History Main / DeadManWriting

* The recent movie ''Film/PSILoveYou'' revolves entirely around this trope.

* ''Anime/{{Shigofumi}}'': The entire premise is that the dead are allowed to send a letter to one living person.

%% Needs context * ''Anime/{{Shigofumi}}'': The entire premise.

%% Needs context * This is the entire premise of ''Anime/{{Shigofumi}}''.

* The penultimate episode of ''Series/Daredevil2015'' features a video variation. Agent Nadeem returns to his now-empty home and films a video of himself to send to his wife and son, anticipating that one of Fisk's assassins will soon show up to murder him. Sure enough, his FBI colleague Dex, now working for Fisk, turns up, gun in hand. Nadeem manages to turn this into a ThanatosGambit, sending the video message and then committing SuicideByCop when he forces Dex to kill him prematurely. Unbeknownst to Dex, his video message outlined a plan for his wife that would not only convince Fisk she knows nothing and therefore protect her and their son, but also includes a DyingConfession to all Nadeem's own (and by extension Fisk's) crimes, addressed to Nelson and Murdock. The instant that he dies the video confession becomes legally admissible in court as a "Dying Declaration", which allows the DA to prosecute Fisk once Nelson and Murdock relay it.

* At the end of the ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' storyline "A Better World", the assassin of Accounts Judge Maitland tries to download his payment, and instead recieves a hologram of Maitland saying "If you're seeing this, I'm dead and you're trying to collect a reward. Disappointing for us both." She explains even her skills couldn't hack the contract, but she ''could'' replace the payment with this message, and also broadcast the location it's been downloaded to to local law enforcement.

* In ''Film/TheManWhoTurnedToStone'', Cooper--suspecting the rest of the group intends to kill him--tells Dr. Rogers that he has written him a letter with instructions on to find his hidden, which explain everything that is happening. After Cooper disappears, Rogers recieves the letter and finds the diary. When he reads the diary, [[VoiceoverLetter it is narrated in Cooper's voice]].

* In the 1995 ''Shadow of the Bat'' story "ComicBook/{{Anarky}}", Lonnie's parents find a letter written by their son in the event of his death. They proceed to read the letter, which acts as narration over the course of the story as Lonnie must stop a terrorist from killing thousands in an explosion. At the climax of the story, Anarky sacrifices himself to save others as his parents conclude the letter. This becomes the last time his parents are seen, as by his next appearance revealing his survival in the ''Anarky'' limited series, he is operating underground and does not reveal that he is alive.
* ''ComicBook/BatmanAndRobinEternal'': Bruce records a holographic message warning Dick about Mother onto a memory stick. Cassandra delivers it to him in the first issue.
* Kate Kane records a goodbye message for her father before every outing as ComicBook/{{Batwoman}}, just in case she is killed while on patrol.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

* In the ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' comic book ''[[Recap/TintinExplorersOnTheMoon Explorers on the Moon]]'', Wolfe leaves a letter stating he has "left the rocket" to conserve oxygen. In the [=BBC's=] radio adaptation, this becomes a message on the logging machine (which didn't exist in the comic) stating "...by the time you listen to this, you will be listening to the voice of a dead man."

* ''Series/{{Castle}}''; In the episode "In The Belly Of The Beast", Beckett is trapped in a {{deep cover a|gent}}ssignment gone wrong. Preparing for the worst, she writes a letter to Castle, hiding it in an air vent and planting drops of her own blood to lead a CSU team to discover the letter if necessary.

* ''Film/BeyondTheWalls'': The other prisoners find Doron dead, hanging in a cell in what was supposed to look like suicide but was actually murder. It turns out that Doron had a note, which he kept clutched in his fist as he was being strangled to death, and which whoever killed him didn't see. As Uri reveals to the prisoners, Doron wrote that he had been asked by Herskovitz, one of the prison guards, to lie and say that he heard the Arabs plotting the murder of Hoffman. (It was Herskovitz himself who ordered Doron's death.)

* ''Film/IAmDina''.
-->'''Lorch''': Dear Dina, by the time you read this letter, I will be dead.