What happens when a college psych study goes shockingly wrong?

Based on the notorious true story, THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT stars Billy Crudup (Watchmen) as Stanford University professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo, who, in 1971, cast 24 student volunteers as prisoners and guards in a simulated jail to examine the source of abusive behavior in the prison system. The results astonished the world, as participants went from middle-class undergrads to drunk-with-power sadists and submissive victims in just a few days. Featuring an extraordinary cast including Ezra Miller, Olivia Thirlby, Tye Sheridan, Keir Gilchrist, Michael Angarano, and Thomas Mann, and created with the close participation of Dr. Zimbardo himself, THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT is a chilling, edge-of-your-seat thriller about the dark side of power and the effects of imprisonment.