Waiting for Godot in San Quentin

America's Greatest Prison Breaks

2015 · ★ 6

A look at the prison breakout of Richard Matt and David Sweat from Clinton Correctional facility, as well as a look back at some of the most daring and ingenious prison breaks in American history.

HMP Styal: The Mother of All Prisons

Behind the scenes at one of the most unique and controversial prisons in the UK, home to some of Britain's worst female criminals

The Execution Machine: Texas Death Row

1997 · ★ 7

Explores the realities of death-row inmates inside Huntsville (Texas) Unit, a prison with the highest number of executions in 1997. Features interviews with prisoners, guards, officials, lawyers and victims' family members.

Hard Time: The Making of Prison

2013 · ★ 8

Retrospective documentary on the making of the low-budget horror film Prison (1987)

Near Light

2023 · ★ 6

A young man, convicted murderer, has a chance of redemption when he enters the best Italian university of economics, going back and forth from prison to university every day.

The Shocking History of the Death Penalty

1977 · ★ 2

Do humans have the right to judge and kill other humans? This program includes a history of capital punishment around the world through documentary footage and commentary. The electric chair, firing squad, hanging, poison gas, beating to death, slow execution, crotch-splitting, iron maiden, guillotine, execution by running, and beheading... It features a military execution in a South American country, obtained from a former prison officer. It also includes footage of the reality of life in Japanese prisons, death row inmates facing death, the parents of death row inmates, the families of their victims, and the gallows.

Standard Operating Procedure

2008 · ★ 6.8

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

The Road to Mass Incarceration

2018

This video, The Road to Mass Incarceration, by Greenhouse Media summarizes criminal justice policy decisions dating back to the 1960s. Although the effects often took decades to manifest, each of these policy shifts increased the rate of incarceration in the U.S. The video ends with many of the architects of these changes, Democrats and Republicans alike, admitting the failure of these policies and suggesting that it is time for real change.

Last Days of Solitary

2017

In 2011, Maine State Prison launched a pioneering reform program to scale back its use of solitary confinement. Bafta and Emmy-winning film-maker Dan Edge and his co-director Lauren Mucciolo were given unprecedented access to the solitary unit - and filmed there for more than three years. The result is an extraordinary and harrowing portrait of life in solitary - and a unique document of a radical and risky experiment to reform a prison. The US is the world leader in solitary confinement. More than 80,000 American prisoners live in isolation, some have been there for years, even decades. Solitary is proven to cause mental illness, it is expensive, and it is condemned by many as torture. And yet for decades, it has been one of the central planks of the American criminal justice system.

Unthinkable: The Susan Smith Story

2024 · ★ 10

Hear from the prosecutors who handled Susan Smith's case and why authorities doubted her story from the beginning. The boys' father, David Smith, talks about why he believes 30 years in prison isn't long enough for Susan and what he's prepared to tell a SC Board of Pardons and Paroles to keep her behind bars.

Insein Rhythm

2016

Insein Rhythm portrays the sights, sounds and rhythms of Yangon’s Insein train station which is also a stone’s throw away from the country’s infamous Insein prison.

Prisoners of the War on Drugs

1996 · ★ 7.5

From its beginning during the Reagan years through current times, the War on Drugs has left many victims stranded in the prison system. PRISONERS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS reveals life behind bars in the nation’s prisons. Each prisoner has his or her own story, but for most, the story is predictably similar; they have been criminalized for drugs or drug related offenses, locked up with easy access to substances, and given little opportunity for rehabilitation. This film provides an inside look at the prison system, its prisoners and a war on drugs we do not seem to be winning.