Serving Life

Jul 28, 2011

1h 25m

★ 5.3

Overview

SERVING LIFE documents an extraordinary hospice program where hardened criminals care for dying fellow inmates. Narrated and executive produced by Academy Award®-winner Forest Whitaker, the film takes viewers inside Louisiana's maximum security prison at Angola, where the average sentence is more than 90 years.

Genres

TV Movie

Documentary

Production Companies

OWN Oprah Winfrey Network

Serving Life Trailers

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Forest Whitaker

Five Jewish Hungarians, now US citizens, tell their stories: before March 1944, when Nazis began to exterminate Hungarian Jews, months in concentration camps, and visiting childhood homes more than 50 years later. An historian, a Sonderkommando, a doctor who experimented on Auschwitz prisoners, and US soldiers who were part of the liberation in April 1945.

5.0

Escape

Feb 20, 1980

The true story of Dwight Worker, an American who was caught smuggling drugs in Mexico, and sentenced to fortress-like Lecumberri Prison where he endured brutal conditions. With the help of his wife, Barbara, he escaped the prison by disguising himself as a woman. He was the first prisoner to escape Lecumberri since Pancho Villa.

6.6

Andersonville

Mar 3, 1996

This lengthy docudrama records the harrowing conditions at the Confederacy's most notorious prisoner-of-war camp. The drama unfolds through the eyes of a company of Union soldiers captured at the Battle of Cold Harbor, VA, in June 1864, and shipped to the camp in southern Georgia. A private, Josiah Day, and his sergeant try to hold their company together in the face of squalid living conditions, inhumane punishments, and a gang of predatory fellow prisoners called the Raiders.

6.3

Survivor's Guide to Prison

Feb 23, 2018

Today, you're more likely to go to prison in the United States than anywhere else in the world. So in the unfortunate case it should happen to you - this is the Survivors Guide to Prison.

5.8

Prison Break

Apr 12, 2017

One late night in June 1942, Sakuma Seitaro dangles from the frame of a skylight in an isolation cell in Akita Prison. He forces open the glass window and breaks out of jail. This crime even reaches the ears of Urata Susumu, the chief warden of Kosuge Prison in Tokyo. Urata had been in charge of those sentenced to life in the prison until last year. Although Sakuma is a dangerous person who had also broken out of jail in Aomori, he submits to Urata who is the only person who had treated him kindly in the past. However, three months after escaping from jail, Sakuma shows up at Urata’s house. He has come to complain about the inhumane Akita prison officers. But he is locked up again after Urata notifies the police during an unguarded moment. A year later, Sakuma is sent to Abashiri Prison and Urata is also ordered to transfer as the prison’s chief warden.

0.0

The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation

Apr 1, 2008

The gripping story of Robert King Wilkerson, Herman Wallace, and Albert Woodfox, men who endured solitary confinement longer than any known living prisoner in the United States. Politicized through contact with the Black Panther Party while inside Louisiana's prisons, they formed one of the only prison Panther chapters in history and worked to organize other prisoners.

8.5

The Great Escape

Mar 10, 2017

On March 24, 1944, in the heart of Nazi Germany, 76 British, Canadian, Norwegian and French pilots who were held in Stalag Luft III, a prison camp of the Luftwaffe, escaped. Unique testimony from the last survivors, recreations and today’s digital images sheds new light on the audacious escape.

6.1

Story of Annette Zelman

Sep 14, 2022

1942 Paris. Annette is 20 years old, Jean is barely older, they love each other and the future is bright for them. But the deportation of the Jews of France will change their destiny. Upset at the idea of their only son marrying a Jewish woman, Jean Jausion's parents decide to keep young Annette Zelman away from them... and denounce her to the Gestapo. The machine was launched, but it was too late. Annette was deported to Auschwitz on June 22, 1942.

7.0

Rage!

Sep 25, 1980

In an attempt to be rehabilitated, a rapist goes to therapy while in prison.

6.0

Prisoners of the War on Drugs

Jan 8, 1996

From its beginning during the Reagan years through current times, the War on Drugs has left many victims stranded in the prison system. PRISONERS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS reveals life behind bars in the nation’s prisons. Each prisoner has his or her own story, but for most, the story is predictably similar; they have been criminalized for drugs or drug related offenses, locked up with easy access to substances, and given little opportunity for rehabilitation. This film provides an inside look at the prison system, its prisoners and a war on drugs we do not seem to be winning.

6.7

The Big One

Sep 6, 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.

0.0

Preschool to Prison

Jul 15, 2023

Preschool to Prison is a compelling examination of how the United States public school system is built and operated like prisons. Zero-tolerance policies are used to justify suspension and arrests that set up a pathway to send children of color and children with special needs from school to prison. Children are being suspended, restrained, dragged, physically manhandled, and subsequently arrested for minor offenses such as throwing candy on a school bus. These personal accounts from people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline give riveting tales about the generational impact on society.

0.0

The Art of Incarceration

Apr 17, 2021

Narrated by Uncle Jack Charles and seen through the eyes of Indigenous prisoners at Victoria’s Fulham Correctional Centre, this documentary explores how art and culture can empower Australia's First Nations people to transcend their unjust cycles of imprisonment.

6.4

The Consequence

Dec 2, 1977

Thomas, the son of a prison warden, falls for Martin, one of the prison inmates. After Martin is released, they try to build a relationship and a life together but, no one will leave them alone.

No Image Available

6.8

Løsladt - Henrik tur/retur

Jan 1, 1997

No overview available.

6.9

My Life Inside

Jan 16, 2007

Rosa is a Mexican woman who, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. Some years later, she was jailed under suspicion of murder and then taken to trial. This film demonstrates how the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and the helplessness of being imprisoned in a foreign country make Rosa’s story an example of the hard life of Mexican migrants in the United States.

6.8

Standard Operating Procedure

Feb 12, 2008

Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

6.0

Out of Mind, Out of Sight

Apr 27, 2014

Four-time Emmy winner John Kastner was granted unprecedented access to the Brockville facility for 18 months, allowing 46 patients and 75 staff to share their experiences with stunning frankness. The result is two remarkable documentaries: the first, NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, premiered at Hot Docs in the spring of 2013 and follows the story of a violent patient released into the community. The second film, Out of Mind, Out of Sight, returns to the Brockville Mental Health Centre to profile four patients, two men and two women, as they struggle to gain control over their lives so they can return to a society that often fears and demonizes them.

6.0

Rikers

Nov 12, 2016

This film from Bill Moyers is the first documentary to focus exclusively on people formerly detained in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island Jail. They tell their compelling stories direct to the camera, revealing the violent arc of the Rikers experience – from the trauma of entry to extortion and control by inmates, to oppressive corrections officers, violence and solitary confinement.

Serving Life

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Serving Life Trailers