History Main / ElevatorFailure

* ''Literature/{{Another}}'': [[spoiler:Sanae Mizuno]] gets killed gruesomely inside an elevator when the cables snap and the car plummets to the bottom of the shaft. The investigation afterward finds lack of maintenance at fault, but the main characters know that the curse on class 3 was the real cause.

* This happens to the titular family and side-character Gloria in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens''.

In fact, the inspection certificate has to be publicly posted in the elevator itself, usually behind a glass frame (to keep the certificate clean and to prevent someone from stealing it) so anyone seeing it can see that it was inspected during the last 12 months. In fact, you should be very wary if you've entered an elevator where you notice the inspection certificate is missing or expired.

* In ''Franchise/AceAttorney'', Miles Edgeworth avoids elevators whenever possible due to an incident with an earthquake that happened when he was a child. [[spoiler: Since said incident led to his father being murdered, it makes sense.]]

* In ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'', Henry can listen to a tape in Chapter 3 where maintenance worker Thomas Connor complains about Joey Drew Studios' owner neglecting the lift. Later in the chapter, [[spoiler: Henry and Boris are sent plummeting when the evil version of Alice Angel sabotages the lift]].

* In ''Film/ScavangerHunt1979'', Mildred, Georgie and Selsome's plan to steal a safe comes unstuck when the elevator breaks down between when they get out and when they get back with the safe.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1451094019072808500
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

* Webcomic/LeftoverSoup: Jamie and Max get stuck in one, with medication based complications.

* [[http://www.villainsource.com/ Villain Source]] (Your Online Source For Everything Evil) naturally offers the Elevator of Despair for any high-rise SupervillainLair, to dispose of meddlesome do-gooders.

* Happens to Wakko and Dr. Scratchnsniff in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. HilarityEnsues.

* This happens to the titular family and side-character Gloria in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens''.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheMrPeabodyAndShermanShow'' opens with the elevator door breaking during the opening, trapping Mr. Peabody inside and leaving Sherman to host the show by himself. The janitor tries to fix it, but this just inexplicably makes the walls of the elevator close in crushing Mr. Peabody.
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': In "Lost Soul", Terry and his girlfriend Dana are in an elevator that goes into freefall. Terry luckily makes it stop between floors, where they realize that it wasn't just their elevator that had failed, every computer-controlled device in the city had gone haywire thanks to [[AIIsACrapshoot an AI tapping into all of Gotham]].
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitansGo'' had this happen to the boys in "Caged Tiger" when they are called to fight crime due to [[ThirtySecondBlackout a brief power surge]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheCrumpets'' episode "Rat de marée", Caprice and Marylin become stranded on an elevator at the time an internal flood sweeps the Crumpet house.
* ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget'':
** In "Art Heist", a MAD agent cuts the cable of an elevator that Gadget is riding in, causing it to fall down the shaft. Gadget survives the fall by breaking through the ceiling and extending his arms up to the motor.
** In "Basic Training", Dr. Claw programs an elevator that Gadget is riding to plunge down to the bottom of the shaft, where SpikesOfDoom have been set up. Penny sees that the elevator is going too fast and uses her computer book to reverse it, only for a frustrated Claw to send the elevator back down. Claw and Penny continue to send the elevator up and down the shaft repeatedly, until Penny finally overides Claw's controls and disables the spikes.
* A ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' sketch features Betty Spaghetty in an elevator with a crowd of people when the elevator gets stuck. Betty then tries to squeeze through the narrow crack in the doorway, with the people cheering her on. She nearly gets through when the elevator starts up again. The people freak out as they try to get her out before she can get crushed to death, presumably to no avail. Meanwhile, a fireman hears the people screaming from outside the elevator and says "Geez, bunch of drama queens. We're coming!"

* ''Series/{{Monk}}'': In the episode "[[Recap/MonkS3E3MrMonkAndTheBlackout Mr. Monk and the Blackout]]", Monk and his date, power company spokeswoman Michelle Rivas, get trapped in an elevator when radicalist Winston Brenner blows up a power plant. Monk ends up deliriously pressing the lobby button over and over, and panics.
* Magnum and Higgins in the ''Series/MagnumPI'' episode "Paper War".
* On ''Series/ModernFamily'''s third-season episode "Tableau Vivant", Mitchell is stuck in an elevator with its doors not quite closed right after Phil finally tells him he's fired.

