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.
Michel wants to go home.
A haunting short version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story about a cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on a victim of the Spanish Inquisition...
A young man befriends the last surviving Civil War veteran, intending to rob him of $50,000.
A young woman seeks vengeance and finds love when her parents are killed in the Amazon and she is taken prisoner by an indigenous tribe of headhunters.
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.
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
Escaped convict Sam Gillen single-handedly takes on ruthless developers who are determined to evict a widow with two young children.
François, a miserable football player, becomes a town hero after bringing victory in an extremely important game. He uses his fame for revenge on the team star for the previous mockeries.
Underdogs
A Russian guitarist was enlisted in 1984 in the Afghan war. Imprisoned, he will meet an Afghan musician and a French journalist.
The story of Washington D.C. radio personality Ralph "Petey" Greene, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist in the 1960s.
Disgraced pro football quarterback Paul Crewe lands in a Texas federal penitentiary, where manipulative Warden Hazen recruits him to advise the institution's football team of prison guards. Crewe suggests a tune-up game which lands him quarterbacking a crew of inmates in a game against the guards. Aided by incarcerated ex-NFL coach and player Nate Scarborough, Crewe and his team must overcome not only the bloodthirstiness of the opposition, but also the corrupt warden trying to fix the game against them.
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
In the year 2022, a ruthless prison warden has created the ultimate solution for his most troublesome and violent inmates: Absolom, a secret jungle island where prisoners are abandoned and left to die. But Marine Captain John Robbins, convicted of murdering a commanding officer, is determined to escape the island in order to reveal the truth behind his murderous actions and clear his name.
This dramatized short film describes the historical mystery of France's "man in the iron mask". King Louis XIV imprisoned a man who was never identified, but who was forced to wear an iron mask for the length of his captivity, which ended only in his death. Several candidates for the identity of the man are investigated.
Imprisoned journalist Joseph Michaels faces a government execution during a future American Revolution.
A soldier recounts his relationship with a famous political prisoner attempting to overthrow their country's authoritarian government.