The Fear of 13Movies like The Fear of 13
- Key Features:
- Death row, Serial killer, Legal drama, Mystery, Redemption, Personal narrative, Justice system, Psychological analysis, Existentialism, Unreliable narrator, Twist ending, Moral ambiguity
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven
- Target Audience:
- True crime enthusiasts, Documentary viewers, Psychological thriller fans, Legal drama aficionados
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Doubt → Revelation
The Fear of 13

After 23 years on Death Row a convicted murderer petitions the court asking to be executed, but as his story unfolds, it becomes clear that nothing is what it seems.
The Fear of 13
After Ben Garvey foolishly turned back to crime, he thought his life was over when he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. But his death sentence isn't quite what it seems, as Ben regains consciousness near an eerie psychiatric ward, where he's told he's been hired as the groundskeeper. With the state of his soul in question, and the love for his wife and daughter all the more real and powerful, Ben must figure out if he's truly cheated death, or if he's become part of something far more sinister.

While fighting for a woman who sits on death row, a lawyer happens upon new information which brings into question the motives of a man associated with her client

After losing his job, his car and his money, Phuchit, races against time to complete 13 tasks ordered by an anonymous caller who promised 100 million Baht upon completion.

A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.

When the police finally catch an elusive serial killer, no one can prove his guilt, resulting in the lead detective making it personal.

Cocky young attorney Michael Gray finds himself framed for murder when an inmate he is defending violently kills himself during their interview at South River State Penitentiary. Now locked in the same nightmarish Cell 213 where his client died, he soon realizes that unnatural forces are behind a string of inmate suicides, making matters of guilt and innocence not as cut and dry as they seem.

A naive young man assumes a dead man's identity and finds himself embroiled in an underground world of power, violence, and chance where men gamble behind closed doors on the lives of other men.

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.

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.

A lawyer takes on a case of a prison guard in South Africa who is traumatized by the executions he's witnessed.

An escaped murderer is in pursuit of his ex-girlfriend, who has fled to start a new life in a small town.

A law student takes a job as a night watchman at a morgue and begins to discover clues that implicate him as the suspect in a series of murders.

Upon taking a new job, young lawyer Rick Hayes is assigned to the clemency case of Cindy Liggett, a woman convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. As Hayes investigates the background for her case, the two begin to form a deep friendship, while all the while the date for her execution draws nearer.

After 16-year-old Cyntoia Brown is sentenced to life in prison, questions about her past, physiology and the law itself call her guilt into question.

Forensics students arriving an isolated, island "body farm" get to try out their CSI skills on a bunch of corpses under the watchful eye of their grumpy professor. The island used to house a state penitentiary where the authorities were experimenting on death row inmates and now the bodies won't stay still.

Tenshu is imprisoned and sentenced to death for murdering the men who raped his girlfriend. However, he manages to survive his execution and is presented with an option: face another execution attempt or subject himself to their bizarre and dangerous experiments.

Lee Ray Oliver, a death row inmate, is given a second chance at life if he agrees to undergo a new chemical treatment used to modify behavior.

Wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death, Richard Kimble escapes from the law in an attempt to find the real killer and clear his name.

A further investigation into the arrest of three teenagers convicted of killing three young boys in Arkansas who spent nearly 20 years in prison before being released after new DNA evidence indicated they may be innocent.

Nick Hume is a mild-mannered executive with a perfect life, until one gruesome night he witnesses something that changes him forever. Transformed by grief, Hume eventually comes to the disturbing conclusion that no length is too great when protecting his family.

A successful lawyer who, in order to save her daughter, is pressured into defending the innocence of a man slated to receive the death penalty.

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.

As violence escalates in Los Angeles and heinous murders are committed, Steven Hardin, a young judge of the California Supreme Court, must struggle with his tortured conscience and growing despair as he watches helplessly as the ruthless criminals brought before his court go free because clever lawyers find obscure loopholes in the law.

Jack Conrad is awaiting the death penalty in a corrupt Central American prison. He is "purchased" by a wealthy television producer and taken to a desolate island where he must fight to the death against nine other condemned killers from all corners of the world, with freedom going to the sole survivor.

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.

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.

Owing to his alleged involvement with communist parties, film director David Merrill is forbidden from working in Hollywood. He decides to fight for his rights and faces numerous challenges.

Liberal district attorney decides to seek the death penalty for a man who slaughtered a family at Christmastime, then drank their blood. He escapes, though, and starts killing again.

An assistant prosecutor zealously pursues a conviction in the case of a pediatric nurse accused of murdering her patients, but doubt arises when her evidence shows that the infants may have died of natural causes.

Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.

Martin, a law student, takes up a job as a nightwatchman at a mortuary to fund his studies. But the mortuary harbours a dark secret, and he has to find the truth before he is implicated in a serial murder case.

Through his work at a morgue, an incarcerated young man trying to build a new life starts to come to terms with the crime he committed.