* On ''Series/NightCourt'', Dan and Roz get stuck in an elevator with two sumo wrestlers. During the ordeal, Dan admits he suffers from claustrophobia.
* On ''Series/GimmeABreak'', Nell and other members of her weight-loss support group get stuck in an elevator because of the weight of the occupants (they were all in there because the leader of their group was on the top floor of the building, giving very serious thought to committing suicide). They manage to get the elevator to go back down to the main floor, Nell got off, the elevator closed and went back up again fine, forcing her to have to take the stairs.
* On ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', the elevator in Sheldon, Leonard and Penny's building is always out of service. In the flashback episode, Leonard reveals that he accidentally blew it up.
* Happens on ''Series/TheNanny'' to the resident bitch CC Babcock. Call it LaserGuidedKarma if you will... but this was just after her inadvertent night with the butler Niles, leaving them both in doubt about their "relationship" for a while, but upon hearing she was in danger, Niles immediately tried to reach her, and she admitted that she did love him after all. [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome Cue Niles forcing the doors open BY HAND.]]
* Happened in an episode of the Australian series ''Police Rescue'', leading to real-life elevator repairmen to write in complaining of the technical inaccuracies involved.
* In ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' episode "The Baby Comes Out", Will and Phil get stuck in a malfunctioning elevator just as Vivian is entering labor and there's virtually no one to take her to the hospital. Worse yet, the other guy who's in there with them is a smoker.
* ''Series/{{Oz}}''. There have been a couple of murders involving service elevators at the prison; in one a corrupt police officer was pushed down the shaft after the doors were forced open, on another the man was repairing the elevator and it was lowered on his head.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E6TheCavesOfAndrozani The Caves of Androzani]]", CorruptCorporateExecutive Morgus shoves the President of Androzani Major down the empty elevator shaft of his private lift. He then has [[KickTheDog the lift maintenance engineer shot for negligence]].
* In the ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS03E02Convictions Convictions]]", a MadBomber's attack damages an elevator trapping Londo and G'Kar. Londo is ready to work together to escape, but G'Kar is perfectly happy to sit and do nothing as it will mean Londo's death. Much to G'Kar's chagrin, they are eventually rescued.
* On an episode of ''The Bob Newhart Show'', Bob steps into an empty shaft. He hangs onto the cable, but for the rest of the episode is obsessing over his mortality.
* Happens in ''Series/{{Grace and Frankie}}'' episode "The Elevator", it's used entirely as a plot device for flashbacks and conflict resolution.
* Charlotte and Henry believe the elevator to the Man Cave is faulty in ''Series/HenryDanger''. It goes down at a very rapid rate. Captain Man is fine with it, but Henry and Charlotte are usually screaming and crawling out of the elevator, out of breath.
** In the episode "Elevator Kiss" Henry, as Kid Danger, saves Bianca, his current girlfriend, from an elevator that is about to fall 79 floors. It actually does fall, leaving them dangling by Kid Danger's safety line in the shaft.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': In "[[Recap/PersonOfInterestS03E02 Nothing to Hide]]", an electrical engineer sabotages the elevator safety systems while the POI is inside. The intent is to scare the hell out of him rather than kill him, so the brakes kick back in at the last second to give him a painful but not severely injuring landing.
* Being set in a part of central London that has numerous tower blocks, [[Series/LondonsBurning Blue Watch]] have to respond to a lot of these. On one occasion the crew themselves get stuck in an elevator while trying to get to the top floor and the motor room so they can free some trapped members of the public.
* This happens to Lt. Geils at the end of the ''Series/AngieTribeca'' pilot episode, in a likely homage to ''Series/LALaw''.
