibly track down and lick every single witness to his crimes.
  • This also works against Chloé, who is Persona Non Grata at both the Louvre and the La Grand Paris hotel thanks to her history of bullying. Her sneaking into both areas as part of her plans comes back to haunt her when Mendeleiev reveals they've been gathering proof of her defying the bans.
  • Chloé banks on this working in her favor during Marinette's big fashion show; she's relying upon the reporters and press covering the event to investigate the commotion she makes so that Marinette slapping her gets caught on film.
  • The final arc offers the most complicated and convolted example. In order to expose Chiara Rossi's corruption, Chloé has her daughter Lila gather up old Italian currency from before a certain point in time, then uses the broken Peacock Pin to create a time-traveling sentimonster, warping to the day that Chiara convinced the eight-year-old Lila to make false accusations against her dad. She then has her companion purchase a video camera for the express purpose of filming Chiara as she threatens to dump Lila in an orphanage if she doesn't tell the lies she wants, in order to ensure not just that they have footage of the event, but that all the metadata will be correct once she has Lila send it to an old e-mail account.
• CONSEQUENCES:
  • In BREAKING AND ENTERING, Lila hits Marinette, steals her diary, and gloats that none of Marinette's "dumb little friends" will ever speak to her again once Lila's revealed all her secrets. Alya then reveals her presence — and that she's been filming the whole encounter. She promptly turns the video over to the police.
  • SUN'S WRATH has this screw Lila over twice. First, when she shoves Luka out in front of a car, the driver's dashboard camera catches it. He's then able to show the footage to Hell-ios when the vengeful akuma arrives, saving his life and pointing him towards the true culprit. Later, Hell-ios presents her with a Sadistic Choice, claiming that he'll kill an innocent child if Lila doesn't turn herself over. Her refusal to do so is recorded by one of the other civilians hiding out with her group.
• Crimson and Noire: After the events of Reverser in chapter 34, Lila claims that two of Reverser's paper airplanes, which cause their targets to become the opposite of themselves, both hit Kagami when she stood to protect Marinette and made her terrified and scared, with Lila volunteering to keep watch over Kagami while the other students search for the heroes. When Alya reviewed the footage of the akuma attack at the end of the chapter, she finds out that Kagami was hit by a single airplane, and it was more than likely to Alya that the second plane hit Lila instead and made her act like the opposite of her true self.
• The Inciting Incident of Crumbling Down is Alya taping Lila trying to push a section of crumbling wall on top of Ladybug during an akuma attack.
• Fashion Upgrade has this happen to Lila twice over:
  • First, when she attempts to sneak into the dressing room used by Ms. Mendeleiev's class and sabotage their fashion show, she's caught on camera triggering an ink trap. In this case, the larger and more immediate punishment is that said ink means she can't go onstage, ceding her role to her understudy.
  • This leads to the second incident. Jealous of how Mylene and the other actors are being praised for their performances, Lila starts harassing her... and Ivan, Mylene's boyfriend, catches it on camera. Unlike Alicia, who spared Lila the extra humiliation of releasing the footage, Ivan is more than happy to reveal to the whole school just how she's been treating his girlfriend.
• Hawk Moth: War Criminal: Before what turned out to be the Final Battle, Hawk Moth sent akumatizing butterflies to Chloé and Lila. Not only were both filmed accepting said butterflies, both said some pretty damning things in the process: Chloé demanded to know when he'd be able to "return" the Bee Comb to her, while Lila gleefully gloated about how she'd be taking Ladybug down. This makes it hard for either girl to claim they were Unwitting Pawns used against their will.
• Honesty Akuma Attack:
  • After Sofia was akumatized into Harpie, one of her friends used their cellphone to record her interrogation of Marinette, expecting to capture proof that she'd cheated on her test. Instead, she captures Marinette calmly explaining that Lila had been lying to everyone all along...and since she was clearly under the influence of Harpie's compulsion, everyone finally believes her Cassandra Truth.
  • Someone-EV's interpretation of the same prompt Averts this for drama. After the akuma uses her truth-telling compulsion on her, Marinette realizes just how fickle her "friends" were, and that they'd been All Take and No Give even before Lila showed up and got them to Easily Condemn her. However, she doesn't remember anything that happened while under the akuma's spell, so her classmates keep her Locked Out of the Loop, claiming there's no record of what happened. While they successfully trick her into accepting their apologies, Marinette's left feeling empty afterwards, subconsciously sensing that something is wrong.
• Juleka vs. the Forces of the Universe: While hiding in a closet, Juleka hears and records Chat Noir harassing Ladybug, with her angrily reminding him that every time they've kissed was under duress (such as when he was mind-controlled by Dark Cupid or they had their memories erased by Oblivio), as well as her repeating that she's in love with somebody else, not with him. Juleka then submits a Trojan Horse fanvid to Side-by-Side's call for "Best Ladybug and Chat Noir Moments" so that the public can hear said argument for themselves and get a taste for what the heroes' dynamic is really like.
• Happens twice during The Karma of Lies:
  • Hawkmoth's downfall is solidified when news cameras catch him detransforming, revealing his Secret Identity to the world.
  • During the Final Battle with Mayura, Adrien offers a hand up to Nathalie, only for her to steal the Black Cat Ring and use it alongside the Peacock Pin to transform again into a more powerful form. As with Hawkmoth's last fight, this is caught on camera, and completely ruins Adrien's reputation, as it looks as though he willingly handed his Ring over.
• Miraculous Ladybug Salt-Shots: In Masked Hearts, Chat Noir is so eager to cash in Ladybug's promise of a mutual identity reveal after they defeat Hawkmoth that he immediately detransforms after the Final Battle. Right in front of the crowd that'd gathered to witness them taking the supervillain down. Not only do the cameras capture his detransformation, they catch how he immediately asks Ladybug out, ignoring how Adrien had been publicly dating Kagami for the past two years.
• No One Sees Me, But Please Know I'm Right Here: Before being Driven to Suicide, Marinette was secretly gathering evidence of all the harassment and bullying she was dealing with. This included recording several of the threats Lila made when they were alone together, as well as taking pictures of the worst bruises and other injuries Alya and the other bullies inflicted upon her, writing down who was responsible for each one.
• Rate this (Trust is Hard to Come By):
  • When the akuma Gardener unleashes a power that reveals how much Ladybug trusts every individual in Paris, Alya decides to livestream the moment when she and her friends are hit, expecting that they'll rate highly. As a result, everyone watching the Ladyblog gets to see just how low their scores are.
  • Marinette reveals that she's been secretly recording videos of how things have been going in class recently, causing Miss Bustier to turn pale upon realizing that means she has evidence of how the teacher's been letting several of her students brazenly bully Marinette.
• Recommencer: When Mark gets akumatized into Musicifer, a witness records it on their camera phone. This captures the fact that Mark offered his guitar pick to the akumatizing butterfly, proving that he wanted to be akumatized so he could attack Jay and their friends.
• Teenage Rebellion: Adrien has plenty of proof of Gabriel's Control Freak ways, be it videos or audio recordings. And he won't hesitate to post them either.
• Trusting Each Other: Chloé secretly records Lila's failed attempt at manipulating her into challenging Marinette's position for class representative, then shares the recording with her classmates.
• What Goes Around Comes Around:
  • As part of his record-keeping for his partner in crime Emilie, Gabriel recorded several of his discussions of Hawkmoth-related business with Nathalie. When investigators discover this, it provides plenty of evidence of their dirty dealings, along with evidence that he was working with both Chloé and Lila.
  • Chloé and Lila have further issues with this when Catastrophe sends them an Akuma butterfly while they're in holding cells. The two scramble and fight each other trying to reach it, with the whole chase caught on the station's security cameras.
• The Wolves in the Woods:
  • The New Transfer Students Ben, Amaia, and Andres record their time at Francoise Dupont, capturing how Ms. Bustier lets bullies go unchallenged while pressuring their victims to give in to their demands. This naturally comes into play when Bustier finds herself going on trial for encouraging her class to harass Marinette after she transferred to another school.
  • Alya gets another dose of this when she tries to recruit her classmates into a Malicious Slander campaign against Marinette's new friends. Among those who witness and record this is Alya's older sister Nora, who presents the footage to Alya's parents.
• Yeah, I'm Done: Marinette bides her time for two years after Lila manipulates her classmates into Easily Condemning her, with several of them starting to bully her as "revenge" for her supposed crimes while Miss Bustier blithely turns a blind eye. Bustier also bans her from participating in any of their class activities or trips, despite how Marinette organizes several of them before stepping down as Class President. After Lila's true nature is finally exposed and Bustier cheerfully declares that she's more than welcome to join them on their next outing, Marinette turns down the invitation and reveals she's been stealthily recording everything that happened in their class over the last two years. Cue Bustier turning pale and the bullies starting to squirm at the notion of being called to account for their mistreatment of her.
• You Got Whacha Want: Chloé and Lila both got screwed over by this in the new reality created by their shared Wish, long before they remembered making said Wish in the first place:
  • When Chloé pulled the fire alarm to interrupt the baking class Marinette’s father and grandfather were giving during Parents' Day, she was caught by one of the school's security cameras. Upon finding about this, Chloé is aghast when she learns about this incident, as Françoise Dupont didn't have those cameras before reality was rewritten.
  • Lila claimed to be secretly dating a Teen Idol. When it turned out he was actually in a relationship with another girl who happened to attend her school, Lila's followers saw his real girlfriend as an Attempted Homewrecker and harassed her. Lila went out of her way to mock the poor girl but somebody witnessed this harassment, filmed it on their cell phone, and posted it online, with the clip swiftly going viral.

