Top 250 Movies Like Behind Bars

Get ready for a howling good time as an all new assortment of irresistible animal heroes are unleashed in this great family tail! In an unlikely alliance, the outrageous Waddlesworth - a parrot who thinks he's a Rottweiler - teams up with Oddball - an un-marked Dalmatian puppy eager to earn her spots! Together they embark on a laugh-packed quest to outwit the ever-scheming Cruella De Vil.

This fact-based prison drama tells the tale of a band of prisoners living in the innovative 2,600-acre prison at Chino, California. The place takes a humanistic approach to reform and there are no armed guards, no lockups and no uniforms. The underlying philosophy is that if these things are not there, the prisoners will not want to escape, and will instead accept their punishment. A new inmate arrives and soon accustoms himself to the new idea. The story includes the Oscar nominated song Unchained Melody.

Daily life at men and women's prison units where baseball and the marching band are serious business. Two prisoners escape in order to help paroled Steve from being blackmailed by his girlfriend's ex-partner-in-crime.

Dan (Don Ross) returns to L.A. having fought in the Korean War. He meets with Frank (Chuck Connors) the brother of Tommy who was one of the men killed under Dan’s command. Tommy wasn't happy at being passed over for promotion and wrote to his brother to say that if he died Dan would be to blame. Frank explains to Dan that his heart condition means he can no longer go big game hunting and makes him a lucrative offer to have a ‘hunt’ in L.A. with both men armed only with camera guns. Unbeknown to Dan, Frank replaces his camera round with a live bullet and plans to kill him in revenge for his brother’s death. The two men engage in a two day game of cat and mouse which is complicated by the involvement of Tommy’s wife and a mix up at a sports shop. As the men finally get each other in their sights who will win and who will die?

Carol Jeffries is a naive American woman staying in the Philippines. She is given ten years in prison after being set up by her drug-dealer boyfriend, Rudy. She endures the harsh conditions, sadistic head matron and attempts on her life, then convinces her cell-mates to try to escape with her through the jungle, in spite of the knowledge that ruthless trackers will be sent out after them.

A crusading psychiatrist battles a sadistic female warden to improve conditions at a women's prison.

After having been stood up at his own wedding, a young man vows that he will have nothing more to ever do with women. However, he soon discovers that he has been left a fortune--on condition that he gets married. Deciding that being rich and married would be preferable to being broke and single, he goes in search of a wife, but things don't turn out quite the way he planned.

A 7-year old boy with diabetes is kidnapped by his estranged ex-con father, who doesn't know about his son's medical condition and that he will need insulin injections. Meanwhile the police search for the missing boy.

Two UCLA coeds have engine trouble in small Southern town. When they spurn the local sheriff's advances he arranges for them to be taken to the women's prison on trivial charges (the judge is a cousin), where they must endure atrocities at the hands of the administrators of the prison and the prison guards.

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. The working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with their "signing on" for unemployment benefits. Some coworkers help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, who's struggling to be a professional singer.

A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.

A prisoner about to be pardoned puts it off until he can put on one last variety show for his fellow inmates.

The first film to fully expose the humanitarian crisis of North Korea, this stylish, deeply moving documentary is centered around astonishing interviews with survivors of North Korea's vast and largely hidden prison camps, and interspersed with archival footage of North Korean propoganda films and original art performances.

In 1971, a warden at Attica Penitentiary is caught up in a hostage crisis when inmates take over the prison to demand better living conditions.

A coming-of-(old)-age story about Peter Anton, an elderly "outsider" artist living in isolated and crippling conditions whose world changes when two filmmakers discover his work and storied past. Shot over eight years, ALMOST THERE documents Anton's first major exhibition and how the controversy it generates forces him to leave his childhood home. Each layer revealed reflects on the intersections of social norms, elder care, and artistic expression.

Convicted of manslaughter for a drunken driving accident, Kent Marlowe is sent to prison, where he meets vicious incarcerated figures who are planning an escape from the brutal conditions.

Duke Berne, former big shot but now a three-time loser, fears returning to crime because a fourth conviction will mean a life sentence. Finally, haunted by his past and goaded by his cohorts, he joins in planning an armoured car robbery.

In the midst of a searing Florida heat wave, a woman convinces her lover, a small-town lawyer, to murder her rich husband.

The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.

A young woman is convicted on drug offenses and sent to a women's penitentiary run by a repressed and oppressive female warden. When the prison's sadistic doctor begins conducting illegal "therapeutic" experiments on the inmates, the ladies plot their revenge.