* ''Series/FatherBrown'': A sabotaged lift is used as a murder weapon in "The Crackpot of the Empire". The killer knew that the victim's selfishness would make him demand to be the first into the lift, which then immediately plunged to the bottom of the shaft.
* Subverted in the SoapOpera ''The City'' (a reimagined ''Series/{{Loving}}''). When the elevator doors open and there's no elevator there, Sydney manages to stop herself from falling into the shaft. But just as she breathes a sigh of relief, she's ''shoved'' in by the SerialKiller who's been stalking the show for the past several weeks. Luckily, the fall isn't that far and she suffers only a broken arm.
* One episode of ''Series/MythBusters'' involved testing the best course of action [[JustForFun/TropesExaminedByTheMythBusters should an elevator fail as per the trope]]. In order to do so, they had to disable several of the safety systems on an old elevator (and we do mean ''old'') in a building slated for demolition. Cutting through the support cables for the counterweight took some time. Disabling the other major safety measure, a braking system, proved surprisingly simple:
-->'''Adam:''' Anticlimactically enough, I believe I've disabled the entire mechanism by removing this simple pin.
:: :See also the Real Life folder for the specific urban legend they were looking into.
* In ''Series/LesFillesDaCote'', Magalie would love to be stuck in the lift with her neighbour Daniel with an indefinite period before they are discovered and rescued. This is a fantasy for her. Unfortunately what has caused the lift to jam is the third person in there, the vastly obese Madame Georgette Bellefeuille. She is simply too fat for the lift. And makes it too small for three people to wait patiently.
* The ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' episode "[[Recap/FringeS01E05PowerHungry Power Hungry]]" features Joseph Meegar, a delivery man with [[PowerIncontinence uncontrollable]] electromagnetic powers. While out on a delivery, his powers cause an elevator to short out and plummet to the basement, killing everyone ''except'' Meegar who's cushioned by the same powers that caused the accident in the first place.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1995S5E15TheHaven The Haven]]", all of the elevators in the Haven, an apartment building run by the artificial intelligence Argus, cease to function along with everything else in the building. Caleb Vance almost falls down the elevator shaft as the door opened and the car wasn't there. Immediately afterwards, he somewhat reluctantly rescues Morgan Winters, who had been trapped in the elevator for about 24 hours. Several hours later, the two of them, Alyssa Selwyn and Oren Edgar try to climb down the shaft so they can escape the building. However, the elevator car begins to descend. Caleb, Alyssa, and Morgan manage to get out of the way in time, but Oren fails to jump to safety and falls to his death.
* ''Series/{{Probe}}'''s "[[Recap/ProbeNowYouSeeIt Now You See It....]]": Two businessmen, in two different buildings, within one day of each other, fall to their deaths in empty elevator shafts. Austin is quickly convinced these deaths are murder, since he's the designer of the Theta elevator system, and [[InsufferableGenius his stuff would never fail to work]]. He's right; [[spoiler:the culprit used a modified control circuit to override the commands to Theta and a {{Hologram}} to make it look like the elevator cab had arrived]].
* ''Series/StElsewhere'': In "Loss of Power", Dr. Westphall spends more than five hours stuck in an elevator with an English musician, who is also named Donald, with a bleak view of the world. The failure was caused by a citywide blackout and compounded by the hospital's malfunctioning generator.
* In the 19th episode of ''Series/IdolXWarriorMiracleTunes'', Kanon and her friend Ryo get trapped in an elevator on the way to the summer festival. Luckily, [[spoiler: the incident only lasts a few minutes, and they are able to escape]].
* A variation in ''Series/TheExpanse''. In "Back to the Butcher", Star Helix cop Miller is on a tube train when there's a sudden power cut and [[PowderKegCrowd everyone starts staring at him]]. Fortunately the power comes on before things get ugly.