My Hero Academia

• Always:
  • In Chapter 2, Kirishima tries to discourage Izuku from helping against a High-End Nomu, believing he's a "liability" after losing One For All. In the process, he accidentally breaks Izuku's arm, to both Izuku and Monoma's outrage. And the confrontation was caught by the media, who start questioning whether Kirishima meant to sabotage his fellow Pro Hero. All this causes considerable damage to his reputatation, and his license gets suspended.
  • When Tenya is giving Mina a hard time for helping a girl reunite with her parents in a way he deems 'unprofessional' (since she'd taken the time to cheer the kid up), Katsuki calls him out on being an uncompromising Jerkass... and reveals he's been recording the whole conversation on his cellphone. He then threatens to send the footage to Tenya's family "so they can see exactly the kind of person you are."
• The Best Case Scenario, if you're being "realistic":
  • After Katsuki completely falls from grace, a Trashy True Crime documentary is made exposing Aldera's corruption and how they enabled his Bully Brutality. The director found ample evidence of his history of bullying online, including raw footage of several of his blow-ups.
  • Also gets referenced during "Peace of Mind"; Death Arms is a Nominal Hero who was willing to let Katsuki get suffocated to death by the Slime Villain because his Quirk wasn't perfectly suited to taking the villain down. After Mt. Lady saves the day instead, she privately notes that the only thing keeping him from lecturing her about rushing in is all the cameras around; he doesn't want the public to find out just how little he values their lives.
• Bone of My Sword:
  • After the first phase of the Sports Festival concludes, Tenya complains about the Secret Test of Character incorporated into the race, declaring that if he and his classmates had only known they'd get points for 'rescuing' the people scattered around the course, then of course they would have done so—! Following a Stunned Silence from the whole stadium, Midnight coldly asks him if that means he only helps others if there's something to gain from it, before replaying footage of him looking at one of the bloodied actors as she reached out to him for help before turning and running off.
  • Later, in "Repercussions", Principal Nezu reveals that the school's live broadcast of the unfolding event also caught Monoma cruelly mocking the students who weren't failing the test, as well as his laughter and delight at Kirshima and Jiro getting caught under a partially collapsed wall. Suffice to say, the public was utterly disgusted by his Lack of Empathy.
• In Dekugate, Nitta Mari casually stalks Izuku and his friends, filming them without permission while they're trying to enjoy themselves on the beach and sneering at him about how he can't do anything to stop her. When Toshinori confronts her, he reveals that he's fully aware of her online activities slandering his family, giving her a massive "The Reason You Suck" Speech which is all caught on camera — and since Nitta's initial reaction is delight that he read her blog, this doubles as an Accidental Public Confession.
• Disciplinary Action sees this screwing Katsuki over in several ways:
  • First, the footage of his first battle trial with Izuku caught his declaration that "I'll mess you up just enough not to be disqualified!" This causes Principal Nedzu to realize he was activelly plotting to injure his opponent as much as he believed he could safely get away with.
  • While Aldera kept Katsuki's records squeaky clean by pinning all the blame for "disrupting class" on Izuku instead, they failed to take social media into account, and several students posted footage of his Bully Brutality online as part of their efforts to further humiliate Izuku. This enables Nedzu to gather ample evidence of his casual cruelty; he also takes care to download all the videos and metadata so that any efforts Aldera makes to cover their tracks just damn them further.
• Linger: With five thousand children vanishing all at once, several of the disappearances were caught on camera. Tsuyu, for instance, was right next to Habuko in a shop, while Mei was in a workshop when she was digitally abducted. Izuku was on a web video chat, and was seen panicking right before he vanished.
• Look Over Your Shoulder: Thanks to the police refusing to do anything about his stalking and harassment of his ex-classmates, Mineta decides to brazenly assault Momo while she's busy apprehending a criminal. His Copping a Feel is caught on camera, with the footage swiftly going viral... and forcing the police to finally grant Momo a restraining order due to the public outcry.
• The Multiverse's veins of Silver: In At the end of a rope, Principal Nedzu gives a Then Let Me Be Evil speech to his remaining students where he sics the school's security robots on the crowd. Footage of this is leaked to the public, triggering a massive backlash against him and U.A. that ultimately costs Nezu his job.
• The Scorpion Jar: Katsuki seals his own fate when he confronts Izuku, forcing him halfway out a window while declaring that he'll "throw you off the roof myself" if he doesn't bow to his whims. Izuku was banking on this, secretly recording the entire encounter with a hidden device.
• Solidarity Among Students, Class 1-A Edition: Izuku has some "leverage" over Katsuki; an author's note gives a Suspiciously Specific Denial that implies he has a recording of the "swan dive incident".
• Supporting a Hero: After losing his match with Izuku at the Sports Festival, Katsuki lunges at him while his back is turned and attempts to use his Quirk at point-blank range, intending to blow his head up. Not only is this witnessed by everyone in the stadium, but by those watching the Festival around the globe; as a result, he's expelled and blacklisted from heroics. The only school willing to take him in, Deika University, is a front for the Meta Liberation Army. Katsuki shows absolutely no remorse and insists Izuku is entirely at fault.
• What Practical?: Aizawa and Principal Nezu review footage of Katsuki attacking Izuku during a training exercise, observing that the only time they've actually seen him smiling on U.A.'s campus was while he attempted to use lethal force on his fellow student. Nezu also casually reveals to Aizawa that he has footage of Mineta crawling under a cafeteria table in an attempt to look up Yaoyorozu's skirt, giving him everything he needs to instantly expel him.
• Whispered Tribulation: Despite Izuku only being in Gen-Ed, Katsuki still hates that he got into U.A. at all and confronts him with the intent of administering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to his favorite victim. Unfortunately for him, the room he confronts Izuku in has a security camera; not only is he stopped by help arriving in time, Principal Nedzu promptly expels him.
• With Confidence:
  • Many of Izuku's classmates have posted footage of him being bullied on their social media accounts. They instantly regret this when he points out how that can be used as evidence against them and their teachers.
  • Izuku records Bakugou issuing a Suicide Dare, then warns him that if he keeps picking on him, that recording will be going straight to U.A.

Naruto

• Kitsune no Ken: Fist of the Fox: While interviewing one of Akatsuki's suspecting financial backers, Minato, Itachi and Yugito record the conversation with a hidden tape recorder. The suspect smoothly denies any involvement with Akatsuki before lawyering up; however, the tape still comes in handy when Yugito shares it with the Akatsuki's leader, Yahiko, proving that Kira was always intending to deny his involvement. This convinces Yahiko to serve as a state witness against him.