Giorgio believes that wearing the right “look” is the means to rise above one’s condition and shoplifting is the only way he knows. Giorgio is apprehended, goes to jail and in order to get out he agrees to a rehabilitation program with Chanel Borden, a young badly dressed New York heiress, arrogant about her wealth and breeding and obsessed about getting her PHD. Sparks fly as they reluctantly fall for each other and he discovers the designer buried within.

When psychologist Kate Kovic is asked to evaluate the sanity of a young girl on death row who is exhibiting signs of multiple personality disorder, she has only seven days before the scheduled execution to determine whether the girl is faking her condition to avoid the death penalty or if her personalities are in fact the missing clue to the unsolved murders of The Toyman Killer.

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

Set in San Tiburon, the world's most dangerous maximum-security penitentiary and home to the world's most treacherous superpowered criminals, where tensions among the inmates and staff heighten, leading to anarchy that engulfs the prison and order is turned upside down.

Wealthy Cynthia is in love with not-so-wealthy Roger, who is married to Marcia. The threesome is terribly modern about the situation, and Marcia will gladly divorce Roger if Cynthia agrees to a financial settlement. But Cynthia's wealth is in jeopardy because her trust fund will expire if she is not married by a certain date. To satisfy that condition, Cynthia arranges to marry Hagon Derk, who is condemned to die for a crime he didn't commit. She pays him so he can provide for his little sister. But at the last minute, Derk is freed when the true criminal is discovered. Expecting to be a rich widow, Cynthia finds herself married to a man she doesn't know and doesn't want to.

A football halfback has a heart condition, a nagging wife and a team secretary who loves him.

Johnny, the loyal number two of a powerful sociopathic crime boss, leads other members of a small town mob scrambling to keep their business alive while trying to find the leak to the police.

A man must survive a prison where hardened criminals battle to the death for the warden's entertainment.

The film documents, in an often dramatic and humorous fashion, Gray's investigations into alternative medicine for an eye condition (Macular pucker) he had developed.

Clive Owen stars as a prison inmate who goes into an experimental "open" prison where the inmates walk around freely and get job training for their impending releases. While there, he discovers he has a talent for growing flowers. His talent is recognized by a gardening guru who encourages him and four other inmates to enter a national gardening competition

Forced to work under slave-like conditions in a "prison for profit" program, the inmates of a mostly-African-American female prison, Whitehead Correctional, try to take over the institution. At the core of the story is Frances, who finds herself in prison after being falsely convicted of murder, and who is told that her baby has been murdered, sparking her to lead her fellow inmates in the protest

After the whole North of the Equator freezes below zero, a group of people in Los Angeles risk their lives while trying to "escape" from the city's hostile conditions, in order to take a ship to a hotter place on Earth.

This is the story of the internal struggle between a man's Brain—a pragmatic protector who calculates his every move, and his Heart—a free-spirited adventurer who wants to let loose.

In 1966, Dieter Dengler was shot down over Laos, captured, and, down to 85 pounds, escaped. Barefoot, surviving monsoons, leeches, and machete-wielding villagers, he was rescued. Now, near 60, living on Mt. Tamalpais, Dengler tells his story: a German lad surviving Allied bombings in World War II, postwar poverty, apprenticed to a smith, beaten regularly. At 18, he emigrates and peels potatoes in the U.S. Air Force. He leaves for California and college, then enlistment in the Navy to learn to fly. A quiet man of sorrows tells his story: war, capture, harrowing conditions, escape, and miraculous rescue. Where did he find the strength; how does he now live with his memories?

Drama about a 12-year-old boy who fantasises about having enough money to be able to cure his grandmother's serious heart condition. When he finds himself in a haunted house, the mysterious owner 'grants' him one wish - the Midas touch. The boy soon learns that it is more of a curse than a blessing when everything he touches turns into gold.

Two pals embark on a road trip full of funny pranks that pull real people into mayhem.

Eddie is a con artist. When he's framed and comes before a judge, he hopes to get off the hook by climbing insanity—but instead ends up in a hospital for a mental assessment. That night, a storm causes a power failure and, in the ensuing chaos, Eddie is mistaken for a doctor and suddenly finds himself in charge of the hospital.

The film is a stark and graphic portrayal of the conditions that existed at the State Prison for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. TITICUT FOLLIES documents the various ways the inmates are treated by the guards, social workers and psychiatrists.

After the events of Pitch Black, a contractor is hired to locate Riddick, dead or alive. He reviews available information on him and the events of Pitch Black. Terrified, he hires a female cyberpunk merc to do the job for him.

