Movie: American Jail

  • HomePage

  • Overview

    In this deeply personal film, director Roger Ross Williams sets out on a journey to understand the complex forces of racism and greed currently at work in America's prison system.

  • Release Date

    2018-07-01

  • Average

    5

  • Rating:

    2.5 starts
  • Tagline

  • Genres

  • Languages:

    English
  • Keywords

Recommendations Movies

Re-Elected
69%

Re-Elected(en)

2020-07-04

Friends battle former U.S. presidents when they come back from the dead as zombies on the Fourth of July.

Re-Cut
66%

Re-Cut(en)

2010-01-04

When twin girls are found dead in their family’s barn, reality star turned TV-reporter Meredith Phillips and her de-facto camera crew are dispatched to rural Wisconsin to investigate the gruesome deaths. In their relentless drive to break the story, the reporters become entangled in a deadly mystery and uncover the small town’s shocking secret. Edited together from the crew’s multiple cameras, the film documents their struggle to survive the most terrifying night of their lives and becomes the only evidence of a crime too horrific to imagine.

Strange Object
60%

Strange Object(en)

2020-10-07

An archival investigation into the imperial image-making of the RAF ‘Z Unit’, which determined the destruction of human, animal and cultural life across Somaliland, as well as Africa and Asia.

Two Evil Eyes
61%

Two Evil Eyes(en)

1990-01-25

A duo of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations about a greedy wife's attempt to embezzle her dying husband's fortune, and a sleazy reporter's adoption of a strange black cat.

Head Over Heels 2
63%

Head Over Heels 2(pt)

2012-12-28

Alice owns a network of sex shops and workaholic who, in trying to reconcile the harsh routine of work and family life, suffers nervous breakdown, she is forced by her husband to go to spa. Precisely at this time, appears unique opportunity to expand its business in New York. Using fun gimmicks, risks his health, leaves spa party there with family to ride, but actually in order to facilitate their professional interests. In trying to reconcile the agendas, engage in hilarious situations and mistakes that culminate in the possible separation of the couple.

Face to Face
72%

Face to Face(sv)

1976-04-05

Two psychiatrists' marriage is tested when one suffers a mental breakdown.

The Tailor of Panama
60%

The Tailor of Panama(en)

2001-02-11

A British spy is banished to Panama after having an affair with an ambassador's mistress. Once there he makes connection with a local tailor with a nefarious past and connections to all of the top political and gangster figures in Panama. The tailor also has a wife, who works for the Panamanian president and a huge debt. The mission is to learn what the President intends to do with the Canal.

Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill
54%

Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill(en)

2022-06-06

In a night of killer comedy, Bill Burr hosts a showcase of his most raucous stand-up comic pals as they riff on everything from COVID to Michael Jackson.

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum
78%

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum(ja)

1939-10-13

In late 19th century Tokyo, Kikunosuke Onoue, the adopted son of a legendary actor, himself an actor specializing in female roles, discovers that he is only praised for his acting due to his status as his father's heir. Devastated by this, he turns to Otoku, a servant of his family, for comfort, and they fall in love. Kikunosuke becomes determined to leave home and develop as an actor on his own merits, and Otoku faithfully follows him.

Something Wild
66%

Something Wild(en)

1986-11-07

A free-spirited woman "kidnaps" a yuppie for a weekend of adventure. But the fun quickly takes a dangerous turn when her ex-con husband shows up.

You Are Not Alone
74%

You Are Not Alone(da)

1978-02-23

Young teenager Bo is too sensitive for the hothouse atmosphere of a boarding school run by a cold, unfeeling would-be man of the cloth. Lonely and scared, he finds a soulmate in the headmaster's son Kim with whom he forms a bond of friendship... that slowly grows into something more.

Gambit
70%

Gambit(en)

1966-12-16

Harry Dean is a career burglar set on stealing a piece of priceless art from the world's wealthiest man, Mr. Shahbandar. With the help of exotic showgirl Nicole Chang, he concocts the perfect scheme for how the robbery should go and lays it out point by point. However, when the team tries to execute the plan, perfection and reality don't quite match up, and Harry's vision begins to unravel in this twisty tale of a heist gone wrong.