* In ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'', Marcus Fenix lampshades this tendency in his [[DeadpanSnarker typical style]] at around the end of ''Gears Of War 2''.
-->'''Marcus:''' "Unbelievable."

* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' has a scene where Aya takes an elevator to go to the top floor of the hospital. The elevator barely goes up a floor or two when [[BigBad Eve]] announces her presence and cuts the cables, causing the elevator to fall to the basement. Luckily for Aya, it's not a long fall and she survives. Unluckily for her, Eve also cuts the power to the whole hospital to prevent her from using the other elevator. If you get wise and decide to take the stairs back up, Eve will just make the stairs collapse to make sure you stay trapped.
* One of the random events in the "No Mercy" job from ''VideoGame/Payday2'' is an elevator's cable being destroyed due to the bombing of the hospital the gang is stealing from. Naturally, the gang is inside when this occurs.
* ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'': In the [[HellHotel Ocean House Hotel]] quest, a malevolent ghost {{Invoke|dTrope}}s this on the PlayerCharacter when they investigate the bottom of the elevator shaft, forcing them to dodge an automatic GameOver from above.

* A similar trap was used in ''Anime/FutariWaPrettyCure'', with one of the villains cutting the wires of an elevator that the heroines were standing on top on... ''and that was full of people''. Honoka ties up a wire around her waist and tries to use her legs to make the fall slower and Nagisa joins her; they succeed.
* The Teddy Bomber tries to kill Spike and Andy in the ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' episode "[[Recap/CowboyBebopSession22CowboyFunk Cowboy Funk]]" with a sabotaged elevator; instead of plummeting to the bottom, it's rigged to go to the ''top'' of the building, causing a bomb to explode. Andy anticipated this scenario and changed the codes on the elevator controls so he could stop it; unfortunately, so did Spike, making them what the bomber set originally.
* In ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'', Eriol magically traps Sakura and Li in an elevator to force Sakura into [[spoiler: transforming the Clow cards into Sakura cards.]] The results are adorable. But not before [[spoiler: Sakura is apparently swallowed by a sorta black hole, which makes Li panic and [[SayMyName scream]] [[FirstNameBasis her name]] ([[HeyYou which he had never done before]])... and then Sakura saves herself via transforming the card she needed and returns to him.]]

* ''Literature/{{Another}}'': [[spoiler:Sanae Mizuno]] gets killed gruesomely inside an elevator when the cables snap and the car plummets to the bottom of the shaft. The investigation afterward finds lack of maintenance at fault, but the main characters know that the curse on class 3 was the real cause.
* The second arc of ''Manga/ShinjukuDxD'' deals with this trope. In short, a quack doctor, a rookie detective, a pregnant woman, a {{Yakuza}}, a repairman, a high school girl, and an old lady happened to walk in the same elevator when an earthquake happened and trapped them inside. Unfortunately, the pregnant woman is in pain and about to give birth leading to the protagonist and the other passengers having to perform the operation with no basic equipment except for what they have.

* ''Film/AViewToAKill'' features Film/JamesBond and Stacy Sutton stuck in one of these -- made more dangerous as the BigBad (Creator/ChristopherWalken) has just firebombed the thing.

* The aptly named Romanian film ''Elevator'' is about two teenagers that get trapped in an abandoned warehouse elevator, with no one who can hear them and rescue them. [[spoiler: The movie ends with both characters hopelessly expecting to die inside.]]
* Variation in ''Film/MissionImpossible'': one of Ethan's crew is atop an elevator. Someone [[spoiler:(later revealed to be the team boss)]] hacks the elevator to make it go straight up into [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice triggered spikes]].
* ''Film/TheToweringInferno'' has:
** Several firefighters have to climb out of an elevator and rappel down after power fails.
** Some people take an elevator after being told not to take it because it could stop on the floor where the fire is. It does exactly that, and they are burned to death.
** The glass elevator needs to be rewired so it can be lowered after the power fails, but it is knocked off its rail. It ends up being cut loose and lowered by helicopter.
* ''Film/MrAndMrsSmith2005''. Mrs. Smith lures her husband into an elevator on a construction site and places radio-detonated charges on the cables and brakes. The bombs go off and apparently kill him, but Mr. Smith was actually in a different elevator.
* ''Film/KateAndLeopold''. The running joke of the film was that elevators are always on the fritz due to the fact that Leopold Montbatten, Duke of Albany was displaced in time and never had a chance to inspire Elisha Otis to invent the safety elevator. This also became a plot point as a character failed to deliver an important message because he fell down an elevator shaft (he lived).
* In ''Film/DamienOmenII'', a doctor finds evidence of jackal blood in Damian's blood sample. As he is taking the sample slide to a colleague, his elevator mysteriously takes him first up, then near-freefall drop to the bottom of the shaft, knocking him off his feet. As he recovers, the audience sees the cross cable go right through the car, bisecting ''everything.''