Worm

• Security: Mike is carrying an audio recorder when he confronts the Trio as they're dumping juice and soda onto Taylor, which catches Sophia threatening to accuse him of being a molester. Later, when Shadow Striker breaks into his apartment that evening, he turns it on again and records the whole encounter.
• Weaver and Jinx: Maribel uploads a YouTube video explaining and showing the physical and mental abuse she and Taylor were subjected to by Sophia, Emma, and Madison. The ensuing scandal results in Sophia and Emma being expelled and Principal Blackwell and Director Piggot being fired.
• In Wyvern, Taylor brings an audio recorder and a decoy with her to Winslow to gather evidence of how the Trio are bullying her. When the recorder gets stolen, it leads to Taylor discovering that Sophia is Shadow Stalker.

Young Justice

• What's Worse than a Villain?: Mirror Master uses his powers to record Wally examining his bruises in the high school locker room, letting slip that his father was responsible. He then sends the recording to the Justice League to ensure Rudy West gets arrested.

• In Coco, the family is able to record Ernesto on a TV camera attacking Hector and admitting to murdering him and broadcasts it and his attempted murder of Miguel to the entire audience.
• Hey Arnold! The Movie: Scheck tried to demolish several homes and businesses to erect a shopping center and avenge one of his ancestors, who was a commanding Redcoat in the Revolutionary War. He gloated to Arnold and Gerald and burned the document that established the area as a historical site, thus making it illegal to demolish it. While it was important for Scheck to have surveillance cameras all over his building to prevent intruders from stealing the document, it proves to be a big mistake because his crime of burning it was recorded by his own surveillance cameras, at which point Arnold managed to obtain a videotape showing the document fully before it was burned, then he, Gerald and Helga (who secretly assisted the boys the whole time under the guise of "Deep Voice") show it to the infuriated townspeople, resulting in Scheck's eventual arrest.
• In The Incredibles 1, Dash's teacher suspects that he'd been pulling pranks during class, so he has a camera running to show the principal. But Dash moves so fast that it barely registers on the tape, and it just makes the teacher seem crazy.
• In Monsters, Inc. 1, Sullivan lures Mr. Waternoose into the simulation chamber, where he unwittingly confesses to planning to kidnap human children for their screams. Mike then reviews the incriminating footage for the CDA agents in the control room.
  Mike: You know what? Let's play my favorite part again, shall we?
• In Onward, Barley denies to Officer Colt having anything to do with protesting the destruction of an ancient fountain and is immediately presented with a video of himself tying himself to the fountain to try to prevent it from being destroyed.
• Zootopia (2016):
  • This is how Judy blackmails Nick into working with her. Using a pen with a built-in voice recorder, she records his boast about all the money his schemes have made, then threatens to bust him for tax evasion (since he hasn't reported it as income) unless he helps her.
  • Later, Judy uses her smartphone to record the conversation between Mayor Lionheart and a doctor about the berserk animals, making him look like the one responsible for their disappearance.
  • After Judy comes back to Nick after quitting the force, she apologizes to him saying "I really am just a dumb bunny." He records this, then plays it back, saying that he'll let her erase it in 48 hours.
  • Finally, Judy uses her pen to record Bellwether's confession, ensuring that the police she called herself now have evidence to arrest her.

• Ajnabee: Raj manages to clear his name by recording Vicky as the later is gloating and explaining his entire plan to kill his wife and have Raj framed.
• Andhadhun: When Simi denies killing Mr. Sinha, Akash points out that she did kill Mrs. D'Sa. When she starts making excuses for it, it is revealed that her confession was recorded.
• The Avengers (1998). Emma Peel is the prime suspect in the destruction of the Prospero Project after the security tape shows her entering and killing people. It was actually her Evil Twin clone who did it.
• In Death Bell, Ji-Won accidentally videos her own murder when she drops her phone while being strangled.
• Exception to the Rule features two old school examples:
  • The villainess uses video footage of the protagonist's affair with her to blackmail him into doing her dirty work. Since this is a 1990s movie, an actual VHS tape is used.
  • Later on the hero turns the tables by recording an incriminating conversation using a Hidden Wire.
• Go (1999): Leaving the rave Adam and Zack accidentally run over Ronna, panic, and drive away when they see Todd with a gun. Zack tries to reassure Adam that, even if Ronna had survived, Todd would have shot her. Adam realizes to his horror that he is still wearing his wire. Fearing they have been recorded, the two return to the scene to remove Ronna's body but discover she is just unconscious.
• Gorky Park (1983): The investigator Renko discovers that his friend the Chief Prosecutor is actually corrupt and working with the man who committed the Gorky Park murders. Renko pretends that he too is open to bribery, but then reveals that he has a tape recorder hidden under a nearby towel. This leads to a Gun Struggle and the Prosecutor's death.
• The plot of Heist (2001) starts when Joe Moore's face is captured on a security camera he wasn't expecting to be there.
• In The Invisible Guest, a bugged ball-point pen is used to record Adrian's confession.
• Jailbait (2014): Anna records Warden Baragan as he's raping her, then plays it for the parole board, exposing him as a rapist. Baragan's arrested as a result.
• Subverted in Judge Dredd. A security cam captures the murder of a crusading newsman by what appears to be Judge Dredd. Instead of the tape proving his guilt, it's pointed out that anyone could obtain a Judge's uniform and appear to be Dredd, so more conclusive evidence is needed - a DNA match.
• Liane, Jungle Goddess: When Jacqueline confesses her love for Thoren to Tibor, it is recorded on the tape Tibor is using to record the Jungle Drums. Later, Thoren plays the recording back through the loudspeakers to scare off the Botos and hears Jacqueline's confession after the drums stop.
• The villains of Machete are completely Too Dumb to Live in regards to this trope. Booth is pretty dumb for crucifying a priest while explaining his villainous plan and not bothering to remove the clearly visible security cameras, but the Senator takes the cake for actually asking that someone videotape him while he's committing murder, and actually requesting that he get a copy of the DVD afterwards.
• Mannequin: How the inside man for The Rival is found out:
  “When I fired this idiot the other day, I decided to replace him with one of those fancy camera surveillance systems. I have Richards and this moron on videotape!”
  • Incidentally, the new security officer for The Rival is referred to as an idiot here.
• Mulholland Falls: Alison's gay friend recorded a lot of her liaisons at the motel on film through a two-way mirror. Both Hoover and the General are after these film reels because of the potential embarrassment they could bring to, respectively, the former's wife and the latter's reputation. It also turns out that Alison had filmed proof of illegal nuclear tests in the desert, which the bad guys killed her for.
• My Favorite Brunette: In the Montague gang's suite, Ronnie and Carlotta record the gang's confessions on a recording machine, including Kismet's confession that he murdered Collins.
• The Omega Code 2 has the "doctored" variant.
• Pingwin features a non-criminal variant. Andrzej is a timid young adult struggling (among other things) to connect to his overworked parents, who resort to accusing him of ingratitude and selfishness instead of taking the time to discuss problems with him. He records his father's repetitive lectures on a tape recorder and, at the climax of the story, plays the tape back at him, letting him know that this approach isn't working and he'd like to talk to the person behind the lectures for a change. They achieve a genuine connection as a result.
• Please Murder Me!: After dictating his message to district attorney Ray Willis, Craig leaves the tape recorder running in his desk drawer. Myra's Engineered Public Confession and subsequent murder of him is recorded on it. Although Myra tries to pass off his death as suicide, Willis finds the tape recorder and—thinking it might contain Craig's suicide note—rewinds it and plays it; ensuring Myra's capture.
• In Ruthless People, there's Carol and Earl's unintentional blackmail of police chief Benton: they think they sent him evidence of Sam Stone killing his wife Barbara. However, because Earl is Too Dumb to Live and he didn't watch while taping it, didn't realize he'd actually taped Benton having sex with a hooker.
• Robot Jox. Before he kills another character, The Mole's confession is videotaped, which eventually leads to his unmasking.
• Shandra: The Jungle Girl: Armstrong is recording his observations on tape when he is attacked by Shandra. He drops the still-running Dictaphone with the result that his near-fatal encounter with Shandra is recorded.
• The Sixth Sense: The ghost of a young girl named Kyra directs Cole to a videotape she made of herself playing with puppets, and asks him to bring it to her father. The tape reveals that Kyra's mother killed her via Munchausen By Proxy.
• Spies Like Us. Emmett Fitzhume and Austin Millbarge are videotaped while cheating on a State Department advancement test, which leads to them being chosen as expendable decoys.
• The entire plot of Strange Days revolves around a murder caught on tape (specifically a science fiction device that can record everything the wearer sees, hears and feels) with the added problem that the murderers are cops.
• This Is Your Death: When the woman who suicides inside the car turns the engine off and attempts to get out, Adam pushes her back in and starts the engine again so she dies. However, he doesn't realize that the cameras inside the car are still recording and capture the murder. Sylvia copies the footage and then deletes it. At the end of the movie, she hands the recording over to the FBI.

