san quentin
12 movies and shows
San Quentin
Mon, 24 May 1937
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.
Women of San Quentin
Sun, 23 Oct 1983
A young female prison guard finds out that her first assignment is to San Quentin, one of the toughest prisons in the country.
San Quentin
Mon, 16 Dec 1946
An ex-con sets up a program to straighten out hard-core prisoners. Things don't go as planned.
Men of San Quentin
Fri, 15 May 1942
A corrupt official at San Quentin tries to frame an innocent guard for several murders within the prison.
Zoot Suit
Fri, 02 Oct 1981
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.
Free Chol Soo Lee
Fri, 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.
Felon
Thu, 17 Jul 2008
A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.
A Double Life
Sun, 08 Oct 2023
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.
Weeds
Fri, 16 Oct 1987
A San Quentin inmate, sentenced to life without parole, writes a play that catches the interest of a reporter.
Duffy of San Quentin
Tue, 16 Mar 1954
San Quentin's new warden crusades for reform and for a framed inmate who loves a nurse.
Ballad of an Unsung Hero
Fri, 16 Sep 1983
Using rare historical footage, vintage musical recordings, and interviews with 88-year-old Pedro J. Gonzalez and his wife, this film chronicles Gonzalez’s long and colorful life, from his early days with Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution, to his career as a popular radio personality in Los Angeles in the 1930s, to the controversial court case that sent him to San Prison, a victim of the repressive forces operating against the Chicano/Mexicano community during that period.