After killing a prison guard, convict Robert Stroud faces life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Driven nearly mad by loneliness and despair, Stroud's life gains new meaning when he happens upon a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard and nurses it back to health. Despite having only a third grade education, Stroud goes on to become a renowned ornithologist and achieves a greater sense of freedom and purpose behind bars than most people find in the outside world.
A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.
Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.
20 volunteers agree to take part in a seemingly well-paid experiment advertised by the university. It is supposed to be about aggressive behavior in an artificial prison situation. A journalist senses a story behind the ad and smuggles himself in among the test subjects. They are randomly divided into prisoners and guards. What seems like a game at the beginning soon turns into bloody seriousness.
In order to foil a terrorist plot, an FBI agent undergoes facial transplant surgery and assumes the identity of a criminal mastermind. The plan turns sour when the criminal wakes up prematurely and seeks revenge.
When Eastern European criminals Oleg and Emil come to New York City to pick up their share of a heist score, Oleg steals a video camera and starts filming their activities, both legal and illegal. When they learn how the American media circus can make a remorseless killer look like the victim and make them rich, they target media-savvy NYPD Homicide Detective Eddie Flemming and media-naive FDNY Fire Marshal Jordy Warsaw, the cops investigating their murder and torching of their former criminal partner, filming everything to sell to the local tabloid TV show "Top Story."
As every Sunday, in the Detention Center where she finds herself prisoner, Nathalie awaits her turn in the visiting room.
When Martin, a former GDR citizen, is released from jail, he lately becomes confronted with the consequences of the German re-unification.
Two victims of traumatized childhoods become lovers and serial murderers irresponsibly glorified by the mass media.
A male prison escapee heads for his hidden loot, electronically attached to a female prisoner.
Instead of enjoying her vacations in a peaceful peninsula of Turkey, Anna feels stuck in a strange torpor, while her boyfriend, Thomas, doesn't seem to notice it at all. Later in the afternoon, when a little girl suddenly disappears on the beach, Anna awakens and decides to go and find her, despite the unknown and the nightfall.
Based on a true story of inmates at KZ Buchenwald that risked their lives to hide a small Jewish boy shortly before the liberation of the camp.
A story depicting the life of executed murderer and gang leader, Marciál "Baby" Ama. Ama, who became a gang leader with his prison mob while serving a sentence for lesser charges, was executed for murder at the age of 16 via electric chair on 4 October 1961.
A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.
Govardhan, a doctor by profession, is wrongly accused of bombing a train and is jailed by the British in Cellular Jail, also known as Kala Pani in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He witnesses sufferings of hundreds of Indian prisoners there.
Imprisoned journalist Joseph Michaels faces a government execution during a future American Revolution.
A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.
Under the leadership of their counselor, teenagers at a juvenile detention center gain self-esteem by playing football together.
The story of Bobby Sands, the IRA member who led the 1981 hunger strike during The Troubles in which Irish Republican prisoners tried to win political status.
Konrad von Seidlitz is a young yuppie lawyer currently celebrating his engagement with Cornelia, daughter of minister of justice Volkerts. As a public relations gag, he hasn't paid his parking fines for two years and now insists on being sentenced to jail for two weeks as punishment. Using his knowledge as a lawyer he makes the best out of his visit in jail still working, still in a splendid mood and not adapting to any rule. Probably a good way to get the desired public attention, but also a good way to make enemies inside the jail-house. One day before Konrad is to be released his booth is searched and two hundred grams of cocaine are found. That's a serious problem even for a brilliant lawyer like Konrad and even if you're innocent