• The 13-Storey Treehouse: While Terry is away, Mermaidia reveals her true form and sings a poem revealing her evil plan. Andy is secretly watching her and records the whole thing and shows it to Terry.
• Adrian Mole: After a nursery visit to a farm, Adrian's son William claims that a goat ate his lunchbox: not only the contents but the lunchbox itself. Adrian complains to the nursery teacher, who contacts the farm, claiming that CCTV footage shows William throwing his lunchbox at the goat.
• A very, very nasty example in False Memory: a woman, who knows someone keeps breaking into her house and raping her in the night, suspects her ex-husband but has no idea how the hell he's doing it, since she locks her house up tight every night, and it's still locked in the morning. She sets up a video camera in a potted plant and discovers that it's her psychiatrist, who's pretty much mind-raped her into granting him complete control over her psyche with a series of code words. Ick.
• House of Robots: In the first book, Sammy brings Hayseed and Brittney 13 along when he confronts Cooper Elliot to get him to confess to kidnapping and dismantling E with the help of his brothers, Johnny and Trevor. He picks those robots because Hayseed has an internal recorder, and Brittney 13 can send out messages to the authorities once Cooper confesses.
• Millennium Series: In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth uses a video recording of her parole officer raping her to blackmail him.
• In No Way to Treat a First Lady by Christopher Buckley, a secret recording of the President and his mistress the night before he died exonerates his wife of murder.
• Other Covenants: In "Ka-Ka-Ka", every Jew in Germany has the app ZiVo on their phones, which automatically records and uploads interactions with the police. For the protagonist Sammy, the threat of a cop being recorded is the only thing that saves his life.
• In Plague Ship, representatives of one of the big trading corporations try to push the Free Traders into giving up a lucrative trade arrangement. They make a not-especially veiled threat of armed attack, mentioning that they're far away from any authorities who might defend the Free Traders. Then J. Van Rycke pulls a small disc out of a belt pouch and comments, "Very interesting. I shall treasure this recording—"
• The plot of The Player of Games is triggered by a pseudo-aversion. Thousands of years into the future, video manipulation is so advanced and commonplace that no one would dream of considering videos as proof of anything, because it is trivially easy to produce pixel-perfect representations of anything you want. The eponymous grandmaster is very surprised when he is blackmailed by an unexpectedly advanced drone and has to learn that there are indeed levels of event-recording that will be accepted as genuine when a sufficiently sophisticated AI vouches for them.
• In Relativity, Sara and Greg have just gotten married when they bump into Sara's old flame, Martin Bling. When Bling finds out Greg is a chef, he mentions that he may want to visit his restaurant one day. Sara mutters under her breath, "Maybe you'll get food poisoning." Ten stories later (and over a year, in-universe), Bling does go to Greg's restaurant... and gets poisoned. His lawyers dig up the security footage of Sara and hire lip-readers to figure out what she said. Oops.
• Secrets Not Meant to be Kept has an example involving the victim rather than the villain. Realizing that no one believes Adri's warnings that her three-year-old sister Becky is being molested at preschool, Adri and her boyfriend devise a plan in which Adri gets Becky to talk about the molestation, secretly tape-recording the conversation.
• Star Wars:
  • In Revenge of the Sith, when the Jedi come to "arrest" him, Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious activates a recording and puts on a dumb show, just enough to make a great performance for playback at the first Empire Day before the Imperial Senate. Then he smiles, winks, and lightsabers the device to the point that it can no longer keep recording, declaring "That's enough of that."
  • In Star Wars Dark Disciple, Asajj Ventress lies to Quinlan Vos, telling him that Count Dooku killed his Jedi Master, Tholme. When Count Dooku captures Vos, after hearing this from Vos, he plays a holorecording showing that it was Ventress who did the deed. It doesn't convince him because Dooku has falsified tapes in the past. Dooku, however, knows that Vos has the skill of psychometry, the ability to experience past events by touching an object, so he makes him touch Tholme's lightsaber.
• Wolf Pack: The plot of the book happens because Bruno, Dr. Monk's cameraman, catches footage of the protagonists changing from wolf form to human form on tape and shows it to Monk.
• In You Don't Own Me, this proves to be the killer's undoing. After Leigh Ann unsuccessfully tries to kill Joe Brenner and they are both surrounded by the police, Leigh Ann tries to play innocent, saying that Brenner confessed to killing Martin Bell, has been blackmailing her (which is true) and kidnapped and tried to kill her. Leo and Laurie both know she's actually the killer, but have no hard evidence... until Brenner reveals he had been recording his and Leigh Ann's conversation, the way he does with all his conversations, including Leigh Ann admitting to having murdered Martin and her intention to kill Brenner too. At this point, Leigh Ann drops the act, knowing there's no way for her to wriggle out of this one.

