1. Nemesis (Nemesis)
The film explores the destruction of a unique train station in Zurich and the construction of the new prison and police centre in its place. From the perspective of the filmmaker’s window, and with testimony from prisoners awaiting deportation, the film probes how we deal with the extinction of history and its replacement with total security.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
2. Solitary
There are 100,000 US citizens in solitary confinement across the country, a staggering number prompting comment from both President Obama and the Pope. Situated in rural Virginia, 300 miles from any urban center, Red Onion State Prison is one of over 40 supermax prisons across the US built to hold prisoners in eight-by-ten-foot cells for 23 hours a day. Filmed over the course of one year, this eye-opening film braids stark prison imagery, stories from correction officers, and intimate reflections from the men who are locked up in isolation. The inmates share the paths that led them to prison and their daily struggles to maintain their sanity.
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
3. Attica
Follows the largest prison uprising in US history, conducting dozens of new interviews with inmates, journalists, and other witnesses.
It has an average vote of 7.191 on TMDB.
4. Inside Pinochet's Prisons
The horrifying story of what went on inside General Pinochet's secret prisons.
5. Jacinta
An intimate portrait of mothers and daughters and the effects of trauma, Jacinta follows a young woman in and out of prison as she attempts to break free from an inherited cycle of addiction, incarceration, and crime.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
6. The Big One
The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.
It has an average vote of 6.7 on TMDB.
7. What happened to the children? (Vad Hände Med Barnen?)
In this documentary we meet five children in Sweden and see what happened in their lives. Robin was nine years old, but he already knew what a prison looked like and the bad a punishment can do. Frida was not yet born when we filmed her mother Angela in 1983. Her sister Malin lived for several years in a foster family. Bosse was 14 years old and in 9th grade when we met him in 1978. He was the only guy in the class who had glasses. Marie received many postcards and letters from her father, but very rarely met him while she was growing up.
It has an average vote of 8 on TMDB.
8. Defending Our Lives
Documentary about the magnitude and severity of domestic violence. This film features four women imprisoned for killing their batterers and their terrifying personal testimonies. It won an Oscar at the 66th Academy Awards in 1994 for Documentary Short Subject.
It has an average vote of 5.8 on TMDB.
9. The words of Ventotene (Le parole di Ventotene)
The film focuses on Ernesto Rossi , who was imprisoned by the fascist regime between 1930 and 1943 for his political ideas. Exiled on the island of Ventotene, he co-authored the Ventotene manifesto.
10. Pull of Gravity
North Philadelphia, PA – Kev, El and Andy are three men united by one struggle: they are trying to defy gravity. As part of the 700,000 prisoners released into society every year, they find themselves faced with a chilling outlook: 67% of ex-offenders re-offend within three years. What explains this invisible force that keeps former inmates in a seemingly unending cycle of incarceration? Filmed on the street over the course of two years, Pull of Gravity is an intimate portrait of these three men that confronts head-on the gritty details of lives cut short by poverty and drugs, where dealing is seen as the only route to economic prosperity, where using offers an escape from powerlessness, and where prison is too often the next stop. The film’s unfiltered lense captures its subjects as they lay bare their stories, fears, and tentative dreams.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
11. Standard Operating Procedure
Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.
It has an average vote of 6.842 on TMDB.
12. Women Behind Bars with Trevor McDonald
Trevor McDonald goes to Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana to speak with some of the women that live there.
13. They Call Us Monsters
Behind the walls of the Compound, LA’s most violent juvenile offenders await their trials. To their advocates, they’re kids. To the system, they’re adults. To their victims, they’re monsters. Who are they to you?
It has an average vote of 6.7 on TMDB.
14. Last Chance Garage
A documentary on reformed ex-con Rick Maylender and his attempts to help troubled youths by taking them out of their environment and showing them how to find and repair abandoned classic vehicles.
15. 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
16. Cages (Celas)
The final months of pregnancy and the first ones after the birth of a baby are unique experiences in a woman's life. And when this daily life is lived inside a prison?
17. Afro-American Work Songs in a Texas Prison
Pete and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 and produced this rare document of of work songs by inmates of the Ellis Unit. Worksongs helped African American prisoners survive the grueling work demanded of them. With mechanization and integration, worksongs like these died out shortly after this film was made.
18. Champagne
The true story of a young teenage girl whose mother is incarcerated for murder. Living in a Catholic Children's home run by an order of nuns, she provides poignant commentary about her mother, her own situation and her outlook for the future.
19. Foute vrienden (Foute vrienden)
Documentary about four maffia-like friends based in Amsterdam.
It has an average vote of 5.8 on TMDB.
20. War on Drugs: The Prison Industrial Complex
The war on drugs has been going on for more than three decades. Today, nearly 500,000 Americans are imprisoned on drug charges. In 1980 the number was 50,000. Last year $40 billion in taxpayer dollars were spent in fighting the war on drugs. As a result of the incarceration obsession, the United States operates the largest prison system on the planet. Today, 89 percent of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46 percent have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants, which usually involve no-knock entries into private homes.
It has an average vote of 5.2 on TMDB.
