Michael Peterson was born in 1952 into a well off Luton family, "As a boy he was a lovely lad. He was obviously bright and always good with children. He was gentle and mild-mannered, never a bully – he would defend the weak" (comments from his aunt). Somehow something went seriously wrong and he has spent 34 years incarcerated at Her Majesty's pleasure, 30 of them in solitary confinement. He has renamed himself Charles Bronson and is proud of the one thing he has in his life: his reputation as t find out more...

Lee Ray Oliver is an icon of anti-social behaviour, well to be more accurate he's a murderous psychopath and the authorities have finally caught up with him. Saved from lethal injection Lee is offered the chance to live if he takes part in an experiment to repress his psychotic behaviour, but the more he takes his medication the more haunted Lee becomes by his past and the more tenuous his future as a peaceable citizen becomes. Control is an intriguing psychological thriller with an impressive c find out more...

After a one-night stand with a military officer, a cabaret singer is imprisoned by the secret police, without ever being informed of her alleged crime. For the next five years, she is subjected to harrowing torture and harassment, which she doggedly withstands in a struggle to maintain her dignity and sanity. Interrogation was banned by the Polish government for being 'inflammatory and dangerous'. Years later director Bugjaski smuggled a copy out of the country where it debuted at Cannes in 1990 find out more...

The frightening story of a naive young American caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey and sentenced to years inside a particularly vicious prison regime. The despair and desolation are brought home brutally. John Hurt is magnificent as the eccentric British prison veteran. find out more...

Alcatraz, 1938; after 3 years in solitary, a hellish hole in the ground with no heat, light or human contact, petty crook Henri Young emerges as a madman. When he kills another inmate there is only one man - attorney James Stamphill - willing to challenge the barbarity of Alcatraz. Moving and riveting with great performances from all three leads. find out more...

The Marquis de Sade has been locked away in a mental asylum, but he refuses to lie down and accept his fate. With the help of a laundry maid the Marquis continues to find an outlet for his writing and it is only with the arrival of the malevolent Dr Royer-Collard that the grim stink of desperation becomes apparent. The film cultivates an air of sardonic detachment beneath a lascivious leer, it pokes at sexual taboos - it's pretty subversive, considering - but sexuality and creativity are inde find out more...

find out more...