Movies like Prison and Time (2025)
The best movies like Prison and Time (2025) are Who Are You, Charlie Brown? (2021), 13th (2016) and Time (2020). If Prison and Time hooked you with its documentary and animation, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest rated13th (2016)7.8/10 from 821 votes
- NewestMaternal Instinct (2026)Released 2026
Who Are You, Charlie Brown? (2021)
Lupita Nyong'o narrates a documentary about Peanuts and its creator, Charles M. Schulz. Famous fans—including Drew Barrymore, Kevin Smith, and Al Roker—share its influence on them, and a new animated story finds Charlie Brown on a quest.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary & animation
Popcorn FlickMovies like this13th (2016)
An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTime (2020)
Fox Rich, indomitable matriarch and modern-day abolitionist, strives to keep her family together while fighting for the release of her incarcerated husband. An intimate, epic, and unconventional love story, filmed over two decades.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTiticut Follies (1967)
Employing methods of direct cinema–observation, limited stylization, and non-intervention–this stark look into the State Prison for the Criminally Insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts shows its denizens, who were often kept in barren cells and infrequently bathed, forced to strip naked publicly, force feeding, and the indifference and bullying by many of the hospital's staff.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Alabama Solution (2025)
Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe House I Live In (2012)
In the past 40 years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer, and destroyed impoverished communities at home and abroad. Yet drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever. Where did we go wrong?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEvil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story (2025)
Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Menendez Brothers (2024)
Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDeliver Us from Evil (2006)
Documentary filmmaker Amy Berg investigates the life of 30-year pedophile Father Oliver O'Grady and exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed him to abuse countless children. Victims' stories and a disturbing interview with O'Grady offer a view into the troubled mind of the spiritual leader who moved from parish to parish gaining trust ... all the while betraying so many.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Fear of 13 (2015)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRoman Polanski: A Film Memoir (2012)
An interview with film director Roman Polanski conducted during his period of house arrest, discussing his life and work.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisS4: The Bob Lazar Story (2026)
Over 35 years after Bob Lazar's revelations, this documentary exposes secrets of a facility the government still denies. Featuring Lazar's testimony, recreations, and new evidence, it reopens a case that continues to spark global curiosity
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMaternal Instinct (2026)
Police pull over a woman who claims she just gave birth. But the baby — and the blood — aren't hers. Twisted lies unravel in this true-crime documentary.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAs I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000)
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLove, Antosha (2019)
From a prolific career in film and television, Anton Yelchin left an indelible legacy as an actor. Through his journals and other writings, his photography, the original music he wrote, and interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues, this film looks not just at Anton's impressive career, but at a broader portrait of the man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWestern Stars (2019)
The incomparable Bruce Springsteen performs his critically acclaimed latest album and muses on life, rock, and the American dream, in this intimate and personal concert film co-directed by Thom Zimny and Springsteen himself.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisVoyeur (2017)
Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
SnoozefestMovies like thisSeaspiracy (2021)
Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers an alarming global conspiracy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhitney: Can I Be Me (2017)
The life and tragic death of Whitney Houston.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHarry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2013)
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMy motherland is checkered (2026)
In a mix of 2D animation and live action, through their voices and acting, two actresses recount the lives of imprisoned women that opposed the Russian Regime and their emotional stories of suffering and anguish.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary & animation
The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography (1998)
Every image in The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography comes from gay erotic videos produced in Eastern Europe since the introduction of capitalism. The video provides a glimpse of young men responding to the pressures of an unfamiliar world, one in which money, power and sex are now connected.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The Sound of Crickets (2022)
After the disappearance of Aldemar his wife decided to get overall uncertainty by including him in the list of deaths in the 1938 Colombian National Census. Today, 83 years later, I repeat her. I try to find myself among the numbers in the digital database in order to finish the torture that has also implied my own disappearance.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
About the Pain of Others (2025)
A personal essay on the destructive nature of war and the traces left behind by militarism and mandatory military service. Through found footage, the film explores the personal and inherited memories, reflecting how collective pain continues to shape the present. A reflexive exploration of post-memory, where past and present traumas reverberate within the wounds of the system.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Alternate Earth (2025)
A scientific expedition travels to an alternative Earth in hope of finding a new home for humanity, which has destroyed its own planet. But is it even possible to escape old patterns?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Alice in Wonderland (1951)
On a golden afternoon, wildly curious young Alice tumbles into the burrow and enters the merry, madcap world of Wonderland full of whimsical escapades.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both animation
Worth the HypeMovies like this9 (2009)
When 9 first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world. All humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group, 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both animation
Worth the HypeMovies like thisImpossible Figures and Other Stories I (2021)
The first and—paradoxically—the final part of the triptych. The city, which is its subject, grows not only in space but, most importantly, in time. With all consequences.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both animation
The Sun Sets in the East (2018)
A documentary film contrasting present-day Lithuania with extracts from a peasant's diary from 1984/85.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
A Film Inspired by Real Events (2019)
Through the footage from his family's Handycam, the director creates a portrait of his family that is falling apart.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Prison and Time?
The closest matches to Prison and Time are Who Are You, Charlie Brown? (2021), 13th (2016) and Time (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Prison and Time?
Start with Who Are You, Charlie Brown? (2021), the closest match to Prison and Time.
What is the highest-rated movie like Prison and Time?
13th (2016), rated 7.8/10 by 821 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Prison and Time?
Maternal Instinct (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Prison and Time?
Yes: Who Are You, Charlie Brown? (2021), 13th (2016) and Time (2020).
How are movies similar to Prison and Time chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Prison and Time, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.