• In the fifth season of 24, former President David Palmer is assassinated and the wife of current president Charles Logan, Martha Logan, is convinced it has something to do with something he wanted to tell her. She says that they had a phone conversation the night before in which he expressed that he wanted to talk to her in person about a matter of national security. So somebody dredges up a recording in which Palmer says that "it's hardly a matter of national security" but he wants to invite her to a charity dinner. Of course, everyone dismisses her as crazy because she's had mental issues in the past and is on meds, but later it turns out the recording is doctored or fake.
• 9-1-1: In "Fools", two Youtubers livestream themselves committing several crimes when they get their "friend" to attempt a dangerous stunt in a park. Athena calls them fools for livestreaming their confession after one of them smugly claims she can't prove anything.
• 9-1-1: Lone Star: In "A Little Help from My Friends", the team responds to an ice cream store worker getting her arm stuck in an ice cream machine. On seeing a lacrosse group (who manipulated the victim's coworker into giving them free treats under the pretense of being his "friends") unsympathetically mocking the ice cream owners and filming the girl’s terror and pain, Marjan (a social media star called Firefox with five million followers) decides to film the group’s bullying in turn. She then confronts them and lets them know that it’s been uploaded as an Instagram story, much to their shock.
• Accused (2023): Just as it looks like the group is going to jail the Navaho bailiff reveals she recorded the FBI agent bragging about getting that guard to give false testimony on Derrick being armed, allowing the entire case to be thrown out.
• A key component of Americas Dumbest Criminals and a good portion of Maury episodes that don't involve parental/cheater DNA tests.
• Art Detectives: In "Warped", a murder years earlier had been caught by the victim who was recording ambient nature sounds for an album. In the present day, the sound engineer goes looking for old material to pad out a new album and stumbles on the recording of the murder. His discovery then gets him killed.
• In Better Call Saul, Chuck baits Jimmy into confessing to doctoring legal documents. Unbeknownst to Jimmy, he is recording the conversation on tape.
• In Better Off Ted Veronica turns out to have a tape of the time she and Ted had sex, confiscated off a security guard who apparently had dozens of similar tapes. Ted ends up showing the tape to Linda, not because of the sex (which she already knew about), but because it revealed that the e-mail Linda swore she had sent Ted had been accidentally deleted during the act, explaining why Ted never received it.
• The Bill: A Dirty Cop realizes his informant is carrying a Hidden Wire, so says, "Are you threatening me?" Then he drops a knife into the informant's hand and starts to attack him in "self-defense". Which would have worked quite well, if they hadn't caught all this on video too.
• The Boys (2019): The Boys get their first break when they catch Popclaw on tape accidentally killing a man during sex, and use it to blackmail her into acting as their informant. Unfortunately Popclaw was secretly taping her own sex acts, so this subsequent blackmailing was also caught on tape, which is found after her death, revealing the faces of The Boys to the people they're investigating.
• A Babysitting Episode of Clarissa Explains It All has her having to babysit a monster child who always makes her life hell, and managing to get her to behave by recording her bragging about everything she's done and gotten away with.
• Columbo
  • The episode "Etude in Black" has this as what breaks the killer's alibi. The killer was filmed conducting a concert without his signature boutonniere, but later at the crime scene, the news crews present record him leaving with it. Faced with this, the killer's wife refuses to lie for him anymore.
  • Similarly, in "Playback" Columbo notices in security footage that a party invitation on the desk in the room where the victim was killed mysteriously vanishes. Since the man he suspects is the killer presented the invitation at the party, Columbo figures out that he prerecorded an empty room and spliced in the footage to convince the security guard on duty that the murder occurred after he had left.
    Columbo: How did it get to the art gallery? By your own testimony, you took it there. But in order to get it off the desk you practically had to step over the body. That woman was shot before you left the house... and you shot her.
• Death in Paradise: In "In the Footsteps of a Killer", the team reopens an old case where the victim was shot while on the phone, and her murder recorded on an answering machine.
• Eli Stone: One episode featured a baseballer who was charged with murder because a ball he hit had killed a person he hated and the prosecutor claimed the baseballer aimed for the victim. The prosecutor tried to introduce a DVD suggesting the defendant did have the skills to aim but, since the DVD was anonymous, it became inadmissible as evidence for being more prejudicial than reliable. (The prosecutor couldn't prove it wasn't doctored.)
• Family Matters:
  • Season 8's "The Jury" has Carl and Steve serving on the same jury when a janitor at a jewelry store is accused of stealing the store's merchandise. It seems as though with the whole thing caught on camera, they have him dead to rights, but Steve thinks he was framed and the footage was doctored to make it look like he did it. The jury refuses to believe Steve until the very end when he proves that the store's security guard is the real culprit, as he didn't count on anyone taking a closer look at the footage, which shows his reflection in a mirror.
  • Implied near the end of Season 8's "Karate Kids" when the Winslows' obnoxious neighbor, Nick Neidermeyer, feigns an injury and threatens to sue the family for the damages. The family stages a fake kitchen fire to drive him out of the house, with Eddie having captured everything on tape, forcing Neidermeyer to drop the lawsuit, though not before going through a Humiliation Conga.
• Forever (2014): In "Look Before You Leap," when a killer has taken Henry hostage with a knife at his throat, Henry obviously isn't worried about dying. He does, however, look nervously at the security camera which would record his death and his body disappearing.
• On Friends Ross and Rachel argue about which of them initiated the sex that resulted in Rachel getting pregnant. Ross insists that it was Rachel who hit on him, and shouts out that he can prove it because he videotaped the whole thing. This does not make the situation better.
• The Spanish drama Gran Hotel has a scene where the lead character gets his ex-girlfriend to admit to a murder that she'd framed him for... on a phonograph.
• Happy Endings has an early episode, with Dave newly moved into Max's apartment, with food going missing. After learning from Alex that Dave sleepwalks, Max borrows Jane's nanny-cam (that she uses to keep an eye on Brad, but that Brad uses to his own advantage) to catch in the act. Turns out, there's an artist squatting upstairs in their crawl space who's been stealing the food.
• Herman's Head: Herman helps a loony executive break into an office, but worries on hearing that the security cameras have caught it on tape. The executive isn't worried, producing a tangle of magnetic tape from his drawer and telling Herman that the night security guard just got promoted to Head of Security.
• iCarly:
  • The b-plot of "iTwins" has Carly become a tutor to the Enfant Terrible Chuck Chambers but doesn't believe Spencer's claims he's mean. Later on in the middle of the episode, Spencer remembers he borrowed Socko's laptop which happened to record Chuck torturing him two minutes before Carly came downstairs, and Spencer shows her that footage which causes Carly to realize Spencer was right.
  • "iEnrage Gibby" combines this with a Chekhov's Gun, when Gibby is furious at seeing what he thinks is Freddie stealing Tasha from him resulting in a double betrayal, and challenges him to a fight, when in reality, Tasha tripped and plowed Freddie to the ground. That moment happened to be recorded by a surveillance camera Freddie set up for a food rotting segment on iCarly, and when Carly casually mentions such before the fight begins, this gives Freddie a "Eureka!" Moment and uses the rotting sandwich cam's footage to prove Gibby his innocence and show him what really happened.
• In Justice (2006): In "Cost of Freedom" a corrupt ATF agent is caught admitting to helping an informant frame another man when the informant's wearing a wire, after making a deal with Internal Affairs.
• JAG: Admiral Chegwidden is caught on tape hitting a high school student in the episode "Code of Conduct".
• On Joe Schmo 2, the second season of The Joe Schmo Show, this is one of the things that leads Ingrid Wiese (the show's first "Jane Schmo" character) to realize that something is very much off about what's going on and possibly the final nail in the coffin. Cammy leads her into the bathroom to tell her an embarrassing story about having been in a food fetish video called Porked 'n Beans, saying that she's worried the producers are going to find out about it and use it against her. As she's telling the story, the cameraman has to step outside because the batteries on his camera have gone out. Any normal person would keep telling the story and probably be grateful for not having the cameras there. Cammy, however, or rather her actress, Jana Speaker, stops telling the story, deliberately waiting until the cameraman returns to resume it, as if she actually wants everything she says to be on camera. (Which she does, as this whole scenario is going to be an important plot point going forward with the series.)
• Judge Judy: Numerous cases have been solved with video evidence.
  • One memorable case had a man suing his ex-girlfriend for loan payments and ownership of a car where the girlfriend said it was a gift. The man had almost no evidence and the girlfriend made a convincing case that the car was a gift, but the plaintiff had saved a video of the two of them talking about the deal and how the deal was signed. Judge Judy praised him, saying that if it wasn't for the video evidence, he would have lost the case and she would have ruled in the defendant's favor.
  • Subverted in one case which had a woman who claimed that her ex-boyfriend was drunk and pushed her down while on a trip to Vegas. She gave a very emotional testimony along with video evidence, however her ex-boyfriend also had video evidence of the night in question, which had her bothering him about a simple question (and showing that she was very drunk, as she testified that she only had half a glass of wine) and admitting that she hit him first and was going to record her own video to make it seem as if she was in the right. After seeing the video from the ex, Judge Judy dismissed the plaintiff's case.
  • A subletter was suing her tenant for damage to a wall and the last month's rent. The defendant caught the plaintiff on video kicking in her door and assaulting her by pushing her against that wall. The defendant easily won her countersuit.
  • Lampshaded in a case from 2000 in which a plaintiff and her sister trapped a defendant in the back seat of a two-door car to get her to confess on video to keying it, and presented the video as their evidence. Judge Judy threw it out as illegal evidence, explaining that the plaintiffs had effectively kidnapped the defendant, making her willing to provide a False Confession to anything just to get her freedom of movement back. Without any legal evidence implicating the defendant, the case was dismissed.
• The Leverage team love this way to take down marks. Notable is a few times, the marks almost know they're on camera, they just don't know how bad it'll look.
  • In "The Homecoming Job," a corrupt Congressman and his CEO partner are tricked into summoning reporters to find the truck packed with millions of dollars in cash they've been stealing from military contracts. The pair try to play off that they've uncovered this scam themselves...at which point, all the reporters' cell phones go off to play video of an argument the pair had exposing their greed so they both go down.
  • In the Leverage: Redemption episode "The Tower Job," just as it looks like Krista is about to get away with it, the team sends a video to her rich friends showing Krista practically bragging about knowingly building shoddy buildings so she could pocket more money for herself. Even if she avoids jail time for it, that friend makes it clear that once word gets around, Krista "will never sell so much as a timeshare again."
• Mathnet: The Karamasov brothers frame George for armed robbery by one of them wearing a George mask and robbing a bank. He stops to make sure the security camera has a clear view of him, even posing straight on and in profile like those pictures they take when the cops book someone.
• One episode of The Mentalist featured a suspected murderer that got off because the tape proving that he lied about his alibi hasn't been introduced on time to become admissible as evidence. It was later revealed he was really innocent and the real murderer had doctored the tape.
• Midsomer Murders: In "The Ballad of Midsomer County", the killings all centre around a murder accidentally recorded on a master tape 20 years earlier, with the master tape then being hidden.
• Monarch of the Glen: When Archie has his final break-up with Justine, this is witnessed in real time (complete with sound) by his whole family through the cameras around the estate; and by Katrina, with the children in her nursery. The mood is sombre among those watching. As a Brick Joke, Katrina switches off the camera, causing the children around her to utter a disappointed "Oh!". Hector does likewise, and Lexie says "Oh!" disappointedly.
• Murder, She Wrote: The murderer in "The Return of Preston Giles" accidentally records their confession on tape.
• In NCIS episode "Dead Reflection", a suspect is framed by the perpetrator being seen on a security camera while wearing a mask. the victim was killed because she recognized the voice wasn't right.
• The Pact: In Episode 5, Max records Anna and her friends talking about getting their stories straight with a hidden phone and then confronts her over this.
• On the fourth season of Profiler, slimy FBI boss Marks tries to get Rachel thrown off the team by planting a wire falsely implicating her in an affair with a student. Rachel confronts him in a men's room with Marks smugly saying he has the advantage.
  Marks: So yeah, I planted the wire. Because when you have someone by the short hairs, you pull.
  Rachel: Like this?
  (lifts her jacket collar to reveal her own wire and saunters out as Marks just stands there in shock.)
• Sanford & Son: The 1976 episode "The Stakeout" has Fred (who had been smitten with a new resident of the Sanford Arms named Ms. Jenkins only to learn that "Ms. Jenkins" was a male thief named Charles Hacker) attempt to get a confession out of Hacker by sneaking a tape recorder under his sweater. He succeeds in doing so, but reality kicks in when the officer in charge of the stakeout notes that the recording was inadmissible evidence and could potentially blow the case. Eventually; Hacker ends up captured after Fred's friend Bubba - like Hacker wearing a dress - managed to follow Hacker (posing again as "Ms. Jenkins") into the ladies' room, heard him blabbing and reported it; managing to get the $1000 reward in the process.
• Search: A camcorder records the entire 1997 incident, including Min-guk's murder. The survivors assumed the camera either wasn't working or would never be found. Twenty years later Dong-jin finds it and watches the video. Then Jun-seong destroys it to protect his father, the murderer.
• In the series finale of Seinfeld the Main Characters are arrested because they watched an armed robbery take place and didn't call the police or do anything else to help. In court, footage that one of them shot themselves is used as evidence against them, showing them watching the robbery and, not only doing nothing to help but actually mocking the victim as the robbery's going on.
• Sherlock & Daughter: In "The Last Dance" Whitlock gets confronted by Swann with a recording of his incriminating conversation with Lady Violet on the phone discussing how he'd helped her with several crimes, including concealing a murder.
• Subverted on The Shield when Vic realizes a supposed ally is wearing a wire. He decides to use it to claim his supposed corrupt reputation is all an act to make crooks think he's a renegade cop so they'll give up information. Since they think Vic didn't know he was being recorded, Internal Affairs buys Vic's "confession."
• Sight Unseen (2024): Tess and Matt record as the man who had framed Sunny and murdered her boyfriend makes several statements showing he did this, showing she's innocent.
• Silk Stalkings: In "S.O.B.", a charter boat skipper has a hidden camera concealed behind a two-way mirror in the master stateroom which he uses to record his rich clients having sex with a prostitute so he can blackmail them. It also records Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense trust-fund kid assaulting, and apparently killing, the Victim of the Week, and sends the tape to the police take the heat off himself. He had riled the rich kid up and sent him there hoping he would kill the victim, but he was only knocked out. The skipper finished him off and dumped him overboard.
• Sister Boniface Mysteries: In "Dead Air", the killer sabotaging the disc jockey's microphone to deliver a High-Voltage Death is broadcast live and recorded by Norman Whalley, who has been recording all of the Radio Catherine broadcasts. Sister Boniface plays the tape over and over again, trying to identify the strange clicking noise the killer made. It turns out to be Nigel Greybone's hearing aid.
• Sky Med: In "Aftermath" Hayley goads Vos into hitting her, unaware it's recorded with a hidden video camera so he won't be given custody of Finn again.
• Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Court Martial". Captain Kirk is brought up on charges of causing the death of a crewman. The main evidence against him is the Enterprise computer log. It's later determined that the log was altered to frame Kirk for the crewman's death.
• Stumptown (2019):
  • Randall Tapper is secretly recorded admitting he trafficked drugs in "Family Ties".
  • "The Past and the Furious" has Dex investigating adoption fraud. She gets the woman behind it recorded using her cell phone confessing to this.
• Whodunnit? (UK): In "The Q43 Experiment", the murder of the Victim of the Week is caught on the tape recorder the victim was using to rerecord his lab notes. The killer, in fact, is planning on this and uses the tape to plant a Red Herring.
• Wild Cards (2024):
• The Wire being a show named after phone surveillance, naturally this comes up, but rarely straightforward:
  • The Unit gets some good intel about the Barksdale organization from hearing D'Angelo have phone sex with his girlfriend, but they can't mark it as pertinent evidence as they löistened to too long to a non-pertinent call.
  • Sergei's Blasé Boast to White Mike "Does he have hands? Does he have face? Yes? It wasn't us" is played back to him in the interrogation room, one of the more straightforward examples of this trope in the show.
  • The team tries to set up so that Proposition Joe's incompetent nephew Drac would get promoted so they'd hear more of his signature subtlety on the wire.
    "No, that other thing... cocaine, nigga!"
  • The team is surprised to hear the usually very disciplined Cheese mourn having to "shoot Dawg" on the phone, only to find out he was talking about his actual dog, and at best they can charge him with improper disposal of a dead animal.
• The whole reason that World's Dumbest... exists is that idiotic and criminal behavior is frequently caught by dashcams, security cameras, webcams, and pretty much every other kind of recording device in existence.

