The Alabama Solution – Review | HBO

THE ALABAMA SOLUTION on HBO Max is a new HBO documentary about the conditions for inmates in Alabama prisons. While they are obviously inmates for a reason, many prison guards should clearly also be inmates. Read our The Alabama Solution documentary review here!

THE ALABAMA SOLUTION is a new HBO documentary on HBO Max. It comes from an award-winning documentary filmmaker who manages to show the abysmal living conditions for those serving time in an Alabama prison.

The runtime is just under two hours long, and I don’t think it could have been any shorter. It is tough to watch this, as you will hear prisoners in the beginning who will not survive until the end.

Continue reading our The Alabama Solution documentary review below. Find it on HBO Max from October 10, 2025.

It all began in 2019…

The Alabama Solution is a documentary recorded over several years and working with data that is even older. It all began in 2019, when filmmakers visited an Alabama prison. Their mission was simply to film a revival meeting, but the inmates jumped at the opportunity.

While off camera, several incarcerated men managed to get an important message out: Something terrible is going on, and it’s being covered up by everyone in charge.

From this input whispered or spoken in hushed voices, the very immersive six-year investigation began. As it turned out, they didn’t even have to dig very much to discover what these prisoners were referencing.

Alabama is one of the nation’s deadliest prison systems in the U.S., and having watched The Alabama Solution, it’s easy to see why. The filmmakers made this documentary via unprecedented direct access and video shot on contraband cell phones.

Brutality and corruption

Due to the nature of Alabama prisons, getting contraband (from cellphones to drugs) is easy. The prisons are running way over capacity and are grossly understaffed. Those who do work there are part of the broken system.

Clearly, this means they are the ones bringing in drugs and other contraband items. The prison guards are just as much criminals as the prisoners they’re getting paid to watch over and rehabilitate.

The Alabama prisons are rife with brutality and corruption, which is threatening to result in a full-on collapse of the system. Especially as the inmates fight back in non-violent ways: They go on a state-wide strike as a means of resistance.

“Natural causes”?

If you’ve watched a few true crime productions, you’ll quickly realize that autopsies can have very different outcomes. In fact, the same death can have different “causes” depending on who does the autopsy. Or rather, who they do the autopsy for!

In The Alabama Solution, one particular death is ruled “natural causes,” and it should anger anyone who watches it.

First, because the prisoner who has just died would be getting released in less than one month. Second, he was a healthy young man. Third, because he bled from virtually every orifice in his body when he died.

Does that sound like “natural causes” to you? This is just one very extreme example of what happens to inmates in Alabama.

Watch The Alabama Solution on HBO Max

The HBO Original documentary The Alabama Solution is directed and produced by the Emmy®-winning filmmaker Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman. You may already be familiar with some of their previous documentaries.

They both worked on HBO’s The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, and Andrew Jarecki also directed the 2003 Oscar® nominated Capturing the Friedmans. This documentary had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

At first, I was annoyed that I wasn’t informed why these inmates were in prison in the first place. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that this truly did not matter. They are serving time, but not eligible for these torture-like conditions.

Also, in case you were wondering, we do hear what several of them are in prison for. Trust me, when you find out, it doesn’t match the punishment… not even close. Watch this because, as human beings, we should not accept that this is happening.

The Alabama Solution debuts on HBO on October 10, 2025, at 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET/PT. Also, it will be available to stream on HBO Max.

Photograph by Courtesy of HBO