The Mauritanian

The Stanford Prison Experiment

2015★ 6.8

In 1971, Stanford's Professor Philip Zimbardo conducts a controversial psychology experiment in which college students pretend to be either prisoners or guards, but the proceedings soon get out of hand. Based on a true story.

Midnight Express

1978★ 7.4

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of a country. The courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".

Palmetto

1998★ 6.0

After being released from prison on a bum charge, Harry Barber is out for payback to regain his lost two years. He's hired by Mrs. Malroux to fake the kidnapping of her stepdaughter (the daughter of a dying millionaire). He discovers that he is being set up on multiple levels and will soon face a longer sentence if he doesn't prove the truth.

Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight

2013★ 6.4

Muhammad Ali’s historic Supreme Court battle from behind closed doors. When Ali was drafted into the Vietnam War at the height of his boxing career, his claim to conscientious objector status led to a controversial legal battle that rattled the U.S. judicial system right up to the highest court in the land.

Escape from Alcatraz

1979★ 7.5

San Francisco Bay, January 18, 1960. Frank Lee Morris is transferred to Alcatraz, a maximum security prison located on a rocky island. Although no one has ever managed to escape from there, Frank and other inmates begin to carefully prepare an escape plan.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

1985★ 7.0

The story of two radically different men thrown together in a Latin American prison cell. One is Valentin, a journalist being tortured for his political beliefs. The other is Molina, a gay window-dresser who fills their lonely nights by spinning romantic fantasies drawn from memories of old movies.

Emancipation

2022★ 7.8

Inspired by the gripping true story of a man who would do anything for his family—and for freedom. When Peter, an enslaved man, risks his life to escape and return to his family, he embarks on a perilous journey of love and endurance.

Monster

2021★ 6.5

The story of Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old honor student whose world comes crashing down around him when he is charged with felony murder.

Cool Hand Luke

1967★ 7.7

When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

The Shawshank Redemption

1994★ 8.7

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Nothing But the Truth

2008★ 7.0

When reporter Rachel Armstrong writes a story that reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative, the government demands that Rachel reveal her source. She defies the special prosecutor and is thrown in jail. Meanwhile, her attorney, Albert Burnside argues her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Shutter Island

2010★ 8.2

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

The Woman in Cabin 10

2025★ 6.2

On a lavish yacht for an assignment, a journalist sees a passenger go overboard. But when no one believes her, she risks her life to uncover the truth.

The Last Castle

2001★ 7.2

A court-martialed general rallies together 1200 inmates to rise against the system that put him away.

Body of Lies

2008★ 6.6

The CIA’s hunt is on for the mastermind of a wave of terrorist attacks. Roger Ferris is the agency’s man on the ground, moving from place to place, scrambling to stay ahead of ever-shifting events. An eye in the sky – a satellite link – watches Ferris. At the other end of that real-time link is the CIA’s Ed Hoffman, strategizing events from thousands of miles away. And as Ferris nears the target, he discovers trust can be just as dangerous as it is necessary for survival.

Papillon

1973★ 7.8

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

Escape from Pretoria

2020★ 7.2

South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.

Room

2015★ 8.0

Held captive for 7 years in an enclosed space, a woman and her young son finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.

The Silence of the Lambs

1991★ 8.3

Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

Bronson

2009★ 7.0

A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.