* In ''Film/ReportToTheCommissioner'' a police officer chases a gun-wielding pimp into a department store elevator. It stops between floors (the police cut power), so both of them climb onto the roof. His boss pulls the cop out of the way onto another elevator, then floodlights are turned on. The pimp panics, shoots at the lights and is cut in two by police gunfire.

* In ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'', the kids on the Academic Decathlon team are rescued from a damaged elevator at the Washington Monument.
* The title character in ''Film/{{Patrick}}'' attempts to kill Kathy's ex-husband Ed by inducing one of these through the use of his [[PsychicPowers powers]].

* {{Invoked|Trope}} in ''Film/{{Andhadhun}}''. Dr. Swami's crew trap Manohar in an elevator by turning off its power while he's inside.
* One of the few genuinely scary moments in the first ''Film/ResidentEvil'' film involves the supercomputer in charge of containing the outbreak cutting off access to the outside world by dropping The Hive's elevator cars straight to the bottom floor. People inside can be heard screaming in terror all the way down, and several zombies with severely broken limbs are seen later in the movie.
* In the 1957 crime picture ''Film/TheGarmentJungle'', Walter Mitchell is adamant on keeping unions out of his clothing manufacturer, and is paying mobsters to keep them out. His partner disagrees, but no sooner has he announced his intent than he dies in a suspicious freight elevator accident.
* During the finale of ''Film/TheFirechasers'', Toby goes down into the basement in an attempt to turn the sprinkler system back on. However, the elevator breaks down; stranding her in the burning building.

* The ''Literature/FatherBrown'' story "The Eye of Apollo" deals with the mystery of a body found at the bottom of the elevator shaft. The solution is that [[spoiler:she was blind, and the murderer tricked her into thinking the elevator was there, and she fell down the shaft]].
* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in Creator/AgathaChristie's ''Towards Zero'': the murderer places an "out of order" sign on the elevator, so the elderly victim takes the stairs instead and suffers a heart attack.
* In of the Literature/AlexRider novels, a contract killer kills his target by sabotaging his elevator, causing it to go up one floor higher than it normally would and then leaving a sophisticated hologram of the elevator in its place, causing the target to step into the empty shaft and fall to his death.

* Due to hexes, the elevator in ''Literature/FancyApartments'' keeps failing, one time stopping in-between floors.

* In the Creator/RoaldDahl short story "The Way Up to Heaven", a woman rids herself of her petty-minded bullying husband by "accidentally" leaving him stranded in their building's malfunctioning elevator when she finally gets away on an extended trip to visit her grandchildren.

* ''Series/OurMissBrooks'':
** In "Project X", Miss Brooks begins the episode by nearly falling to her death down an open elevator shaft at Clay City High School.
** In "School Safety Advisor", a mix-up involves [[spoiler:Mr. Conklin and a member of the school board falling six feet down the empty freight elevator shaft.]]

* In an episode of ''Series/LALaw'', Rosalind Shays turns to step into the elevator, but it was an error. The bell went off and the door opened, but the car wasn't there and she stepped into an empty elevator shaft.
* One episode of ''Series/{{Castle}}'' had the protagonist ([[ItMakesSenseInContext who was paranoid about being cursed by an ancient Mayan Emperor at the time]]) get trapped in a broken elevator, which goes pitch black [[SicklyGreenGlow and then creepily green.]]

