Against the WallMovies like Against the Wall
- Key Features:
- Prison, Hostage situation, Social commentary, Systemic injustice, Political drama, Based on true events, 1970s, Power dynamics, Violence-moderate, Tension, Ethical dilemma, Leadership, Negotiation, Civil rights, Incarceration, Rebellion, Conflict, Human rights, Social issues
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- History buffs, Social justice advocates, Drama enthusiasts, Political thriller fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Anxiety → Tension → Despair
Against the Wall

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

The story of two men on different sides of a prison riot -- the inmate leading the rebellion and the young guard trapped in the revolt, who poses as a prisoner in a desperate attempt to survive the ordeal.

A police raid in Detroit in 1967 results in one of the largest citizens' uprisings in the history of the United States.

An African American male is imprisoned and placed in solitary confinement after being found guilty of murdering his wife, as he's haunted by internal demons and his dead wife, and pushed to the breaking point by an abusive female guard.

The lawyer is visiting a prison to meet with a violent criminal who has been condemned to death. During the visit, things turn bad, there is a riot where prisoners escape and the criminal escapes taking a lawyer hostage.

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

Inspired by the true events of the infamous 1983 prison breakout of 38 IRA prisoners from HMP Maze, which was to become the biggest prison escape in Europe since World War II.

Having finally secured her first assignment from her family's demolition business, Sam Walczak is sent to supervise the destruction of an apartment house, only to discover a group of tenants still living in the condemned building. One such tenant, Jimmy, tells Sam an urban legend about a serial murderer who used to live in the building and entomb his victims in the walls. What's worse, the dead are believed to still harass the residents to this day.

What started as a simple escort mission will soon turn to chaos as the prisoners of Koh Kla take over the prison grounds. A special task force gets trapped in the prison will have to fight their way out for survival, to protect a key witness.

Copper Jack Stone purposefully orchestrates a bank robbery in order to be thrown into prison with the notorious Russian kingpin Balam. Balam is more than just a mob criminal; he's a very cunning and dangerous lord who controls the police force from behind bars. Balam lives in prison as a cover for his real power, which is King of the city. His cell is a lavish private room built specifically for him, inaccessible to most in the depths of the prison structure. Even the warden fears venturing into his area of the prison. However, even surrounded by his loyal henchmen and guards in his sectioned off fortress, Balam doesn't know Jack is coming for him to avenge his family, who Balam murdered in cold blood. Balam is tough... but Jack is tougher.

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.

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

A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.

Frank Leone is nearing the end of his prison term for a relatively minor crime. Just before he is paroled, however, Warden Drumgoole takes charge. Drumgoole was assigned to a hell-hole prison after his administration was publicly humiliated by Leone, and has now arrived on the scene to ensure that Leone never sees the light of day.

In 2013, in Cairo, a tragic fate brings together several detainees from different political and social backgrounds inside a police truck, during the turmoil that followed the ousting of president Morsi.

When a mysterious brick wall encloses their apartment building overnight, Tim and Olivia must unite with their wary neighbors to get out alive.

What was supposed to be a peaceful protest turned into a violent clash with the police. What followed was one of the most notorious trials in history.

John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.

An American sniper and his spotter engage in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with an Iraqi sniper.

Idealistic young attorney Adam Hall takes on the death row clemency case of his racist grandfather, Sam Cayhall, a former Ku Klux Klan member he has never met.

A slab of food descends down a vertical facility. The residents above eat heartily, leaving those below starving and desperate. A rebellion is imminent.

A court-martialed general rallies together 1200 inmates to rise against the system that put him away.

A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.

An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

A young man becomes convinced that the solution to all his problems is to live in jail, and he will do whatever it takes to get it.

A male prison escapee heads for his hidden loot, electronically attached to a female prisoner.

Boozer, skirt chaser, careless father. You could create your own list of reporter Steve Everett's faults but there's no time. A San Quentin Death Row prisoner is slated to die at midnight – a man Everett has suddenly realized is innocent.

