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.
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.
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 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.
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.
The vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, knowing he's being watched and followed, is one day arrested and put into solitary confinement.
Army Captain Edward Hall returns to the U.S. after two years in a prison camp in the Korean War. In the camp, he was brainwashed and helped the Chinese convince the other prisoners that they were fighting an unjust war. When he comes back he is charged for collaboration with the enemy. Where does loyalty end in a prison camp, when the camp is a living hell?
Members of a teenage gang are sent to the State Reformatory, presided over by the callous Thompson. Soon Patsy Gargan, a former gangster appointed Deputy Commissioner, arrives and takes over the administration to run the place on radical principles. Thompson needs a quick way to discredit him.
The main character of the film writes a diary. For over 20 years he has lived in a bunker and has not ventured outside. His only companions are ghosts of the past. He tries to find an explanation for the fateful course of events, which has destroyed the whole earth. The feeling of guilt does not leave him, as he believes that he could have prevented the apocalypse and the death of his beloved.
A solitary dish washing robot living out his life in the back room of a restaurant is enlightened to the world that exists beyond his four walls, with the help of a small friend he breaks free of confinement to pursue his dream of exploration.
Anika Price's LCAD Experimental Animation Senior thesis film.
A lonely woman finds companionship during self-isolation after the loss of her partner.
A solitary individual finds solace in remaining within the confines of his residence, contending with the challenges of depression and alcohol dependency.
On the first night of spring, Isaac León, a 28-year-old widower, dreams to be with his late fiancé, Natasia Belmonté, once again years after her disappearance. As the night progresses, visions of Natasia begin to mirror that of his dreams, which leads him to question reality as he knows it. Unable to distinguish his dreams from reality, he sets off on an inevitable quest to find out if she is back after all these years or simply a figment of his imagination.
A short movie about moving on.
Despite vocal objections from Warden Blakely, prison psychologist Diana Purlow journeys deep inside the mind of serial killer Jesse Mowat in a desperate attempt to reveal the source of his psychotic tendencies.
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.
Painful memories awaken a nameless man in a barren apartment. In a haze of remorse and bad dreams his gaze tumbles through the cold room. Traces of a former life cast his mind down a spiral of repressed memories. The faded photographs do not bring him solace. A dark entity on the other side of the picture frame has occupied the space where his reflection used to be. It leads him into an abyss with no means of escape: the depths of his own consciousness. He is seeking answers, why fate has led him into a realm of desolation. But the further he dives into his own past, the more he realizes that he has been living a lie.
A countdown begins as dark sands of an hourglass fall. Two men in separate, dimly lit rooms are haunted by disturbing visions. A mysterious creature will soon join them.
For decades, the United States has been fixated on incarceration, building prisons and locking up more and more people. But at what cost, and has it really made a difference? FRONTLINE goes to the epicenter of the raging debate about incarceration in America, focusing on the controversial practice of solitary confinement and on new efforts to reduce the prison population, as officials are rethinking what to do with criminals.