Tom and Jerry: Spy Quest
60%

Tom and Jerry: Spy Quest(en)

2015-06-09

Two groups of classic cartoon characters come together in this fun-filled crossover with the popular action-adventure series Jonny Quest. Fans of all ages won't want to miss this heart-stopping romp as Tom and Jerry join Jonny Quest and his pal Hadji and embark on a dangerous spy mission in order to save the world.

Panda! Go Panda!
77%

Panda! Go Panda!(ja)

1972-12-17

Cheerful Mimiko has a wonderfully strange family—a Panda for her Papa; and his son Panny, calls her Mom! When Panny follows Mimiko to school, he must pretend to be a teddy bear so Mimiko won't get into trouble. Despite his efforts to behave, Panny causes trouble in school and now the school is after Panny! Then, Panny makes a new friend, Tiny, a baby tiger who's wandered off from the circus.

Phas Gaye Re Obama
72%

Phas Gaye Re Obama(hi)

2010-11-01

Om, a debt-ridden NRI, wants to sell his ancestral property to pay his debts, but things turn awry when he is kidnapped by gangsters who believe him to be a rich target.

Summer Interlude
74%

Summer Interlude(sv)

1951-10-01

During a brief summer vacation, a lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years earlier.

Isle of Flowers
81%

Isle of Flowers(pt)

1989-09-06

A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. But it doesn’t end there: Isle of Flowers follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear.

On Body and Soul
72%

On Body and Soul(hu)

2017-03-02

Two introverted people find out by pure chance that they share the same dream every night. They are puzzled, incredulous, a bit frightened. As they hesitantly accept this strange coincidence, they try to recreate in broad daylight what happens in their dream.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
61%

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done(en)

2010-07-08

Brad has committed murder and barricaded himself inside his house. With the help of his friends and neighbours, the cops piece together the strange tale of how this nice young man arrived at such a dark place.

The Pass
64%

The Pass(en)

2016-03-16

The night before their debut game, two professional soccer players share a kiss. In a sporting world where image is everything, this surprising ‘pass’ sets the men up for a contrasting decade of fame and failure, full of secrets and denial.

Similar Movies

Land Without Bread
71%

Land Without Bread(es)

1933-12-01

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time.

Megacities
65%

Megacities(en)

1998-08-12

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.

Le Prince charmant est toujours blanc
0%

Le Prince charmant est toujours blanc(fr)

2001-01-01

The pupils of about fifteen secondary schools in the suburbs of Paris react to the projection of two short films taken from the series "No More Lies ! 12 perspectives on everyday racism". Their comments, questions and reactions are of course focused on the subject of racism, but they also take a stand about what it means to have two cultural identities. Is it enough to be born in France in order to feel French ? What is their vision of a society obsessed with the idea of integration? What do they expect of the future ? With their questions and their protests, they often put their finger on the heart of the issues at stake. Beyond fiction, we discover their reality...

Journey into Gaza
84%

Journey into Gaza(it)

2024-11-06

“In Gaza you have to get there in the evening, in spring, lock yourself in your room and from there listen to the sounds coming in through the open window.... It's 2018. I am 25 years old and a foreign traveler. I meet young Palestinians my age..”

Les Cartoons bannis
90%

Les Cartoons bannis(fr)

2022-11-29

The Salt Mines
60%

The Salt Mines(en)

1990-10-01

Explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the Sanitation Department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as "The Salt Mines".

Behind the Burning Cross: Racism USA
0%

Behind the Burning Cross: Racism USA(en)

1991-01-01

A key overview of twentieth-century American fascism and antifascism produced in 1991 by the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee.

Be Water
67%

Be Water(en)

2020-01-25

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.