Two police officers struggle to survive when they become trapped beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

In 1992, Mercer is desperately trying to rebuild his life and his relationship with his son amidst the turbulent Los Angeles uprising following the Rodney King verdict. Across town, another father and son put their own strained relationship to the test as they plot a dangerous heist to steal catalytic converters, which contain valuable platinum from the factory where Mercer works. As tensions rise and chaos erupts, both families reach their boiling points when their worlds collide.

Years of carrying out death row executions have taken a toll on prison warden Bernadine Williams. As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill.

The story centers on paroled white supremacist who has just killed a cop, and takes a black family hostage. Within hours of being released from 14 years of solitary confinement in maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison, Garrett Tully is on the run again. When he finds a house off a dirt road and takes a family hostage, he thinks the Aryan Brotherhood has his back–and his kidnap victims are black. The family’s patriarch, Mr. Walker, is a jaded ex-con who hates cops so much he disavowed his own son for becoming one. Seeing a familiar desperation in Tully, Walker refuses to call the authorities for help, causing familial tensions to escalate, and soon grave missteps are made.

A heroic high school teacher leads a band of students trapped in school by violent drug-runners.

20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.

A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.

The secret US abduction of a suspected terrorist from his Middle East homeland leads to a wave of terrorist attacks in New York. An FBI senior agent and his team attempt to locate and decommission the enemy cells, but must also deal with an Army General gone rogue and a female CIA agent of uncertain loyalties.

Terminal Island, New York: 2020. Overcrowding in the US penal system has reached a breaking point. Prisons have been turned over to a monolithic Weyland Corporation, which sees jails full of thugs as an opportunity for televised sport. Adrenalized inmates, a global audience hungry for violence and a spectacular, enclosed arena come together to form the 'Death Race', the biggest, most brutal event.

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.

Emanuelle is framed by a corrupt D.A. while investigating a drug smuggling operation and has to tough it out under lock and key, dealing with a strict warden and abusive guards.

An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.

Sent to prison along with his mother after her drug conviction, a young boy develops a warm, tender relationship with a political prisoner.

After surviving the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta struggle with the consequences of their victory as unrest spreads across Panem. Forced back into the spotlight, they become symbols of hope and resistance while the Capitol prepares a new and deadly challenge that will change the future of the nation forever.

The International Space Station is now a prison - the ultimate black site. No one's getting out. And no one knows it's there. But when the imprisoned terrorists take over the Station and turn it into a missile aimed at Moscow, only a shuttle pilot and a rookie doctor can stop them. Their task is complicated by a rogue CIA agent (Scott Adkins) who has his own plans for the station and the terrorists within.

A disgruntled ex-CIA operative, his assistant and their assembled group of terrorists seize a battleship with nuclear blackmail in mind. They've planned for every contingency but ignore the ship's cook, former Navy SEAL Casey Ryback—an error that could be fatal.

Love and unity in a school torn by racism and hate in the 1970s. A gifted high school football player must learn to embrace his talent and his faith as he battles racial tensions on and off the field.

A black police detective must solve a strange case of a kidnapped boy and deal with a big racial protest.

In the future, the inmates of a private underground prison are computer-controlled with cameras, dream readers, and devices that can cause pain or death. John and his illegally pregnant wife Karen are locked inside "The Fortress" but are determined to escape before the birth of their baby.

The United Kingdom. Soon. Civil war rages. A woman wakes up in a blindingly white cuboid cell. Using its sophisticated functionality, her captor tortures her for information; information she claims not to have - or does she?

In the early 1970s, Dr. Henry West creates an institute to find people with supernatural abilities. When Judith Winstead comes to the facility, she exhibits amazing abilities that the military wants to turn into a weapon.

When an armed, masked gang enter a Manhattan bank, lock the doors and take hostages, the detective assigned to effect their release enters negotiations preoccupied with corruption charges he is facing.

In an oppressive future, a 'fireman' whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task.

After a failed sabotage mission, a trio of anti-apartheid freedom fighters ends up in a tense bank hostage situation. Based on a true story.

A group of officers based in a labyrinthine top-secret prison must fight for their lives against Hatchet, a brilliant and infamous high-value detainee. When he escapes, his mysterious and deadly agenda has far reaching and dire consequences.

Louis Menkins is five weeks away from being released after 26 years in prison. He is faced with the decision to put his own release at risk in order to protect a young man named Beecher from growing gang controversies.

The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.

A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.

In a dystopian, polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.

In the year 2022, a ruthless prison warden has created the ultimate solution for his most troublesome and violent inmates: Absolom, a secret jungle island where prisoners are abandoned and left to die. But Marine Captain John Robbins, convicted of murdering a commanding officer, is determined to escape the island in order to reveal the truth behind his murderous actions and clear his name.

When an Egyptian terrorism suspect "disappears" on a flight from Africa to Washington DC, his American wife and a CIA analyst find themselves caught up in a struggle to secure his release from a secret detention facility somewhere outside the US.

Women rebel against slave labor in a filthy jungle prison where they feed sugar cane to a mechanical maw.

In an English boys' boarding school, social hierarchy reigns supreme and power remains in the hands of distanced and ineffectual teachers and callously vicious prefects in the Upper Sixth. Three Lower Sixth students, Wallace, Johnny and leader Mick Travis decide on a shocking course of action to redress the balance of privilege once and for all.

When Ilan Halimi is kidnapped for ransom because Jewish and supposedly rich, his family and the police start a race against time to save him from the tortures of the "gang of barbarians".

A prison drama where an old mobster and a prison guard must find a way to coexist so that imprisonment can become less so, and perhaps reveal the paradox that is behind the very concept of captivity.

Suburbanite Ron is spoiled, young and not overly worried about the marijuana charges leveled against him. But, after being made out to be a drug dealer, he faces a five-year jail sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Physically frail and unaccustomed to his rough surroundings, Ron is primed to fall victim to sexual predators and bullying guards – that is, until he's befriended by Earl, a veteran inmate who finds meaning in protecting the vulnerable new kid.

An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is forced to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial under the threat of being disbarred.

A woman desperately races to save her child after police place her hometown on lockdown due to an active shooter incident.

Alice spends her days enslaved on a rural Georgia plantation, restlessly yearning for freedom. After a violent clash with plantation owner Paul, Alice flees through the neighboring woods and stumbles onto the unfamiliar sight of a highway, soon discovering the year is actually 1973.

A troubled rock star descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone.

During the trial of a man accused of his father's murder, a lone juror takes a stand against the guilty verdict handed down by the others as a result of their preconceptions and prejudices.

Powerful, uncompromising drama about two boys' struggle for survival in the nightmare world of Britain's notorious Borstal Reformatory.

Inspired by one of the longest and bloodiest real-life events in police history, Officer Mike Chandler and a young civilian passenger find themselves under-prepared and outgunned when fate puts them squarely in the crosshairs of a daring bank heist in progress by a fearless team of highly-trained and heavily-armed men.

A group of teachers must defend themselves from a gang of murderous kids when their school comes under siege after hours.

A man who poured his life savings into a new apartment discovers its walls are full of disturbing noises, hostile neighbors and unsettling secrets.

Inspired by true events from the spring of 1944 when the Nazis organized a football match between a team of camp inmates and an elite Nazi team on Adolf Hitler's birthday. A match the prisoners are determined to win, no matter what happens.

Paul is a U.S. truck driver working in Iraq. After an attack by a group of Iraqis he wakes to find he is buried alive inside a coffin. With only a lighter and a cell phone it's a race against time to escape this claustrophobic death trap.

When a hostage rescue mission creates a new enemy, Capt. Guerrero and his elite soldiers must face an ambush by a criminal group.

A cashier poses as a writer for blacklisted talents to submit their work through, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand.

Using the interrogation of a US counterinsurgency agent as a backdrop, the film explores the consequences of the struggle between Uruguay's government and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas.

In 1933, a young woman and her father discover an Alabama plantation whose inhabitants live as if slavery had never been abolished. Feeling a sense of duty to those behind the heavy gates, she stays to liberate the people and see them through their first harvest. With four of her father's colleagues and a lawyer, she faces the daunting task of resurrecting the place known as Manderlay.

