In the magical world of fiction, if torture isn't being just used to prove that the Big Bad is indeed big and bad (or that the Anti-Hero is indeed anti), it works as an instant source of 100% reliable information. The information extracted under torture is always accurate and important, even if the interrogator himself starts with no information at all and so has no way to know if the prisoner is telling the truth or lying. The possibility of having the wrong person, who will say anything under torture whether they know anything or not, will be excluded. Often as not, the victim is then released with no consequences to them if they lied.

The only times when torture doesn't work is when the tortured is just too badass to be broken, and doesn't say anything at all. When characters object to torture, they are often portrayed as weak liberal Strawmen who "don't have what it takes" or "don't realize what's at stake". They only make moral criticisms, and never bother to point out that it's unreliable, presumably because they too know that it Always Works. Even when it doesn't work, characters who should know better assume that it will.

In Real Life, as an interrogation technique for extracting actual usable intelligence, its efficacy varies wildly — some will tell the truth, others will lie either to spite their torturers or to take revenge on someone by casting them under suspicion to be tortured, others will clam up under poor treatment. It's also been found that because torture is so exhausting victims are sometimes unable to even remember the information their torturers want. Perhaps the greatest problem is that many people will say ANYTHING to make the torture stop. This means false confessions that resemble whatever sort of information the torturer wanted to get. For investigative purposes this result is basically useless but can make the torturer more confident in the technique since it appears to have worked. This plays into another issue which is that true statements may be ignored because the torturer knows what kind of information they expect to get. So the torture continues until the victim is able to come up with a sufficiently convincing lie. Indeed, the fact that people do lie when tortured into a confession is one reason why this isn't generally accepted evidence in courts.

Of course, if the purpose of the torture is merely to get a confession — any confession at all, rather than to extract information — as in, the purpose is not necessarily to actually find the true guilty party, but just to have someone, anyone, to fill role of the Fall Guy or The Scapegoat, then torture can be said to be quite effective indeed.

The most common form when used by villains is probably Electric Torture. When heroes torture their enemies, they usually use Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, because they Always Work but have a different title and are thus Not Torture.

Compare Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique. Contrast Torture Is Ineffective.

Examples: