Originally a play adapted by Agatha Christie from her 1925 short story "Traitor's Hands". The play opened in London on 28 October 1953 at the Winter Garden Theatre (although the first performance had been in Nottingham on 28 September). It was produced by Peter Saunders.

The play has been adapted to film and television several times.

Most notably, in 1957, as an American film co-adapted and directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester. The film, which has film noir elements, depicts an English courtroom drama. Set in the Old Bailey in London, the picture is based on the 1953 play of the same name by Agatha Christie and deals with the trial of a man accused of murder. The first film adaptation of Christie's story, Witness for the Prosecution was adapted for the screen by Larry Marcus, Harry Kurnitz and Wilder. The film received positive reviews and six Academy Award nominations.

The first adaptation of the Agatha Christie story was a BBC television production made in 1949, with a running time of 75 minutes.

Another early production of Witness for the Prosecution was in the form of a live telecast on CBS's Lux Video Theatre on September 17, 1953, starring Edward G. Robinson, Andrea King and Tom Drake.

Christie's play was first performed in Nottingham on 28 September 1953, opened in London on 28 October and on Broadway on 16 December 1954.

In 1982, Witness for the Prosecution was remade as a television film, starring Sir Ralph Richardson, Deborah Kerr, Beau Bridges, Donald Pleasence, Dame Wendy Hiller, and Diana Rigg. It was adapted by Lawrence B. Marcus and John Gay from the original screenplay and directed by Alan Gibson.

In 2016, a miniseries starring Billy Howle, Toby Jones, Andrea Riseborough, Kim Cattrall and David Haig was broadcast on BBC One and received widespread acclaim.

Also in 2016, Deadline Hollywood announced that Ben Affleck would direct, produce and act in a remake of Witness for the Prosecution for 20th Century Fox,[20] but the project has not yet been realized.