Dead Man Talking (2012) on Netflix

Forty-year-old William Lamers, an anonymous criminal sentenced to death for murder, is soon to be executed. The procedure is about to take place in an atmosphere of general indifference and neither the condemned man's family nor the relatives of his victims have bothered to come to witness the execution. Only a journalist from local rag has turned up to watch the "show." However, what was supposed to be a mere formality rapidly becomes a nightmare for Karl Raven, the prison director. When William is asked if he wishes to say something before he dies, William starts telling the story of his life and recounts an incredible, moving tale. Raven grows impatient and contacts Governor Brodeck to get the authorization to execute William. But as the law does not define the duration a condemned prisoner's final words can be, and as Governor Stieg Brodeck, rating badly in the opinion polls, cannot take any risks one month out from the elections, it is decided that William can tell his story all the way through. Better still, he's offered a strange deal: to speak so as not to die. Like Sheherazade, who tells the Sultan a story each night, William becomes the "Dead Man Talking." He is now the major issue in an electoral campaign as surprising as it is crazy. Anonymous William, the "never has been," will finally have his moment in the spotlight.