• This is just one of the many, many ways the guy in Shaggy's song "It Wasn't Me" is caught out by his girlfriend with the girl next door.
  Saw me banging on the sofa (Wasn't me) / I even had her in the shower (Wasn't me) / She even caught me on camera (Wasn't me)

• Among Us: The Skeld and Polus maps include security cameras that Crewmates can use to try and spot the Impostor, who can also disable them by sabotaging the communication systems.
• In Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn, a camera in a studio filming Nod propaganda catches Kane in the middle of discussing copying and distributing his faked news reports. He then notices.
  Kane: Is that camera still running?! (gunshot)
• In Full Throttle, Ben has to expose Ripburger by placing the photos Miranda took of the murder of Malcolm Corley and the audio tape of Corley's will on the projector.
• Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective: In Chapter 5, Lynne is shown to have shot Sissel on a security camera. Chapter 17 reveals that Yomiel intentionally framed Lynne with his manipulation powers.
• In Heavy Rain, if Ethan is captured by the police, Jayden decides to help him escape. If the camera recording Ethan's interrogation room isn't turned off, Carter will call out Jayden for this and threatens that he will be suspended from duty.
• In Yakuza 2, the incident at the Amano Building with Date and Kawara in a standoff against Kazuki's impostor is caught on tape and used to implicate Date for murder, because it shows Date shooting the victim... and that's all. The angle of the footage shows only the two of them despite there being four other people at the scene (Kiryu, Sayama, Kawara, and Kazuki), and more importantly doesn't show that Date didn't shoot first.

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
  • In Justice for All Case 2-4, you learn that Matt Engarde put a spying camera into the room that turned into the crime scene, specifically to record the murder happening. Later on, a videotape becomes evidence - whether the contents on the tape is the murder or something else is never revealed, as the video is never watched.
  • The case specifically created for the DS "Rise from the Ashes" deals with a murder in the evidence room at one point. Said room had a security camera recording everything, but nothing conclusive was seen because a moving thing was in the camera view all the time. Turns out that the actual murder, while having took place in that room, happened before the incident caught on the security camera — which was merely a fight that resulted in two people being injured.
• Jonathan Ingram in Policenauts exposes Gates' true colors after exposing his motive rant on what he, Toscanini, and Tokugawa have been doing on Beyond by using a small camera on his ear.

• In Dominic Deegan, Nielen tried to break up Dominic and Luna by bottling words they said at some point and using his elemental powers to rearrange a few things. It doesn't fool either of them.
• In Homestuck, there is a scene where One of the many Araidabot's Soulbot Video Logs shows the battle against the Black King. This technically counts as caught on tape as proof for Andrew Hussie to prevent the readers from bugging him about what happened during the battle.

