The Stanford Prison Experiment Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment is a psychological thriller based on the true story of an experiment conducted in the 70s, in which a bunch of college kids were put in a mock prison in order to study the effects of being in a prison. Half of the kids were prisoners, the other half guards. The film stars Billy Crudup as Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist who came up with the experiment, as well as Ezra Miller, Michael Angarano, Tye Sheridan, Olivia Thirlby, Thomas Mann, and Johnny Simmons.

Anyone who is familiar with real life experiment this movie is based on will know that the psychological effects on the people involved were pretty awful. Of the performances, all the actors in this movie were excellent, but two in particular stuck out: Billy Crudup and Michael Angarano. Billy Crudup was excellent as Philip Zimbardo, and played the role of this obssessed, morally questionable guy. He made Philip Zimbardo a lot more relatable than I thought he'd be. As for Michael Angarano, he plays one of the guards, and this guy seemed downright haunting. He played the most intimidating prison guard I've seen in a movie, which is made all the more interesting by the fact that he's not even playing a prison guard. It's a shame that this movie is as underground as it is, because Angarano absolutely deserves an oscar nomination for this movie.

One of the things Stanford Prison Experiment does fantastically well is that it's captivating. A lot of movies are good at keeping the attention of its audience, but this movie does it especially well. I think that this sense of an out-of-body experience you get from the film comes from the immense attention to detail from the director. No single moment in this movie goes on for longer than it should or is cut off too early. 

The thing that really spiked my interest in seeing this movie was the fact that this experiment is one of the most frighening things I've heard of. Essentially, all the students playing the role of guard became mad with power, while the students playing prisoner became extremely submissive by day one. It didn't even take a day for reality to become distorted, and you can seriously feel that throughout this movie. Usually when a movie uses "day 1" and "day 2" on screen, it's more a reminder, but the way this film uses that classic trope is simply genius.

Final Rating
The Stanford Prison Experiment is a harrowing, deeply disturbing, and kind of shocking film. Those three things all apply regardless of whether or not you're familiar with the actual experiment. What's great about this movie is that now there'll be a whole bunch of new people who all know plenty about this experiment, because it's something genuinly worth talking about. If it's something that interests you, or especially if you're writing a paper on this experiment, absolutely check this one out.