* On ''Series/{{Friends}}'', Joey's character is killed off ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'' when he falls down an elevator shaft. Of course, it's a soap opera, so he comes back to life.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E11Contagion Contagion]]", alien programming starts to take over the computer, causing numerous problems. When Geordi La Forge takes a turbo-lift (an elevator that can also travel ''sideways''), he ends up violently thrown around and pinned to the walls and ceiling. When it finally comes to a stop, he is thrown violently out of the turbo-lift and onto the bridge.
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E5Disaster Disaster]]", the ''Enterprise'' encounters a quantum filament, causing massive damage throughout the ship. When it hits, Captain Picard is in the turbo-lift with three children (a situation he wasn't exactly thrilled about to begin with), and the impact is so violent he breaks his leg. Later on, they discover that one of the safety clamps has been damaged, forcing all four to climb out before the turbo-lift plummets to the bottom of the shaft.
* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'':
** "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E17TheForsaken The Forsaken]]" sees Odo trapped in the turbolift with [[AbhorrentAdmirer Lwaxana Troi]] for several hours when the station's systems start acting up. It manages to turn into a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} for the pair, leading to a close friendship between the two of them.
** In a later episode, the head of the Bajoran government visits the station and is nearly killed by a sabotaged turbolift.
* In one episode of ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie'', a mean office manager suffers a KarmicDeath this way. While attempting to escape from a stopped elevator, the brakes fail and she is crushed/bisected.
** In another episode, an accountant is faking paralysis, complete with motorized wheelchair, in a workplace-injury scam. His secretary catches him standing in his office, and he, getting in the chair, chases her into an elevator. The doors close, and he slams into ''and through'' the elevator doors, plunging to his death. (Presumably, the woman was going up instead of down.)
* In one episode of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'', Cory has a nightmare where he pushes all of his friends down an empty elevator shaft.

* One episode of ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' has Rob and Laura (pregnant in a flashback) mugged while in an elevator. The mugger simply pressed the stop button on the elevator so he could hold them up, but pressing the resume button does nothing. The entire episode is devoted to Rob, Laura, and the mugger trying to find a way out and hoping Laura doesn't go into labor while in the stopped elevator. At one point the mugger reads the inspection record of the elevator and finds that just this year they switched inspectors. Dick even climbs out the top of the elevator but only reads a sarcastic comment left by the building workers.
-->'''Rob:''' In [year], John Freeny laid these bricks. I want to wish you lots of luck, cause if you're reading this you're stuck!
* In the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode "CSI Unplugged", Hodges and Henry get stuck in the elevator when the lab and all of Las Vegas loses power. To make matters worse, the elevator technicians who would normally be called in to rescue them... are ''also'' stuck in an elevator in another building.
* In the ''Series/{{Bones}}'' episode "The Blackout in the Blizzard", Bones and Booth are stuck in an old elevator in Booth's apartment building.

* Bud takes the elevator not realizing it is malfunctioning in the ''Series/{{JAG}}'' episode "Yeah Baby".
* Happens to Chuck in the ''Series/EarlyEdition'' episode "Baby".

** Ziva and [=McGee=] get trapped together overnight in "Power Down," after the city suffers a blackout. It's PlayedForLaughs as Ziva gets increasingly annoyed with him.
** Ziva and Tony get trapped in "Extreme Prejudice," following an attack on the Navy Yard. This time it's played for ShipTease.

* In the WesternAnimation/HandyManny episode “Ups And Downs”, Manny gets stuck in an elevator while trying to fix it and is separated from the tools

* ''WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget:''

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''

** An early episode sees Odo trapped in the turbolift with [[AbhorrentAdmirer Lwaxana Troi]] for several hours when the station's systems start acting up. It manages to turn into a SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} for the pair, leading to a close friendship between the two of them.

* ''Series/{{Monk}}'': In the episode "Mr. Monk and the Blackout", Monk and his date, power company spokeswoman Michelle Rivas, get trapped in an elevator when radicalist Winston Brenner blows up a power plant. Monk ends up deliriously pressing the lobby button over and over, and panics.

* ''Series/DoctorWho''. In "The Caves of Androzani", CorruptCorporateExecutive Morgus shoves the President of Androzani Major down the empty elevator shaft of his private lift. He then has [[KickTheDog the lift maintenance engineer shot for negligence]].
* ''Series/{{Babylon 5}}'' has the 3rd season episode Convictions where a MadBomber's attack damages an elevator trapping Londo and G'Kar. Londo is ready to work together to escape, but G'Kar is perfectly happy to sit and do nothing as it will mean Londo's death. Much to G'Kar's chagrin, they are eventually rescued.