The story of Steve Harmon, a 17-year-old honor student whose world comes crashing down around him when he is charged with felony murder.

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.

Law enforcement finds itself chasing the ghost of a man dead for over a decade, embroiled in a diabolical new game that's only just begun.

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.

When John Doe is convicted of being a vigilante serial killer, a vigilante group named 'Speak for the Dead' emerges in support of John's cause—elevating the debate about justice versus vengeance.

A Harvard professor is lured back into the courtroom after twenty-five years to take the case of a young black man condemned to death for the horrific murder of a child.

A former bounty hunter who finds himself on the run as part of a revamped Condemned tournament, in which convicts are forced to fight each other to the death as part of a game that's broadcast to the public.

An abused 15 year old is charged with a murder that carries the death penalty in this fact-based story.

A death row inmate turns for spiritual guidance to a local nun in the days leading up to his scheduled execution for the murders of a young couple.

Ilya Goryunov has spent seven years in prison on false charges of drug trafficking. When Ilya is free he realizes that the old life that he yearned for is no more. Although he did not intend to take revenge on the man who sent him to prison, now there is no other way out.

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.

After surviving the electric chair, convicted serial killer Max Seed is buried alive. He digs himself out of the grave and goes on a killing spree. Taking revenge on the men who put him there and random unfortunates alike.

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

Released after being wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 13 years, a woman begins executing her elaborate plan of retribution.

Manuel Jordan is a man who is free after serving 23 years for killing a teenager during an attempted robbery. After nearly two decades of staring at his victim's face on a newspaper clipping in his cell, the newly paroled man seeks redemption. Instead, redemption—in the form of a mysterious minister and two needy women— finds him.

A young, inexperienced public defender is assigned to defend an inmate accused of committing murder while behind bars.

An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.

The Puppetman, a convicted killer on death row, always maintained his innocence saying that it was an evil force controlling his body as he slaughtered his victims. Now Michal, the killer's daughter, begins to suspect that there may be some truth to her father's claim when those around her begin to die in brutal ways. She must try and break the curse of The Puppetman before all her loved ones are killed.

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.

Ben Chase is an on-the-rise Boston attorney currently defending a wealthy client in a high-profile murder case. Martin Thiel is the wealthy young man on trial for a particularly brutal murder. The verdict sets Thiel free. Within 24 hours another grizzly and all-too-familiar murder has taken place with striking similarities to the first crime. Chase inexplicably agrees to act as his defense attorney; but this time it will be to gather evidence that will put away his client for good.

After being imprisoned by the Assad regime in Syria, Hamid now works undercover as part of a secret group pursuing their leaders, including the guard he suspects was responsible for his torture.

A lawyer tasked with defending a robbery-and-murder suspect begins developing doubts about what truly happened.

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

When ambitious young correctional officer Aiman is transferred to the country's highest-security prison, he catches the attention of the seasoned chief executioner Rahim. Aiman's desire to become the hangman's apprentice is not only professional but born of an unspeakable urge to reconnect with a past that haunts him.

Ex-government operative Bryan Mills finds his life is shattered when he's falsely accused of a murder that hits close to home. As he's pursued by a savvy police inspector, Mills employs his particular set of skills to track the real killer and exact his unique brand of justice.

After serving five years of a life sentence, Rocky Mulloy hopes to clear his friend who's still in prison for the same crime.

A robber escapes from prison with a single objective in mind: to track down his former cellmate, a serial killer who intends to pin his crimes on him. A cop is sent after the robber who, despite his best efforts, soon becomes Public Enemy Number One. As the protagonists are driven to their limits, it becomes increasingly unclear who is the hunter and who is the prey.

A ferocious, misogynistic, and morally deprived serial killer is active in Las Vegas. Obsessed with the collapse of the Twin Towers, and with Nazi tendencies, he even targets underage girls.

A drama centered on the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

Newly divorced lawyer Nathan Del Amico is shaken up after he meets a doctor who claims that he can sense when select people are about to die. Though he doesn't believe the doctor, events in Nathan's life slowly make him think he's not long for this world.

When Juan Catalan is arrested for a murder he insists he didn't commit, he builds his case for innocence around unexpected raw footage.

The old and overcrowded penitentiaries are just a memory. Inmates now serve their sentence in a state of deep sleep that renders them harmless, and has drastically reduced recidivism. Until one day, a psychologist in charge of monitoring the mental state of inmates finds himself confronted with a prisoner over whom he's lost all control.

Three teenage brothers are terrorized by a trio of escaped mental patients disguised as clowns.

The tragic and controversial story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas for killing his three children after scientific evidence and expert testimony that bolstered his claims of innocence were suppressed.

When Colin Warner was wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend Carl King devoted his life to proving his innocence.

Warren Stacy, an office equipment repairman, begins murdering women after they reject his advances. To minimize the evidence, Stacy always kills while naked, wearing nothing but gloves, and further evades the law with his strong alibis. Veteran detective Leo Kessler is convinced of Stacy's guilt and begins using questionable methods to catch him.

