Movies like Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment (1991)
The best movies like Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment (1991) are 13th (2016), The Alabama Solution (2025) and Time (2020). If Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment hooked you with its documentary, 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
- NewestYou Can See Everything (2026)Released 2026
13th (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 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 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 thisMemories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes (2021)
Serial killer Dennis Nilsen narrates his life and horrific crimes via a series of chilling audiotapes recorded from his jail cell.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)
British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990. Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind -- and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos' trial.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Big One (1997)
The Big One is an investigative documentary from director Michael Moore who goes around the country asking why big American corporations produce their product abroad where labor is cheaper while so many Americans are unemployed, losing their jobs, and would happily be hired by such companies as Nike.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNight Will Fall (2014)
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
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 thisTaxi to the Dark Side (2008)
An in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in 2002.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Last Days (1998)
This Oscar-winning documentary recounts the harrowing stories of five Hungarian Jews who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and Hitler's reign.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisStutz (2022)
In candid conversations with actor Jonah Hill, leading psychiatrist Phil Stutz explores his early life experiences and unique, visual model of therapy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisYou Can See Everything (2026)
Thirty-four days before she's sent to prison, notorious Silicon Valley founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies 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 thisCrystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (2013)
Taking inspiration from Peter M. Bracke's definitive book of the same name, this seven-hour documentary dives into the making of all twelve Friday the 13th films, with all-new interviews from the cast and the crew.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKidnapped: Elizabeth Smart (2026)
Elizabeth Smart's harrowing abduction at 14 from her family's Utah home unfolds through her own words and never-before-seen material in this documentary.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJailbreak: Love on the Run (2024)
An Alabama corrections officer falls in love with a man awaiting trial for murder and risks it all to help him escape.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMetallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)
After bassist Jason Newsted quits the band in 2001, heavy metal superstars Metallica realize that they need an intervention. In this revealing documentary, filmmakers follow the three rock stars as they hire a group therapist and grapple with 20 years of repressed anger and aggression. Between searching for a replacement bass player, creating a new album and confronting their personal demons, the band learns to open up in ways they never thought possible.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisX-Rated 2: The Greatest Adult Stars of All Time (2016)
Documentary sequel that offers a close-up look into the personal lives of the legendary porn stars who've survived the test of time and influenced popular culture. Blends rare interviews with erotic clips and additional appearances by Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Soderbergh and a host of adult stars, directors and trendsetters.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMurder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story (2020)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDjango & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained (2021)
A tribute to Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci (1926-90), presented by American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe American Matrix - Age Of Deception (2010)
A shocking new 2 hour film by B.A. Brooks. This 2010 release is a follow up to "The Decline And Fall Of America" which was released in 2008. "The American Matrix - Age Of Deception" details news items that all people should be aware of such as the economic collapse of The United States and the formation of the a New World Order. See what has really been going on in America today.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Tawai: A Voice from the Forest (2017)
Explorer Bruce Parry visits nomadic tribes in Borneo and the Amazon in hope to better understand humanity's changing relationship with the world around us.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The Family Forest (TBA)
Epigenetics and psychogenealogy through a VERY personal experience.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The Mind of a Murderer: Part 1 (1984)
A look into the mind of one of the Hillside Strangler murderers, Kenneth Bianchi.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real (2004)
"The Last Dragon" is a nature mockumentary about a British scientific team that attempts to understand the unique incredible beasts that have fascinated people for ages. CGI is used to create the dragons.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Motel (1989)
Documentary looking at the culture of three motels and their owners who remain untouched by homogenization and corporatism, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Florence, Arizona; and the semi-ghost town of Death Valley Junction, California. Everyone has an unusual story to tell.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Latvian Coyote (2019)
An absurd game of “finding happiness” is being played by local Latvian coyotes* and illegal immigrants on the Russian and the European Union border. It is a game with no winner – all participants are driven to play by the sense of despair. While one side leaves home and undertakes a perilous journey to the other side of the globe, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in a free country, the other side risks their freedom to earn a chance to stay right where they are, in their homeland. *coyote – someone who smuggles illegal immigrants
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The University of Sing Sing (2011)
An inside look at the notorious Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where one of the U.S.’s only in-prison college programs, Hudson Link, offers long-time inmates an education – and a new lease on life.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The Farm: 10 Down (2009)
One decade after THE FARM: ANGOLA, USA (Oscar nominated 1999; two-time Emmy winner 1999), we go back inside Louisiana's maximum security penitentiary, to catch up with our characters' lives. While the theme of THE FARM was "to err is human, to forgive divine", we now delve more deeply and find hope for "reconciliation and release". Angola is America's oldest and largest prison, with 5,000 inmates, most of whom have received life -, or death-, sentences for violent crimes, and will never leave Angola. THE FARM continues to provide extraordinary opportunities for learning through storytelling.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The Devil's Island: Journey Into Jungle Alcatraz (2001)
Imagine the prison of Alcatraz, only 10 times worse, built on tropical, hellish and deadly islands, lost to the rest of the world. Three tiny castaway islands rise away from the coast of French Guyana, in South America: The Devil's Islands. Now buried under an impenetrable jungle, lay the lost remains of what had been for a hundred years the most storied convict prison in history. There, while most of the prisoners faded into oblivion, a few became legends. Some because they were innocent, as in the scandalous Dreyfus Affair, some because they somehow escaped the islands of nightmare, as did the "butterfly", Henry Charrière, immortalized by Steve McQueen in Papillon. Now 50 years after the prison doors slammed shut for the last time, we explore what's left of the Devil's Islands' unbelievably dark and oppressive realm.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment?
The closest matches to Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment are 13th (2016), The Alabama Solution (2025) and Time (2020). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment?
Start with 13th (2016), the closest match to Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment.
What is the highest-rated movie like Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment?
13th (2016), rated 7.8/10 by 821 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment?
You Can See Everything (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment?
Yes: 13th (2016), The Alabama Solution (2025) and Time (2020).
How are movies similar to Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Stanford Prison Experiment: Psychology of Imprisonment, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.