As punishment for drunken, rebellious behavior, a young white soldier is thrown into a stockade populated entirely by black inmates. But instead of falling victim to racial hatred, the soldier joins forces with his fellow prisoners and rises up against the insanely tyrannical and bigoted prison warden.

After working as a drug courier and getting into a brutal shootout with police, a former boxer finds himself at the mercy of his enemies as they force him to instigate violent acts that turn the prison he resides in into a battleground.

In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads a rebellion that would forever change history.

In the last few days of the Warsaw Uprising during World War II, a modest group of Resistance members remains. The band must take refuge in the sewers under the orders of leader Zadra, but it's only a matter of time before they will have to emerge. However, when they try, they are met only with intense hostility from the Nazis. Despite their attempts stay resolute through immense mental strain, it becomes increasingly apparent that they may be doomed.

In a dystopian future, a totalitarian regime maintains peace by subduing the populace with a drug, and displays of emotion are punishable by death. A man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system.

Modelo Prison. Barcelona, 1977. Manuel, a young accountant, imprisoned and awaiting trial for embezzlement, faces a sentence of 6 to 8 years, a disproportionate punishment for the crime committed. Together with his cellmate Pino, he joins forces with COPEL, a collective fighting for the rights of ordinary prisoners and amnesty. A war for freedom breaks out that will bring the Spanish prison system to its knees. If things are changing outside, they’ll have to do the same inside. A tale of friendship, solidarity and freedom, inspired in true events.

Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, LA 92 immerses viewers in that tumultuous period through stunning and rarely seen archival footage.

A zealous, handsome priest, who is the confessor for a convent full of women, encourages the equally zealous abbess of the institution to enforce strict rules on these unfortunate women. At the same time, a particularly disturbed nun manages to poison herself and many of the other novitiates in yet another scandal which is covered up by church authorities.

Łukasz, an unemployed geography graduate, is wrongfully arrested for robbery. His alibi is weak, and he is identified during a lineup. The situation gets hopeless when, a few hours later, the alleged victim suddenly dies. The defense lawyer promises to do everything in his power, but Łukasz ends up in custody. He must find his place in a world of harsh prison rules. He chooses the cell of the “grypsujący” (inmates who communicate by coded messages)…

Ray Breslin is the world's foremost authority on structural security. After analyzing every high security prison and learning a vast array of survival skills so he can design escape-proof prisons, his skills are put to the test. He's framed and incarcerated in a master prison he designed himself. He needs to escape and find the person who put him behind bars.

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.

A group of people are plunged into a dark, claustrophobic maze, where they must fight to survive, as the outside world watches.

Dr. Adrian Helmsley, part of a worldwide geophysical team investigating the effect on the earth of radiation from unprecedented solar storms, learns that the earth's core is heating up. He warns U.S. President Thomas Wilson that the crust of the earth is becoming unstable and that without proper preparations for saving a fraction of the world's population, the entire race is doomed. Meanwhile, writer Jackson Curtis stumbles on the same information. While the world's leaders race to build "arks" to escape the impending cataclysm, Curtis struggles to find a way to save his family. Meanwhile, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of unprecedented strength wreak havoc around the world.

"Selma," as in Alabama, the place where segregation in the South was at its worst, leading to a march that ended in violence, forcing a famous statement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that ultimately led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

In the near future, after an unspecified holocaust, survivors are herded into prison camps. There, they are hunted for sport by the leaders of the camp. Paul, one of the newest prisoners, is determined not to go down as quietly as the others.

While serving life in prison, a young man looks back at the people, the circumstances and the system that set him on the path toward his crime.

During the last years of Pinochet's military regime, a group of militants from the "Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front" plan a prison break of political prisoners, through a tunnel that will take them 18 months to dig.

Four prison inmates have been hatching a plan to literally dig out of jail when another prisoner, Claude Gaspard, is moved into their cell. They take a risk and share their plan with the newcomer. Over the course of three days, the prisoners and friends break through the concrete floor using a bed post and begin to make their way through the sewer system -- yet their escape is anything but assured.

An unfortunate and naive girl is set up by her boyfriend and convicted of drug smuggling. She is sent to a women's correctional facility where she must constantly struggle to survive.


