I had an horrible experience with a terrible manager about 10 years ago. We didn't get along at all, and he tried to throw me under the bus for a project that he mismanaged. He basically wrote lies about me on my performance review.

I fought it via HR. The HR rep couldn't care less about it, but I kept persisting, and I had my coworkers vouch for me that what our manager said was false. He ended up rescinding the entire performance review, and I changed teams and left the company shortly afterwards.

But I was lucky. I was well-liked by my peers because they knew I worked hard, and they were willing to go to bat for me against our manager. And my manager was utterly stupid because he wrote lies that could be refuted by my teammates. It was basically the perfect conditions in my favor. Had I not had those favorable conditions, I'm pretty sure HR would have done nothing to help me, and I would have gotten fired. Even if managers write lies about you, it's very very difficult to fight back.