Cock Robin is the swaggering ballyhoo man of a Hungarian sideshow known as the Palace of Illusions. The highlight of the show is a reenactment of Salome's dance of the seven veils, replete with the beheading of Jokanaan. The performer portraying Salome is in love with Cock Robin. Jealous, sinister The Greek is determined to eliminate that competition.

After a boy kills his father he must turn to his frinds to cover his tracks with tests their loyality and friendship.

With their flair for engaging storytelling and a renowned love and respect for literature and the arts, the French Boys have something for everyone. Featuring five captivating stories set among rolling hills, village squares and the rooftops of Paris - the birthplace of cinema has never looked this inviting. The short films are: Beauty Boys (2020); Freed [Baltringue] (2019); So Long, Paris! (2020); Sunset Cemetery [Extérieur crépuscule] (2020); Vincent Before Noon [Vincent avant midi] (2019).

An actor plots "the perfect crime" by confessing to murders he didn't commit.

San Quentin's new warden crusades for reform and for a framed inmate who loves a nurse.

A crime boss tries to cause a riot and prison break while behind bars.

Prison guard falls in love with inmate. She wants him to let her escape.

Roseanna is dying of a heart condition, and all she wants is to be buried next to her daughter, in a cemetery that is getting full fast. The cemetery can't expand because Capestro, the man who owns the land next to the cemetery, won't sell. While Marcello is doing good deeds to make sure no one dies, Roseanna thinks of Marcello's future.

When the multiple murderer Cain is released from prison after 18 years, he wants to settle down as a rancher and never touch a gun again. But his former life haunts him; not only that nobody wants to give him a job, some villains also want to pay him back. So he has to accept the offer of showman Ruffalo to perform as "Killer Cain" in his traveling shooting show. However after 18 years without practice even Ruffalo's young assistant Billy shoots better than Cain.

A jolly, family-oriented railroad superintendent tries to get his act together when his love for the bottle starts to alienate him from his wife and oldest daughter. His younger daughter, however, still remains unflinchingly loyal to him, and they share many fun misadventures over the course of the movie.

Something diabolical is taking place on the set of "The Task" a new reality show in which players complete terrifying missions within the confines of an abandoned prison hoping to win a hefty cash prize. As six young students explore their new environment, malicious spirits make their presence known in the most gruesome ways imaginable, Unable to escape the labyrinthine prison, the contestants become unwitting pawns caught at the centre of a blood-soaked night of terror.

When teenage students kidnap Jan Hale they do not mean her any real harm - they just want enough ransom money from her husband Mark to afford a life of luxury. However, when they leave Jan handcuffed to the steering wheel of their car in the freezing cold, they are not aware that she suffers from a potentially fatal heart condition. Mark is racing against time as he and the police play a game of cat and mouse with the kidnappers, aware that he may never see his wife alive again.

In this high-flying mystery set aboard a cross-country flight to New York, some of the passengers are kidnappers who are trying to locate a hidden cache of loot. Unfortunately, something goes wrong during the trip and the pilots must land the plane in the Arizona desert during a terrible storm. There all of the passengers and crew find cramped accommodations in a lonely farmhouse where murder, mystery and mayhem occur.

A group of prisoners, led by an armed robber and a gangster, attempt to escape from the infamous Alcatraz Island.

After thirty years in prison, ex-con Ronnie recruits his grandson to exact revenge on Darryl, the cop who put him behind bars. Standing in their way is Ronnie's son, whom Darryl raised.

On the day of his scheduled execution, a convicted serial killer gets a psychiatric evaluation during which he claims he is a demon, and further claims that before their time is over, the psychiatrist will commit three murders of his own.

A paroled convict's efforts to improve conditions at a boys' reform school alarm the school's corrupt warden, who has been embezzling funds from the institution. He hatches a plan to derail the reformed convict's efforts and have him sent back to prison, and part of that scheme involves cracking down hard on the reform school's inmates.

A young girl is framed for a crime she didn't commit and sent to the state penitentiary, which is run by a crooked warden and a corrupt staff. A reporter manages to get herself sent to the prison so she can expose the brutal conditions and prove the girl's innocence.

Notorious hacker Drew Reynolds is captured by the CIA and given a proposition - work for them or spend the rest of his life in prison. Agreeing on the condition that he can form his own team, he puts together a group of "throwaways" - the people deemed expendable and seemingly the worst in the organization.

