Official Trailer for ‘The Alabama Solution’ Doc About Prison Corruption

Official Trailer for ‘The Alabama Solution’ Doc About Prison Corruption

by Alex Billington
September 25, 2025
Source: YouTube

“They don’t want the public to see what’s really going on on the inside…” HBO Max has revealed an official trailer for a documentary film titled The Alabama Solution, an extraordinary inside look at the problems within the American prison system. This film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and also played at Sheffield DocFest. Made by acclaimed doc filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, it is ready to view on HBO Max in October. Composed primarily of contraband cell phone footage taken by incarcerated men at Easterling and other facilities across the state, The Alabama Solution film exposes the inhumane conditions, systemic injustice, and brutal treatment of those behind bars in the Alabama prison system told through their own voices and their own stories. The film expertly weaves the pressing issues of prison privatization, inmate slave labor, abuse of power, government corruption, and extreme violence together to help audiences on the outside get a real sense of the abhorrent conditions of our fellow human beings. Looks very hard to watch – but still an important, necessary, vital example of reporting on the truth even when it’s so extremely rotten.

Here’s the official trailer (+ poster) for Andrew Jarecki’s doc The Alabama Solution, from YouTube:

In 2019, filmmakers visit an Alabama prison to film a revival meeting. Off camera, incarcerated men whisper a message: terrible things are going on here & being kept secret. This sparks an immersive six-year investigation to discover the reality behind the walls of one of the nation’s deadliest prison systems. Through unprecedented direct access and video shot on contraband cell phones, the filmmakers learn from the men inside about a suspicious and violent death. The story unfolds in real time, revealing it isn’t an isolated incident and that the official version appears far from the truth. What follows is a shocking story of brutality, corruption, and a system in collapse. As the men fight for their own survival, they embark on a campaign of resistance, against all odds. The Alabama Solution is a doc film directed by the filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, director of the doc Capturing the Friedmans, the film All Good Things, and the entire “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” series. Produced by Charlotte Kaufman & Andrew Jarecki. This initially premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. HBO will debut Jarecki’s The Alabama Solution doc streaming on HBO Max starting October 10th, 2025 coming up soon. Intrigued?

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