A prisoner in a state-of-the-art penitentiary begins to question the purpose of the emotion-controlling drugs he's testing for a pharmaceutical genius.

We do not know when and how we will die. Death Row inmates do. Werner Herzog embarks on a dialogue with Death Row inmates, asks questions about life and death and looks deep into these individuals, their stories, their crimes.

After Charles Forsyth was sent to the electric chair for a crime he didn't commit, he forever haunts the prison where he was executed. Flash forward several years when the prison is reopened, under the control of its new warden Eaton Sharpe, a former security guard who framed Charlie. When prisoners are ordered to break down the wall to the execution room, they unknowingly release the angry spirit of Charles Forsyth, a powerful being distributing his murderous rage to all, leading up to the Warden himself.

Wealthy Sunny von Bülow lies brain-dead, husband Claus guilty of attempted murder; but he says he's innocent and hires Alan Dershowitz for his appeal.

Animal control officer Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him, as more and more similarities between himself and his literary alter ego seem to arise.

When a feared judge of the French court, Xavier Racine, encounters a French-Danish juror, Ditte Lorensen-Coteret, at a murder trial, their shared past is slowly uncovered.

Danny O'Brien is back in action fighting the notorious Simon Moon, also known as The Terror. Three years earlier O'Brien had single-handedly captured The Terror and was called Hero by the people of L.A. Now Simon has escaped and has started killing women again, and O'Brien is the only man who can stop him.

The story of a man who murdered thirty-two people, gained power, and then got afraid because too many people wanted to kill him. One August morning, he disappeared. For fifteen years, everyone believed him dead.

A small town is haunted by the twin daughters of a wrongfully convicted man. Young Jordan is sent down the path to who the real killer is only to find the killer is very close to her.

David, an orderly at a hospital, tells his horrific story of being kidnapped and forced to play a vile game of survival.

The true story of the Mauritanian Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was held at the U.S military's Guantanamo Bay detention center without charges for over a decade and sought help from a defense attorney for his release.

An outlaw band flees a posse and rides into Refuge, a small town where no one carries a gun, drinks, or swears. The town is actually Purgatory, and the peaceful inhabitants are all famous dead outlaws and criminals such as Doc Holiday and Wild Bill Hickok who must redeem themselves before gaining admittance to Heaven... or screw up and go to Hell.

An American attorney on business in China, ends up wrongfully on trial for murder and his only key to innocence is a female defense lawyer from the country.

A young lawyer stumbles upon a vast conspiracy while investigating a brutal murder case.

Acclaimed writer and historian Deborah E. Lipstadt must battle for historical truth to prove the Holocaust actually occurred when David Irving, a renowned denier, sues her for libel.

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.

The complicated relationship that formed between the FBI analyst Bill Hagmaier and serial killer Ted Bundy during Bundy's final years on death row.

After twenty years in prison, Foley is finished with the grifter's life. When he meets an elusive young woman named Iris, the possibility of a new start looks real. But his past is proving to be a stubborn companion.

An innocent man sentenced to ten years in prison for a crime he did not commit, is released from jail, promising to seek revenge on the guilty.

On February 15, 1992 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jeffrey Dahmer, one of the world's most infamous serial killers, was convicted of 15 counts of murder and sentenced to 937 years in federal prison. This movie is based on events from his life.

A man is falsely convicted of the murder of his wife. During his time in jail, he finds comfort from four women with whom he corresponds. After his second court appearance, he is finally freed from prison only to be framed for yet 2 more murders which he did not commit. With the help of his former prison guard, he once again sets out to clear his name

Vowing revenge on the detective who apprehended him, serial killer "Meat Cleaver" Max Jenke returns from beyond the grave to launch a whole new reign of terror.

When a contract killer (Steven Seagal) encounters a girl on the run from a dangerous mob boss (Vinnie Jones) with powerful political ties, running a human trafficking operation, he is torn between protecting the girl, and remaining loyal to the government agency that hired him.

A group of teenagers spend the night in a furniture shop for a graduation party. When one of them talks her boyfriend into a game of hide-and-seek, a psycho killer starts hunting them down one by one.

A homicide detective teams up with a criminal profiler to catch a serial killer whose crimes are inspired by the children's game, Hangman.

Two ten year-old boys are detained by police under suspicion of abducting and murdering a toddler.

"The human whose name is written in the Death Note shall die." After making the hardest decision ever, another serious case confronts L. There are only 23 days left and without his best partner Watari, L has to solve the case all by himself for the very first time.

Freed after a lengthy term in a juvenile detention center, convicted child killer Jack Burridge finds work as a deliveryman and begins dating co-worker Michelle. While out on the road one day, Jack notices a distressed child, and, after reuniting the girl with her family, becomes a local celebrity. But when a local newspaper unearths his past, Jack must cope with the anger of citizens who fear for the safety of their children.