Antonio owes the Robaldo family a hundred G's, Gray wants revenge on the street gang who mugged him, Jimmy's escaped from prison, and his brother/accomplice David has many serious mental conditions. Detective Brickley is hot on their trail willing to stop them with any means necessary, while a pair of rogue psychiatrists track them to discover the roots of David's condition. It isn't long before the paths of these characters cross with violent and tragic consequences. The result is a shocking and disturbing portrait of human nature at its worst that can only be summed up in one word: Malevolence.

Crusading newspaperman Cliff Roberts masquerades as a prison guard to document inhuman conditions.

To carry out the "robbery of the century", Charles recruits the friends with whom he made the 400 blows. The night of the robbery, they get caught by police, but one of them runs away with the $2 million. Upon their release from prison, the thieves are shocked to learn that they will get their money back on two conditions and, ultimately, they must mostly have changed their ways...

Cynthia Botts is the headmistress of a girls' school who has left a fortune on the condition that no scandal could ever be associated with her name. But scandal, in the form of Sandy McTavish, a romantic sailor and Charlotte Ralston is just around the corner.

In the early 1900s, the legendary Joe Hill emigrates with his brother to the United States. But after a short time, he loses touch with his brother. Joe gets a few jobs but is struck by all the injustice and tragedy going on. He becomes active in the forbidden union IWW, a union for workers without trades. It is forbidden to demonstrate and to speak in public but Joe gets around that by singing his manifests with the Salvation Army. He manages to get more and more people to go on strike with him but he also makes powerful enemies doing that. Finally he gets connected with a murder and during the trial he fires his lawyer and takes upon himself to become his own defender.

A young billionaire of South Asian descent is bound by the conditions set by his beloved, deceased father in order to get married.

After serving three long years in prison, a registered sex offender returns to civilization, only to find an environment that's completely uncivilized. At the top of his list is finding a job — and getting his vindictive girlfriend to put out again.

A wealthy man leaves all his money to his grandson on the condition that he marries within 24 hours. If not the money will go to the boy's father...

Two business partners, John Bennett, Sr. and Robert Forrester, are starting to get nervous when the birthday of Victoria, Forrester's daughter, approaches. A long time ago the two men made an arrangement that they would sign over one third of their company to their oldest children when they turned twenty-one, with the condition they married each other within thirty days....

We follow a young woman named Evie as she struggles to help her sister Tris with an ever-worsening case of depression - a condition that has already marked their family with tragic death.

For the third time, HBO cameras go inside Trenton State Maximum Security Prison--and inside the mind of one of the most prolific killers in U.S. history--in this gripping documentary. Mafia hit man Richard Kuklinski freely admits to killing more than 100 people, but in this special, he speaks with top psychiatrist Dr. Park Dietz in an effort to face the truth about his condition. Filled with more never-before-revealed confessions, it's the most chillingly candid Iceman special yet as it combines often-confrontational interview footage between Kuklinski and Dietz with photos, crime reenactments and home movies that add new layers to this evolving and fascinating story.

A down on his luck young man stumbles into a gang of robbers who all get landed in prison. Will he be reformed, or is he ensnared into a life of crime?

A shocking exposé of the deplorable conditions and abuses from the Willowbrook State School for children with intellectual disabilities.

Set in a pawnshop, this cinéma vérité masterpiece tells the story of the unlikely friendship between a cynic pawnbroker and his sweet but psychopathic assistant. "Broke" is a complex, powerful cinéma vérité account of day-to-day life in a pawnshop. The documentary gives us an intimate glimpse into a world most of us luckily do not have to know. Although often as funny and surprising as a sitcom, it bluntly points to the hardships and desperation of the marginalized. As the pawnbroker states: "You don't see it in your rarefied living conditions, you don't see how the poor people live, unless you come here. Tragic, some of it."

Documentary in which Keith Allen teams up with a group of young Tourette's Syndrome sufferers and takes them on a trip to the French hospital where the condition was first diagnosed to find out more about it. First, though, there is the matter of getting through customs on a decrepit red double decker with a gang of kids shouting 'Al Queda' and 'I've Got A Bomb'.

Meet amazing 35-year-old Kenny Easterday, whose body ends at his waist. An amputee since he was only an infant, Kenny has never let his condition stop him from doing anything -- and as he approaches middle age, his deepest desire is to father a child.

Dylan Burke attempts to move on from his former life as a criminal with his true love Maria. He soon realizes that his past will continue to haunt him, when he learns the new local prison warden, Daniel Calvin, has not forgiven him for an old crime.

