
28 Aug 1988

The Thin Blue Line
This unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.
Investigates the issue of capital punishment by focusing on six death row inmates and the circumstances of the 13 murders they committed independently. The inmates include Earl Isaacs, who murdered six members of the rural Alday family; Henry Jarrette; Roy Wayne Isaacs; and others. The documentary features interviews with the condemned men, the men's relatives, and the relatives of the victims. By presenting these accounts and discussions on the deterrent effect and concept of just punishment with "no questioning, no cross-examination, no real conclusions," the film allows the viewer to assess the human dimensions and complexities of the death penalty debate.

28 Aug 1988

This unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.
23 Jun 2012
This documentary recounts the dysfunctional state of the death penalty in the state of California by revisiting the crimes, arrest, trials and appeals of Lawrence Bittaker, a convicted serial killer who has been on death row at San Quentin since 1981.

08 Oct 2017

A film about convicted drug smuggler Myuran Sukumaran, who became an accomplished artist before he was executed by firing squad in Indonesia in April 2015.

07 Apr 2005

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

13 Sep 2021

In September 2021, France will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty. A decision so strong that it will symbolize, in itself, the first seven years of François Mitterrand. For Robert Badinter, it was the fight of a lifetime, rooted in a personal history marked by the rejection of injustice, which began after the arrest of his father by the Gestapo in 1943. A story told through archives and by his family and closest friends.

21 Nov 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.

27 Jul 2006

On 15 August 2004, a 16-year-old girl was hanged in a public square in Neka, a small Iranian town by the Caspian Sea. Atefeh Sahaaleh's death sentence was for "crimes against chastity". Despite Iran being a signatory to an international convention that promises not to sentence to death or execute those under 18, permission was obtained from Iran's Supreme Court by the local mullah and head of the city's administration to do exactly that. Eyewitness accounts and dramatic reconstructions, plus undercover filming in Atefah's hometown tell the powerful story of the life and tragic death of an ordinary girl.

11 Nov 2011

We do not know when and how we will die. Death Row inmates do. Werner Herzog embarks on a dialogue with Death Row inmates, asks questions about life and death and looks deep into these individuals, their stories, their crimes.
17 Dec 1897
The hanging of child murderer, William Carr

10 May 2017

Three extraordinary people embark on journeys of recovery, discovery and rebellion and find themselves centre stage in the biggest capital punishment crisis in modern memory. The Penalty unearths an America where grieving families, botched executions and wrongful convictions force us to question what we think we know about the death penalty.

13 Sep 2021

Forty years after the abolition of the death penalty in France, voted on September 18, 1981, the guillotine remains in the collective imagination as the instrument of the death sentence. This machine, developed during the Revolution to render justice more equal, was presented as progress. Over time, opinion has been divided on the subject of the death penalty, the guillotine becoming the object of man's cruelty, a remnant of an archaic way of dispensing justice and fuelling the many debates around the death penalty and its abolition.

12 Aug 2022

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.
03 Dec 2005
Today, the ritual of giving the last supper to the condemned person has been detached from its origin, and can be perceived to be as absurd as the punishment it accompanies. Mats Bigert & Lars Bergström's film “The Last Supper” focuses on this discrepancy between historical “meaning” and contemporary use of a tradition that has lost its connection with the past. The main character is the former death row chef Brian Price, who reconstructs one of the 200 final meals that he prepared during his time as inmate in Huntsville State Prison, Texas.

27 Nov 2016

This documentary explores two horrific stories. With haunting interviews with the killers, plus emotional exchanges with the daughters.
The death penalty in the United States is as old as the country itself, with roots to the original European settlements. During this time over 15,000 men and women have been executed, eventually spurring a heated debate about this ultimate punishment. Featuring interviews and commentary from leading criminal and sociology experts, this documentary takes an inside look at the origins of America's capital punishment laws, the methods of execution, and the faces of evil who have received the death sentence including Ted Bundy, Timothy McVeigh, and John Wayne Gacy. Also get a glimpse into the prison cells and lives of those who await their fate on Death Row.

06 Apr 2011

When a teenager from a political family in the Philippines is accused of a double murder, the country’s entire judicial system is put to the test after years of alleged corruption.

25 Sep 2015

A documentary film about Martta Koskinen, the last executed woman in Finland during the war in 1943. Martta was a Seamstress who lived in Helsinki during the Second World War. She was one of the post-civil war (in 1918) generation for whom the war had meant a disappointment in the system and failure in unity of the Finnish nation. The legacy of the civil war had left systems of persecution in place for those with socialist ideals. Martta and her fellow revolutionaries were determined to continue the resistance movement although they knew that at worst it could cost their lives. Martta was imprisoned twice before she was shot. She was an idealist, whose seemingly harmless, naive beliefs in peace and justice were the most dangerous traits a person could have at the time.

11 Nov 1995

Procedure 769 is the document that lays down how a prisoner is to be executed. For the first time in 25 years the procedure was again followed in California, USA. On April 21, 1992, just before 6 am, Robert Harris stepped into the bright green light. All witnesses had a valid reason to watch. For one is was a democratic duty, another wanted to see justice served, some wanted to help the condemned in the last moments of his life. They all looked at the same: a dying man. Yet each saw different things happen.

01 Jan 1987

A man is facing a trial for murdering a Latvian union leader, which more likely than not will end with a death sentence. A close-up look at his emotional journey through the trial, imprisonment and beyond.

19 Oct 2017

Documentary about the jurors in a murder trial who handed out the death sentence to the defendant, and how their attitudes have changed 20+ years later.