• Quick, a ferret-like being uses Terra's digital camera to capture evidence of conspirators against the Kingdom of Halen in Engines of Creation.
• In Noob, Master Zen should really know better than to admit being behind the events of the Wham Episode while playing an MMORPG, in front of the other player he framed for the whole thing, especially if said other player has a habit of filming in-game events.
• Revenge Films:
  • "My wife started kissing her guy friend at our wedding...": When Karen came over to Brad's house with her parents to chew him out for calling off the wedding after seeing her frenching one of her guy friends at the after party, his friend Jack (the OP's brother) showed them the recording of the affair, causing Karen's parents to turn on her for it.
  • "My wife had a miscarriage... Her parents were mad, but the truth always hurts...": When Jack's in-laws visited to chew him out for supposedly cheating on her, he disproved them by explaining what really happened. However, when the MIL begged Jack to forgive his wife for it, he played a video recording of the affair to shut the in-laws up.
  • "My sister slept with my husband and so I invited our parents to teach her a lesson": When the FMC called both her parents and in-laws in response to her husband's affair with Mary, her younger sister, the lovebirds tried to come at them with the same excuse they used on the FMC (playing a game). Much to their dismay, she quickly disproves them by playing a recording of the CCTV footage of their affair, from a security camera set up by the cheating husband himself.
• SparkTales: In "Ex-BFF Stole My Hubby: Wedding Turns Chaotic," when Rebecca rakes Lisa over the coals on the former's wedding day for allegedly cheating on the groom, Jeffrey, and being overbearing and overspending, she proceeds to expose their lies by playing a recording she took of the lovebirds one year ago when they forced her to divorce Jeffrey while bragging about their affair.
• Stampy's Lovely World: Part of Stampy's evidence in favour of ruling Fizzy guilty of his crimes in his trial during Episode 653, "Trial", is that the entire thing was caught on Lovely World episode footage two episodes previously. The episode then proceeds to do a Flashback Cut to show the footage.

• American Dad!:
  • In "Four Little Words", a traffic camera records Roger running someone over and leaving them to die. However, he's wearing a paper thin Kevin Bacon disguise at the time, so it's the Hollywood actor who gets arrested. Even Bacon himself, who was thousands of miles away when the hit-and-run happened, believes he must have committed the crime and repressed the memory, because "it's clearly me on the tape!"
  • In "Bully for Steve", Principal Lewis showed the Smiths a tape of Stan bullying Steve caught on the security cameras. It also caught Principal Lewis downing a twelve-pack of beer and urinating on the basketball court, and a janitor turning into a werewolf and attacking a student.
• Back at the Barnyard: In "The Big Barnyard Broadcast", Mrs. Beady videotapes the animals walking and talking and plans to air her footage on The Geraldo Factor as proof to the world. Otis and his friends pirate the signal to broadcast their own shows and stall Mrs. Beady while they try to steal the tape from her.
• Big City Greens:
  • In "Green Streets", a litterbug has gone loose in Big City and Cricket partners up with Keys to find the thief. Through Tilly's thoughts, Cricket remembers there are survelience cameras all over the city that may have caught footage of the litterbug, so Cricket accesses them through a laptop in Keys' car. It was revealed through the footage that Cricket himself is the litterbug, having carelessly tossed trash all over the place without even realizing it or not picking it up somewhat, and because Cricket taught Keys how to get tough, now he has to endure serious jailtime with him.
  • In "Green Trial", Nancy's strawberry cake has been mooched and everyone thinks Cricket did it when he lied about his arm to get out of chore duty, but Cricket repeatedly insists he didn't despite all evidence pointing to him. Tilly was able to prove Cricket was right when she finds his tablet recording a 32-minute long rehearsal video for a call with this then girlfriend Gabriella, and Nancy sees from part of the footage the cake getting taken from the window behind Cricket — she recognizes the thief's arms and it was revealed the true culprit was her father Nick.
• In "Movie Night" from Butterbean's Cafe, Butterbean and her crew decide to host a movie night at Butterbean's Cafe. Ms. Marmalady hatches a plan to ruin it and force everyone to come to her place for movie night. She goes around to the crew of the cafe one by one, each suggesting a different type of movie that's supposedly popular in Puddlebrook in order to get them arguing about it so they can't decide on what movie to show. Unfortunately for her, Cricket is onto her and films her interactions with everyone, then plays them back after the arguments begin to reveal that they're only fighting because Ms. Marmalady stoked them to.
• Captain Flamingo: In "When Good Birds Go Bad", Milo gets accused of being a troublemaker after digging and wrecking up the neighbor's yard. When Owen now lets Milo inside, he showed off the evidence of the crime on tape. It shows Milo helping Ruth Ann to retrieve her cat Gladys back and once he climbs over the fence to retrieve her, part of his cape tears off, proving that he didn't dug up the neighbor's yard and wrecking it, it was actually crossing guard's dog that did it. However, by the end, he did indeed admit that he actually did it rather than the crossing guard's dog, which led to him fixing up the yard as a punishment.
• The Dinosaucers tried it with the Tyrannos once, but it failed because they put Bonehead in charge of taping the confession. Instead of doing so, he covered the villain with adhesive tape.
• DuckTales (1987) had an episode where Flintheart Glomgold framed Scrooge with art theft by showing a tape of 'Scrooge' stealing the painting. It worked at first but Huey, Dewey, and Louie eventually found out the tape caught a reflection of 'Scrooge' taking off his disguise, revealing himself as Flintheart Glomgold.
• The Fairly OddParents! episode "Inspection Detection" had Timmy being accused of shoplifting at a local department store while he is prepping for Fairy Inspection Day and he cannot explain where he got the stuff he wished for at the risk of losing Cosmo and Wanda since some of them were, by sheer coincidence, items shoplifted from the store. When his parents and the police are too dumb to believe him when he tries to tell them that the school bully, Francis, is the real culprit, having found a shoplifted walkie-talkie in his pants, Timmy is forced to go on the run in order to catch Francis red-handed and clear his name. Near the end of the episode, Timmy is able to prove it when Cosmo shapeshifts into a security camera and catches Francis stealing a tub of lard. He then plays the tape by pulling out a TV screen, a VCR and a power generator from Francis's pants.
• An Overly Long Gag in Futurama's Trust-Building Blunder episode, in which it seems that half the office has simultaneously decided to get hidden camera evidence against the other half (on floppy disks, no less).
• The House of Mouse short "Big House Mickey" had Mortimer try to get Mickey in jail to go on a date with Minnie. He did so by having Mickey arrested for stealing a baseball from his house and shows the court a tape of "Mickey" breaking into Mortimer's house to steal the ball. The court fell for it, but Mickey got released when the police found the words "Property of Mickey Mouse" on the ball.
• Johnny Bravo: An episode has the main character being sent to prison for littering, but Little Suzie and Mama Bravo were able to clear his name when the video taken from a security camera across the street showed that Johnny did throw the candy wrapper inside the trash can and that the wrapper on the ground was actually thrown by some random passer-by. However, Johnny, who was accidentally sent to a women's prison, didn't want to be released.
• The Casagrandes episode "Just Be Coo" has Sergio's friend, Pancho, being accused of pooping on a statue and wanting to hide out at the Casagrandes' apartment to avoid being sent to the pound with all the rest of the pigeons having been captured, but he quickly proves to be too much of a hassle, forcing Sergio to kick him out. When Sancho is captured, Sergio and Lalo, feeling guilty, mount a rescue mission, where they discover that Marcus, the animal wrangler, framed the pigeons, as the poop was really pistachio ice cream. When Marcus captures Lalo and Sergio for learning the truth, the two call Ronnie Anne for help, where Sergio shows everyone the Mercado security footage via her laptop of Marcus splattering the statue with the ice cream. Ronnie Anne threatens to post the video on Jim Sparkletooth's website unless Marcus freed everyone, at which point he breaks down and confesses why he did it: the pigeons never invite him to their parties, and when he's not doing his job, he has a life outside of it. Sergio takes pity on Marcus and lets him join the party after he releases them.
• Fanboy and Chum Chum: In "The Great Bicycle Mystery", Lenny's bicycle Bikey is destroyed during his eight hour shift, and Fanboy and Chum Chum try to find out who did it; however, they keep accusing the other customers who had other things that had nothing to do with the bike. Lenny then remembers the Frosty Mart has security cameras and accesses the footage from the back room; through said footage, the true culprits were revealed to be Fanboy and Chum Chum themselves, who recall they performed a reckless stunt on the roof with Bikey and unknowingly crushed it upon landing. Lenny is outright livid at learning what the titular duo did that the end of the episode shows Lenny riding home on the newly reconstructed Bikey — made out of Fanboy and Chum Chum's bodies as punishment.
• The Mask: Animated Series: Parodied in an episode. When the Mask gets falsely accused of counterfeiting, he takes out a tape recorder and claims to have recorded a confession from the real criminal. But then when he hits the button, polka music plays instead and he goes "Alright, alright, who's the wise guy?!"
• In the Megas XLR episode "Buggin' the System", after Jamie accidentally knocks Kiva out when fending off the metallic creatures, he claims one of them got Kiva. After leaving the archive world, Jamie presses a button in Megas that makes a monitor show the moment of him hitting Kiva, who proceeds to beat him up.
• In The Owl House episode "Yesterday's Lie"; Vee, a basilisk who impersonated Luz in the human realm is caught on a hidden camera set up by a museum curator to expose witches and demons. Luz's mother then threatens to go to the police because he set up the camera (and a bunch of animal traps) on her private property.
• A Paramount Modern Madcap had the quick-change villain Mike the Masquerader identified by an elephant as the robber of a bank. The elephant is put in police protection, while Mike schemes to get rid of him through his disguises. When he's exposed later, the elephant can now not remember him. He's got such a lousy memory he has to keep them all on a tape recorder—which was on "record" when Mike asked him if he remembered he robbed the bank.
• The Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! episode "Jeepers, It's The Creeper." The flame will tell the Creeper.
• The Simpsons did it when Homer was accused of groping a woman. Apparently Groundskeeper Willy, like all Scottish people, secretly videotapes random people in cars, and he uses his tape to prove that Homer was just trying to grab a piece of candy off the woman's butt.
• The Smurfs (1981) episode "Memory Melons" had Selwyn trying to present an "I love you" message to his wife Tallulah using a magical melon that captures whatever a person speaks into it. However, the melon captures Selwyn speaking about needing to get rid of "that old bag of wind" (referring to a literal bag of wind) and Tallulah thinks that he's talking about her.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Accidents Will Happen", Squidward supposedly twists his ankle on the job after having an accident in the storage room and threatens to take legal action against Mr. Krabs unless he did what he said during his healing process. When it seems as though his ruse is about to succeed due to SpongeBob and Patrick having called the OWS (Office Worker Safety) Department for help in investigating the accident, it quickly falls apart when Mr. Krabs remembers the surveillance camera he set up. The footage reveals that Squidward faked his injuries while trying to sleep on the job, and he fell off because he weighed down the shelf but was not hurt somewhat, and he now has to spend the rest of his workday pampering Krabs as the latter did throughout the episode.
  • In "My Father, the Boat", Pearl wants Mr. Krabs to buy her a new boat for her birthday. She claims he promised, although he doesn't remember saying it. Pearl then plays a tape recorder where Krabs makes the promise while begging her to turn her loud rock music down.
• In Todd McFarlane's Spawn, when Sam and Twitch manage to find Chief Banks, who attempted to murder Twitch since he knew too much about the alley murders, he tells them everything that happened. When he tells them that no one is going to believe what they heard, Sam pulls out a cassette that was recording the whole discussion.
• In The X's episode "To Err is Truman", after spending an entire day without misbehaving and pulling pranks in order to go on a trip to a water park, Truman takes the X-Jet for a joyride, but Home Base catches him in the act. Except he forgot that he disabled his cameras while he and Tuesday were busy trying to frame Truman for the toilet bomb prank earlier in the episode after their failed attempts at getting him to misbehave, so he didn't really record anything, and Tuesday is given Truman's original punishment of being sent to mime camp.
• Wheel Squad: Akim and Johnny were once arrested for robbery and a security tape from World Mart had been introduced as evidence against them. It turned out that Enzo, the manager of World Mart, doctored the tape because his boss wasn't satisfied that the extra cameras had yet to diminish the place's theft rate.

