Movies Similar to Ghosts of Attica

Tehachapi(2024)

French visual artist-director JR (co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary FACES PLACES with the legendary Agnès Varda) situates his latest social-art intervention in a Southern Californian supermax prison, where he has imagined an enormously ambitious collaboration with the facility’s inmates.

Out of State(2017)

Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.

Rikers(2016)

This film from Bill Moyers is the first documentary to focus exclusively on people formerly detained in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island Jail. They tell their compelling stories direct to the camera, revealing the violent arc of the Rikers experience – from the trauma of entry to extortion and control by inmates, to oppressive corrections officers, violence and solitary confinement.

Turned Out: Sexual Assault Behind Bars(2004)

A look beyond the shock and inhumanity of prison rape to the intricate social hierarchy that keeps it alive. A filmmaker goes deep inside Alabama's infamous Limestone penitentiary to uncover the long-term causes and consequences of prison rape. With a startling lack of inhibition, five inmates reveal the workings of an elaborate inner society.

Serving Life(2011)

SERVING LIFE documents an extraordinary hospice program where hardened criminals care for dying fellow inmates. Narrated and executive produced by Academy Award®-winner Forest Whitaker, the film takes viewers inside Louisiana's maximum security prison at Angola, where the average sentence is more than 90 years.

Attica(2021)

Follows the largest prison uprising in US history, conducting dozens of new interviews with inmates, journalists, and other witnesses.

Behind Our Walls(2023)

In America, the prison system has become a place of retribution, not restoration. Inmates are often treated as sub-human, and often find themselves feeling hopeless. But a small midwest college decides to give inmates an opportunity to earn a bachelor's degree. Experience the journey of the resilient inmates as they fight incredible odds to change their lives – and change the system.

The Prison Within(2020)

Survivors of violent crimes and prisoners incarcerated for murder connect to undergo astonishing transformations, liberating themselves from the debilitating constraints of trauma, and shattering preconceptions of "us and them."

My Marlboro City(2011)

Brindisi, Italy: a focal point in cigarette smuggling. The director returns to her hometown to see what's left of the past and what lies in store for the future.

Strangeways: Britain's Toughest Prison Riot(2015)

Twenty-five years after the biggest riot in British penal history, this film brings together the ringleaders of the trouble with the prison guards they battled with over three weeks of anarchy that brought Strangeways to its knees. For the first time, these events are told through unparalleled access to the people at the heart of the riot - ex-inmates, prison officers and the governor himself - createing a compelling story of the struggle for power between the authorities and the hardcore prisoners who ultimately took their protest onto the prison roof. The stand-off that followed is documented until the final moments, when the siege was ended in a dramatic takedown in front of rolling news cameras.

Behind Bars(2001)

Documentary about the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary Riots in which 33 inmates were killed.

Women Behind Bars with Trevor McDonald(2013)

Trevor McDonald goes to Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana to speak with some of the women that live there.

El Comité(2006)

A documentary chronicle of the prisoners’ takeover of the Garcia Moreno Penitentiary in Quito, Ecuador. The prisoners find they suddenly have a voice after they take 360 people hostage, and a pattern of abuse and corruption by the guards toward the prisoners becomes clear after lengthy negotiations.

The Feminist on Cellblock Y(2018)

A convicted felon builds a feminist movement from behind bars at an all-male prison in Soledad, California.

45 Days In Harbar(2019)

The plastic artist Cesar Arechiga recreates his living room and studio in the maximum-security prison of Puente Grande, Jalisco, in which fifteen inmates learn about paper production, clay modeling, sculpting and painting. Through this artistic interaction, they share their personal experiences of how they became involved with the world of drug trafficking.

La fuga(2021)

The internal journey of eight men, who, through a theater workshop, go through the different prisons they inhabit. Practicing the art of seeing themselves, in Boal's words, this group of men reflects on their masculinity as a representation to hide their true strength: their vulnerability.

2018 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Documentary(2018)

The year’s most spectacular Documentary short films.

God and Devil on Top of the Wall(2006)

Imagine a prison with some ten thousand prisoners, many of them dangerous and, to control them, only a few unarmed employees. Small in number, these employees work in shifts. They are almost prisoners themselves, in a routine of tension, but also of humor and emotion. This prison was all too real. While it was in existence, the Carandiru was the largest prison in Latin America, administered by a reduced number of employees. The documentary shows, from the point of view of these few employees, holding the keys, how the prison operated: the delicate balance in the relationship with the prisoners, affinity among employees, moments of tension and, even, of happiness. These are stories told by former employees, among them, Dr. Dráuzio Varella, author of the book Estação Carandiru. These are the secrets of a place that no longer exists.

À double tour(1993)

Chasing Bonnie & Clyde(2015)

'Don't build prisons, they cost too much!' In this era of Great Recession, the conservative and tough-on-crime State of Texas takes an unprecedented path by becoming a social justice leader with programs that rehabilitate offenders. Looks like rape, abuse and death are no longer parts of the solution for modern-day Bonnie and Clyde...