An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
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.
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.
A blue-collar worker on New York's depressed waterfront finds his life changed after he saves a woman attempting suicide.
Halil is a teenage boy, son of a poor porter, and sees him dying when serving a man without compassion. Halil keeps on with father's work, to pay for his younger brother and their old mother food and shelter in a slum. Then, the horse that pulled the chariot dies, and Khalil goes on, taking the animal's place. A rich man tries to kill another, and pays Halil to pick up the revolver, and take the blame - going to prison instead of him. Halil accepts, and takes the money to his mother. In prison, Halil grows up as a rowdy man. Later, fate will bring the two brothers together, but in opposite sides of the law: Halil is a paid assassin, and his brother is a public prosecutor. When the Mafia pays Halil to kill his own brother, he refuses - and the Mafia retaliates by killing his wife. Halil vows to revenge her.
The story of Salvador Puig Antich, one of the last political prisoners to be executed under Franco's Fascist State in 1974.
A court-martialed general rallies together 1200 inmates to rise against the system that put him away.
The lives of six German-Turkish immigrants are drawn together by circumstance: An old man and a prostitute forging a partnership, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.
Karen McCoy is released from prison with nothing but the clothes on her back. Before being incarcerated, Karen was the bank robber of her time, but now she wishes for nothing more than to settle down and start a new life. Unfortunately, between a dirty parole officer, old business partners, and an idiot ex, she will have to do the unthinkable in order to save her son.
A young girl discovers the truth regarding the secrets of her past. Just as she discovers the truth, events take place that change her life forever.
Aspiring comic Rupert Pupkin attempts to achieve success in show business by stalking his idol, a late night talk-show host who craves his own privacy.
Shipped off to a Romanian orphanage to finish his sentence, a British criminal finds romance but also discovers corruption inside the facility.
A career criminal who has been deformed since birth is given a new face by a kindly doctor and paroled from prison. It appears that he has gone straight, but he is really planning his revenge on the man who killed his mentor and sent him to prison.
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.
After being released from a mental hospital, a troubled young man tracks down an actress he once had sex with and forces her into captivity, determined to make her part of his life.
Now serving a life sentence for murder, James "Animal" Allen returns to fighting for cash in order to help his troubled son on the outside. However, with his newfound fame as a fighter, Animal uncovers a jailhouse conspiracy that threatens to cause racial tensions to explode.
When straight arrow FBI agent Roy Clayton heads up the investigation into a dangerous international conspiracy, all clues seem to lead back to former U.S. Special Operations officer Samir Horn.
A young female prison guard finds out that her first assignment is to San Quentin, one of the toughest prisons in the country.
During his 18 years in Folsom Prison, street-gang leader Santana rules over all the drug-and-murder activities behind bars. Upon his release, Santana goes back to his old neighborhood, intending to lead a peaceful, crime-free life. But his old gang buddies force him back into his old habits.
When Thomas Archer's happy and successful life is all but ruined following a horrific attack he is presented with a perfect opportunity to exact physical revenge upon the man who caused all his grief. However the immediate consequences of his actions and in-actions are much more complicated than he imagined.