Mickey Almon is a sports star turned reporter covering the athletics in Moscow. Framed by the KGB and forced to confess that he was spying for America, he is sentenced to detention in a Gulag, a barbaric prison camp in the wilds of Siberia. Unable to prove his innocence, Mickey must either put up with the inhuman conditions or engineer an escape.

Jon and Louise, a couple living in a leaky apartment, struggle with their relationship and material conditions. Louise is a server who is the sole income provider while Jon studies Marx's Capital. Beginning to lose her way, Louise cheats on Jon.

A young Filipina searches for the missing links between her strange bleeding condition and her faraway mother's healing powers.

A son takes care of his father with a deteriorating mental condition where he believes he's a wild animal.

Pediatrician by day, single mom by night, SARAH invites her estranged husband, PETE, back to their suburban home for the Holidays on one condition: he must reconcile with their daughters before she agrees to finalize a trial separation with divorce.

The true story of Dwight Worker, an American who was caught smuggling drugs in Mexico, and sentenced to fortress-like Lecumberri prison where he endured brutal conditions. With the help of his wife, Barbara, he escaped the prison by disguising himself as a woman. He was the first prisoner to escape Lecumberri since Pancho Villa.

A woman, her lover and her best friend cope with the tragedy of her misdiagnosed medical condition.

An estranged father and son are paroled from the same maximum-security prison with one unusual condition, they must become roommates. Their severed bonds are strained as the father battles to keep his son free from the lures of street life.

Hitparkut (Dissolution) combines an almost surreal fairy-tale energy with brutal black and white realism to explore the condition of violence which permeates contemporary Israeli society. Shot is Yafo (the predominantly Arab area of Tel Aviv), the movie follows the moral collapse and first glimmer of redemption, of a young, morose Israeli Jew, played by Israeli actor Didi Fire

A young woman was left mentally disabled after a car crash twenty years previously, a condition which her mother has never come to accept. Thus she favors her other "normal" daughter and basically tolerates the other daughter's existence. It also doesn't help that her husband also has some mental disabilities. As the family slowly divides, the older daughter's unconditional love rises.

In 1910, women working in the silk industry in Bursa, protest against the working conditions. They go on strike.

Story about Simon, a gay werewolf, who must come to terms with his condition in order to start dating again, or else condemn himself to a life alone.

A reporter on a visit to his hometown hears of dangerous conditions at the local coal mine, and proceeds to investigate.

A soft-headed driver is recruited by a racketeer who thinks he's just the kind of mug he could put to good use...

Follow the Faction Collective as they return to their homes around the world to show us how they get it done on home turf. From Europe to the US and back again – via old playgrounds, new challenges, secret spots and favourite lines – This Is Home chronicles what it means to be a freeskier today: where the conditions are what you make of them, and the search for that perfect ride starts in your own backyard.

A churchgoing woman makes a heinous deal with the Devil in order to save her soul.

Medical drama about a killer virus on the loose in Los Angeles.

A disillusioned young woman becomes a serial killer who targets wealthy land-owners, and a brilliant detective must use his unusual neurological condition to track her down.

Thriller/Suspense about a small family on their 10th anniversary. The husband, Joel Yates, has a newly discovered heart condition along to go with his drinking problem. Joel ignores the heart medication warning label along with a social media comment to re-post a young girls kidnapping/murder. Joel has a night of figments and nightmares due to ignoring the "Warning Label" that he will never forget.

In this supernatural horror film, Carrie Baldwin is freed from prison under the conditions of a work-release program in Reaptown, Nevada. As she struggles to find her missing sister while working the night shift as a security guard for the Reaptown Railway Museum, Carrie soon finds herself in the presence of evil. Could the Railway hold the clues to her sister's mysterious disappearance?

Out-of-control teens across America were sent to a therapy camp in the harsh Utah desert. The conditions were brutal, but the staff were even worse.

When a courageous young woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal involuntary sterilizations in California’s women’s prison system, they take to the courtroom to wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues on the outside, they uncover a series of statewide crimes - from dangerously inadequate health care to sexual assault to coercive sterilizations - primarily targeting women of color. But no one believes them. This shocking legal drama captured over seven years features extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated women, demanding our attention to a shameful and ongoing legacy of eugenics and reproductive injustice in the United States.

Rey Scott received an Honorary Academy Award for this documentary "For his extraordinary achievement in producing Kukan, the film record of China's struggle, including its photography with a 16mm camera under the most difficult and dangerous conditions."

Produced by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the film used actors to recreate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and compare working conditions of the early 20th century to that of the 1950s.