Coded Bias
69%

Coded Bias(en)

2020-11-11

Exploring the fallout of MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini's startling discovery that facial recognition does not see dark-skinned faces accurately, and her journey to push for the first-ever legislation in the U.S. to govern against bias in the algorithms that impact us all.

Speakers for the Dead
0%

Speakers for the Dead(en)

2000-01-01

A film about small Ontario town's struggle to restore a desecrated African-Canadian cemetery and the resulting turmoil over it.

This Temporal World
0%

This Temporal World(en)

2022-02-11

A haunting story of the FBI's dark hand in American life. In 2015, Khalil Abu-Rayyan was just a young Muslim man in Detroit, Michigan: to get by, he delivered food for his family's pizzeria. Depressed and lonely, Khalil found solace in smoking weed and looking at extremist material online. Then two young women started messaging him, and he fell in love. But one of them suggested he start doing increasingly violent things. Nothing was as it seemed. And Khalil's life would never be the same. A documentary by Garret Harkawik for the Gravel Institute.

Oachkatzlschwoaf
0%

Oachkatzlschwoaf(en)

Words are loaded with meaning. Certain ones conjure joyful memories and others remind us of less happy times. For Nenda Neururer, the word 'oachkatzlschwoaf' invokes a range of emotions. The German word is very hard to pronounce and is synonymous with the Austrian state of Tyrol where locals tease outsiders by asking them to pronounce it. Despite growing up in Tyrol, Nenda Neururer often felt like an outsider when confronted with this word. But when she moved to London she grew nostalgic for it and it became her little secret. Found in Translation is a series made as part of the In The Mix project, in partnership with BBC Studios TalentWorks, Black Creators Matter and the Barbican.

Retrato em Preto e Branco
80%

Retrato em Preto e Branco(pt)

1992-01-01

The documentary is structured as a video letter from a black man denouncing the persistence of racism in Brazilian society and media, a century after the official end of slavery. Thus, it presents the contradictions between two images of racial relations in Brazil: the image disseminated abroad, which spreads the myth of racial democracy, and the internal image, presented in textbooks and on television, in which negative stereotypes are perpetuated against the black population.

Briser le code
0%

Briser le code(fr)

2020-01-29

Köyhät, nöyrät ja häpeämättömät
0%

Köyhät, nöyrät ja häpeämättömät(fi)

1999-11-04

Documentary film about four families in Pori, Finland, all struggling with unemployment and poverty.

Negra
0%

Negra(en)

2020-03-01

I was about seven years old the first time someone called me \"black\" on the street. I turned around to see who they were talking to, until I realized they were talking to me.

Fish Story
20%

Fish Story(cn)

2013-11-16

J and Jacky are good friends who attend the same school. J is from a single-parent family, and will be taken care by Jacky’s family whenever his mother has to return to Mainland to renew her visa; such kind of story is not an isolated case. These families have been uprooted for a “better future” in Hong Kong, but is this “future” that the children really long to have? A Chinese saying: “How does one understand the joy of fish, if one is not a fish?” Will the adults really understand what the children want?

Racist Trees
0%

Racist Trees(en)

2022-11-09

Can a tree be racist? A few years ago, debate on this issue reached as far as Fox News. The focus was a row of tamarisk trees along a huge golf course in Palm Springs, which screened off the neighborhood of Crossley Tract. This is a historically Black neighborhood, named after its founder Lawrence Crossley, who was one of the first Black residents to settle in the largely white tourist paradise, established on indigenous land over a century ago.

Man on Wire
74%

Man on Wire(en)

2008-08-01

On August 7th 1974, French tightrope walker Philippe Petit stepped out on a high wire, illegally rigged between New York's World Trade Center twin towers, then the world's tallest buildings. After nearly an hour of performing on the wire, 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan, he was arrested. This fun and spellbinding documentary chronicles Philippe Petit's "highest" achievement.

Robbie Lyle: Football Fans Under Their Skin
100%

Robbie Lyle: Football Fans Under Their Skin(en)

2020-03-30

A look at the rise of racism in modern football