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A watched this movie (probably based on a novel) about 20 years ago. I don't remember the details, except the main idea : some very special people were able to guess that a crime would be committed and by whom. With this information it was possible to prevent it. However, sometimes these people were mistaken. A case of such an error was the main topic of the movie.

To tell the truth I never understood how they could ever be right if the police arrested the "future guilty party" before the crime was committed, so it was never committed and the person arrested was perforce innocent.

I remember, however, a small detail. When a "future crime" was guessed, instead of sending the name of the "future criminal" on the monitor of a computer, or printing it on a slip of paper, a sphere of wood was specially carved and the name was printed (or engraved ? or burnt ?) on it. I thought that was a very ineffective way to do it. Precious minutes could be lost, when an electronic mail to the closest police station would be so much faster...

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    "and the person arrested was perforce innocent" - maybe a bit of an aside, but in plenty of contemporary jurisdictions, an attempted crime is just as punishable as a completed one. Just because a would-be perpetrator was prevented from completing what they had planned, does not mean they are innocent. The crucial point is whether the evidence can convincingly show that the accused would have completed their crime, hadn't they been stopped in time. And as far as I understood in this movie, the scifi technology they had gave them the ultimate proof - not a guess, not an extrapolation ...
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Sep 4 at 15:19
  • ... based on observation, mindreading, or anything, but an actual look into the future that would come true if the - essentially - time-travelers did not specifically act to change that future.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Sep 4 at 15:20
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    Duplicate of Scifi movie identification about a guy on the run from a police organisation that can predict crime before it happens.
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Sep 4 at 15:31
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    The wood ball was supposed to be a "proof" of the name that could not be faked or altered later without being detected. One of the ways they thought they were keeping the system honest. And it was pretty for da camera.
    – Radhil
    Commented Sep 4 at 22:07
  • @Radhi I think the "pretty for the camera" was important. I did not read the short story. Is there in the original version also a ball for every crime ? Or only a "red ball" for "spontaneous crimes of passion" ?
    – Alfred
    Commented Sep 5 at 6:50

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Minority Report based on the short story of the same name by P. K. Dick

From the wiki:

In 2054, the federal government plans to nationally implement the Washington, D.C., prototype "Precrime" police program, which has been operating for six years. Three clairvoyant humans ("precogs") receive psychic impressions of an impending homicide, and officers analyze their visions to determine the location and apprehend the perpetrator before the crime can occur. Would-be killers are placed in an electrically induced coma and held in a panopticon-like prison facility. Although Precrime has eliminated nearly all premeditated murders during its six-year existence, spontaneous crimes of passion called "red ball" killings still occur, giving the police only a short time to act.

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    It makes me feel a bit older than usual to think this movie is 20+ years old and that people are so much younger that it makes sense to ask this question.
    – JBH
    Commented Sep 4 at 18:25
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    I feel older as well now
    – Andrew
    Commented Sep 4 at 18:43
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    Even the Futurama parody was 13 years ago en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Oracle
    – Andrew
    Commented Sep 4 at 19:23

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