Η ζωή του Wade Porter (Stephen Dorff) ενός ήσυχου οικογενειάρχη ανατρέπεται όταν θα σκοτώσει κατά λάθος έναν ληστή που διέρρηξε το σπίτι του. Καταδικάζεται για ακούσια ανθρωποκτονία σε 3 χρόνια φυλάκιση σε μία φυλακή υψίστης ασφαλείας, σε ένα μέρος όπου οι κανόνες της κοινωνίας παύουν να ισχύουν. Αναγκάζεται να μοιραστεί το κελί του με έναν μαζικό δολοφόνο (Val Kilmer) και να υποστεί τα ανελέητα χτυπήματα του σαδιστή αρχιφύλακα. Σύντομα θα καταλάβει ότι θα πρέπει να δώσει τη μεγαλύτερη μάχη της ζωής του, καθώς για να επιβιώσει στη φυλακή θα πρέπει να γίνει πιο σκληρός απ΄όλους.

Ex-Army officer Jameson takes a job a prison guard at San Quentin. Joe, the brother of his new girlfriend May, is sentenced to the prison for robbery. When Jameson tries to separate lawbreakers from hardened criminals, badguy Hansen tries to stir up trouble by telling Joe about Jameson's interest in his sister.

A San Quentin inmate, sentenced to life without parole, writes a play that catches the interest of a reporter.

Part fact and part fiction, Zoot Suit is the film version of Luis Valdez's critically acclaimed play, based on the actual Sleepy Lagoon murder case and the zoot suit riots of 1940s Los Angeles. Henry Reyna is the leader of a group of Mexican-Americans being sent to San Quentin without substantial evidence for the death of a man at Sleepy Lagoon. As part of the defense committee, Alice Bloomfield and George Shearer fight the blatant miscarriage of justice for the freedom of Henry and his friends.

An ex-con sets up a program to straighten out hard-core prisoners. Things don't go as planned.

San Quentin's new warden crusades for reform and for a framed inmate who loves a nurse.

A young female prison guard finds out that her first assignment is to San Quentin, one of the toughest prisons in the country.

Drama set in San Quentin prison.

On June 3, 1973, a man was murdered in a busy intersection of San Francisco’s Chinatown as part of an ongoing gang war. Chol Soo Lee, a 20-year-old Korean immigrant who had previous run-ins with the law, was arrested and convicted based on flimsy evidence and the eyewitness accounts of white tourists who couldn’t distinguish between Asian features. Sentenced to life in prison, Chol Soo Lee would spend years fighting to survive behind bars before journalist K.W. Lee took an interest in his case. The intrepid reporter’s investigation would galvanize a first-of-its-kind pan-Asian American grassroots movement to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s freedom, ultimately inspiring a new generation of social justice activists.

Johnny Cash at San Quentin was recorded live at San Quentin State Prison on February 24, 1969 and released as an album onJune 16 of that same year. The concert was filmed by Granada Television. Songs performed include Wreck of the Old 97 , I Walk the Line, San Quentin and A Boy Named Sue.

A corrupt official at San Quentin tries to frame an innocent guard for several murders within the prison.

The grim news made international headlines: On August 21, 1971, prison authorities discovered a gun on famed Soledad Brother author, activist and San Quentin inmate George Jackson. A shootout ensued, killing Jackson, two other inmates and three guards, and wounding three more officers. Authorities asserted that only lawyer Stephen Bingham could have smuggled the weapon into the prison. Fearing that a conviction for abetting the guards’ deaths would lead to his own murder, the attorney fled, beginning a long, strange odyssey of pseudonymous exile. Strange indeed for the Yale-graduate scion of politically prominent New England elites.