• The fall of Richard Nixon gave this trope a big boost, as the tape recordings he had ensured would be made (after the model of Lyndon Johnson) damaged him not only by implicating him in the cover-up of the Watergate break-in and other crimes but destroyed the public image of him as a wholesome believer in American values he had carefully constructed when they displayed him as a profane, angry, bigot.
• Mitt Romney's campaign for the Presidency in 2012 was damaged when audio surfaced in which he claimed that 47% of the populace were would-be parasites who therefore wouldn't vote Republican.
• Averted; in 2008, Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency survived the damage inflicted by the surfacing of audio of him asserting that many middle-class Americans injured by the system instead 'bitterly cling' to guns, religion, racialism, and anti-immigrant sentiments rather than blaming those actually responsible and voting in their own best interests.
• Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign for the Presidency in 2016 was damaged by the revelation of her assertion that half of Donald Trump's core supporters—that is, half of 40% of the Republican Party, that is at most 10% of Americans—had legitimate grievances, but the other half were simply a bigoted and/or extremist 'basket of deplorables', the already insulting remark frequently being distorted into a condemnation of all Trump supporters or of most Americans.
• Averted: In 2016, Donald Trump was elected President one month after an old tape surfaced in which he bragged of adultery attempted with the aid of a shopping trip and claimed that his celebrity allowed him to commit a form of sexual assault with impunity.
• Hillary Adams, daughter of Judge William Adams released a very disturbing video of her father beating her with a belt when she was a teen. It received national attention and Judge Adams will most likely never live it down. He ultimately lost the re-election in 2014.
• In an age when cellphones have built-in cameras and High Def video cameras are very affordable, you can easily get caught on video; doubly so if you're brazen enough to commit your misdeeds in public. Need we mention that the video could even go viral on the net before you even get the chance to confiscate the person's phone/camera?
  • Check the laws in your area first, however—some places require all involved parties to consent to being recorded for it to be legal, at least where there's an expectation of privacy (i.e. not in public). Not, of course, that that stops some people anyway.
  • Many court cases these days involve video evidence. Still, even if they have you dead to rights, it's probably better to plead not guilty unless you get some sort of plea deal, as you can't be sure where things will go. You might even get off if the recording was, in fact, illegal!
• Robert Durst was a millionaire real estate heir who was suspected of murdering several of his associates, and as he was interviewed for a documentary about the subject, he was caught muttering to himself in the toilet while still wearing his lavalier microphone, saying he "killed them all". While this wasn't the critical evidence of his guilt, it did provide confirmation and a tense finale to the documentary series.
• The murder of Tina Ise was caught on tape, but not for the usual reasons. Authorities had bugged her family's home because her father was suspected (and ultimately proven) to be a terrorist.
• Inverted in the case of Juan Catalan, who was able to prove his innocence in court when footage from shooting an episode of the show Curb Your Enthusiasm confirmed his alibi that he was at a baseball game at the time the murder he was accused of was committed.
• In Harris County (Houston), Texas, the internet-famous Judge David Fleischer has made multiple decisions because of this:
  • He ruled no probable cause on a misdemeanor charge of interference with the duties of a public servant on two different occasions. On the first one, the charge was brought simply because the defendant didn't put his legs in the police car quickly enough for the officer's liking. The second one was during an on-the-record hearing involving a domestic disturbance call. The prosecutors claimed that the defendant was simply detained for questioning, but the video showed that the officers did a full takedown and arrest upon him exiting the bathroom. The charge came from him trying to run as soon as he saw them with weapons pointed at him. As it was clearly a full arrest without knowing what happened, the arrest was unlawful, and Judge Fleischer threw out the charge.
  • During a jury trial for driving while intoxicated (DWI), the arresting officer stated on the stand that the defendant told him that he had "several" drinks. His own body-cam footage (and the offense report) showed that the defendant said "one" drink. The footage also showed no slurred speech, no stumbling, and no red droopy eyes as he also indicated in the OR. Judge Fleischer ruled no probable cause for the arrest, ending the trial without needing a jury verdict.