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. In "[[Recap/PersonOfInterestS03E02 Nothing To Hide]]", an electrical engineer sabotages the elevator safety systems while the POI is inside. The intent is to scare the hell out of him rather than kill him, so the brakes kick back in at the last second to give him a painful but not severely injuring landing.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' features Joseph Meegar, a delivery man with [[PowerIncontinence uncontrollable]] electromagnetic powers. While out on a delivery, his powers cause an elevator to short out and plummet to the basement, killing everyone ''except'' Meegar who's cushioned by the same powers that caused the accident in the first place.

** In "Contagion", alien programming starts to take over the computer, causing numerous problems. When Geordi La Forge takes a turbo-lift (an elevator that can also travel ''sideways''), he ends up violently thrown around and pinned to the walls and ceiling. When it finally comes to a stop, he is thrown violently out of the turbo-lift and onto the bridge.
** In "Disaster", the ''Enterprise'' encounters a quantum filament, causing massive damage throughout the ship. When it hits, Captain Picard is in the turbo-lift with three children (a situation he wasn't exactly thrilled about to begin with), and the impact is so violent he breaks his leg. Later on, they discover that one of the safety clamps has been damaged, forcing all four to climb out before the turbo-lift plummets to the bottom of the shaft.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "The Haven", all of the elevators in the Haven, an apartment building run by the artificial intelligence Argus, cease to function along with everything else in the building. Caleb Vance almost falls down the elevator shaft as the door opened and the car wasn't there. Immediately afterwards, he somewhat reluctantly rescues Morgan Winters, who had been trapped in the elevator for about 24 hours. Several hours later, the two of them, Alyssa Selwyn and Oren Edgar try to climb down the shaft so they can escape the building. However, the elevator car begins to descend. Caleb, Alyssa, and Morgan manage to get out of the way in time but Oren fails to jump to safety and falls to his death.

* The Teddy Bomber tries to kill Spike and Andy in the ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' episode "Cowboy Funk" with a sabotaged elevator; instead of plummeting to the bottom, it's rigged to go to the ''top'' of the building, causing a bomb to explode. Andy anticipated this scenario and changed the codes on the elevator controls so he could stop it; unfortunately so did Spike, making them what the bomber set originally.

* In 2003, a man named Hitoshi Nikaidoh was decapitated by an elevator with malfunctioning door sensors. He walked inside the elevator and had his shoulders pinned by the elevator doors due to faulty wiring. Despite struggling to pull himself inside, the elevator kept ascending until the ceiling sliced off most of his head. His left ear, lower lip, teeth, and jaw were still attached to his body, which fell to the bottom of the elevator shaft, as the elevator continued moving upward. A surgery resident, who was in the elevator at the time, witnessed the gruesome spectacle and [[NightmareFuel spent more than an hour trapped in the elevator with Hitoshi's head]].

* This happens to the titular family and side-character Gloria in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens''

* In the “WesternAnimation/HandyManny” episode “Ups And Downs, Manny gets stuck in an elevator while trying to fix it and is separated from the tools

* In the ''Series/CriminalMinds'' episode "Scared To Death", Reid, Morgan, and Hotch are investigating an apartment. While Reid and Morgan ride an elevator, Hotch (wisely) takes the stairs. It gets stuck, and then proceeds to drop suddenly. They hit the emergency button, Morgan tries to pry the door open, Reid panics, and they both scream (well, Reid squeaks) for Hotch before it finally opens and they stumble out. Which can be seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMb_BC5ndTU here]].

* In the ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode "CSI Unplugged", Hodges and Henry get stuck in the elevator when the lab and all of Las Vegas loses power.

* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', an elevator carrying some scientists falls, carrying them to their deaths, when you press the button to summon it shortly after the resonance cascade (one of the level designers said this was a message to other developers to stop using puzzles involving finding and pressing buttons). Elevator failures happen in other parts of the game as well.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' had an episode start with Terry and his girlfriend Dana in an elevator that goes into freefall. Terry luckily makes it stop between floors, where they realize that it wasn't just their elevator that had failed, every computer-controlled device in the city had gone haywire.