The Central Park Five

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is the story of the five young men who were wrongfully convicted for the 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park. It examines how the legal system's rush to judgment - fueled by a city racially divided and fearful of crime - resulted in false confessions and no reassessment of the charges as conflicting evidence came in. This left a brutal rapist on the streets and robbed five innocent kids of their youth, all of whom served out their full terms. District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, after directing a thorough re-investigation when the actual rapist came forward and confessed, and realizing his office's mistakes, joined with the defense to request that the convictions be vacated, which was instantly granted by Judge Charles Tejada. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE tells the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories, an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.

Footage from the question and answer session for The Central Park Five at the AFI Fest.

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers were arrested and charged for brutally attacking and raping a white female jogger in Central Park. News media swarmed the case, calling it the crime of the century. But the truth about what really happened didn t become clear until after the five had spent years in prison for a crime they didn t commit. With THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, this story of injustice finally gets the telling it deserves. Based on Sara Burns best-selling book and co-directed by her husband David McMahon and father, the beloved doc filmmaker Ken Burns, this incendiary film traces tells the riveting tale of innocent young men scapegoated for a heinous crime, and serves as a mirror for our times.

The story of the men who were wrongfully convicted for the 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park. The film examines how the legal system's rush to judgment resulted in false confessions and no reassessment of the charges as conflicting evidence came in.