Netflix Tried to Re-Create One of History’s Most Notorious Experiments. It Went Just About How You’d Expect.

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In August of 1971, 24 male college students walked into the basement of Stanford University’s psychology building after answering a newspaper ad that promised they’d be paid $15 a day to participate in a psychological study. What awaited them was a mock prison, for which nine of the young men were randomly assigned to act as prisoners, and another nine randomly selected to act as guards, with the remaining participants waiting on standby in case they were needed. The study—helmed by the divisive psychologist Philip Zimbardo—was intended to, in simplified terms, test the effects of power and whether or not it corrupts those who are taxed with it. But when, over the next few days, the fake guards got too consumed with power, resulting in the psychological abuse—including humiliation, degradation, and dehumanization—of the so-called prisoners, and when Zimbardo became way too involved in the experiment as the mock prison’s “superintendent,” things took a turn. The study was supposed to last for two weeks. It was shut down after six days. The event, dubbed the “Stanford Prison Experiment,” became one of the most infamous examples of unethical psychological experimentation; it has been referenced across pop culture for decades, eventually becoming the subject of its own film in 2015. As for the man behind it, Philip Zimbardo, who died in 2024, became a contentious figure in psychology, though the lack of modern international review boards and leaner guidelines for experimentation meant that he wasn’t officially reprimanded.

Naturally, Netflix looked at one of the most disreputable events in the history of psychology and thought: Let’s do it all again! This is how we got The New Stanford Prison Experiment (how original!), a so-called reimagination of the 1971 event in the form of six 45-minute episodes landing on the streamer today. This new version, intended to be safer and better engineered, is overseen by three experts: Alison Wood Brooks, a behavioral scientist and Harvard professor; Trymaine Lee, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who often writes about the justice system and power; and Michael Cantrell, a retired federal corrections officer. The result is certainly different, but I wouldn’t say it’s better. In the end, The New Stanford Prison Experiment is just what you’d expect a 2026 Netflix adaptation of a psychological trial would be: reality TV.

Here’s how Netflix’s version of the study works: 30 participants are placed into a decommissioned section of an actual, functioning adult detention center in Canton, Georgia, where 22 of them are assigned to be inmates and eight to be guards (who then split up into day- and night-shift teams). The study is intended to last two full weeks, with the inmates actually going through the motions of imprisonment. They go through the intake process, where they get mug shots and are fingerprinted, and they are given limited rec time, 50 minutes of phone time spread across the entire 14 days, prison food to eat, and are forced to do bed checks, shower at specific times, and more. The punishments that can be enforced are realistic too, like revoking commissary or phone privileges, or even forcing inmates to go into early lockdown or solitary confinement for the day. The main differences are the participants, who come from a wide array of backgrounds (and are all older than college students), and whose ranks include three women, all assigned as guards. Anyone can leave at any time by uttering the safe word, “pineapple.” Structurally, the trial is also separated from its predecessor via four preplanned “phases” that are intended to, as Brooks explains, “help us get closer to understanding: How do power dynamics influence people’s behavior?”

The first phase is “Transformation,” which details the process of the participants becoming inmates and guards. As Cantrell puts it, “they’re going to get their identity taken away,” and they are instead “given uniforms.” The central question he poses is: “How much of who you are can you keep? Will it shine past the uniforms? Will it shine past the badges?” Guards are told they have to “take control” and enforce the rules, while inmates know they’re supposed to listen and conform, and all of this is intensified by a series of interventions, like sending the guards through a riot drill that forces the inmates to randomly get down on the ground and be handcuffed, despite having done nothing wrong. The second phase is “Hierarchy,” which tells both shifts of guards to choose a head guard and an exemplary prisoner as a “trustee” who gets special privileges in turn for helping the guards keep order.

From the start, there are key participants who are clearly happy with being chosen as guards, and those unhappy with being chosen as inmates, while many others are just trying to go along with the roles they’ve been given. A few inmates leave the experiment early because they dislike the experience; one in particular because he said playing a prisoner triggered feelings from when he was previously incarcerated. Things come to a head a few times, particularly due to tension between a very stern head guard and a key few troublemaker inmates who conspire to rebel. The guards, upset by the attempts to mount an insurrection, get a little trigger-happy with the punishment, skipping past more temporary lockdowns and a revoking of privileges and instead forcing the two main conspirators into a punishment called a 23-and-1, in which the inmates in question are locked together in their cell for 23 hours of the day and only given one hour outside of their cell.

On Day 7, halfway through the experiment, comes the third phase: “Role Reversal.” It’s here that the male guards are then forced to switch places with male inmates, absolutely upsetting the balance of power that was established beforehand. This is particularly tension-inducing because the members chosen to replace the guards were the three most conspiratorial ones, who’d spent the past seven days repudiating authority. (That aforementioned stern guard leaves the experiment at this juncture.) And the final phase, “Self-Governance,” sees the removal of guards entirely, leaving the inmates to govern themselves. Ultimately, they decide that if they all choose to leave together, a few days before the experiment was intended to last, it ultimately isn’t giving up, but rather a display of showing solidarity and taking hold of their freedom.

And all of this may sound like it’s doing psychological work, but the result is not a bona fide experiment. Instead, the entirety of The New Stanford Prison Experiment is a lot closer to reality TV. For starters, the format is riddled with the conventions of the genre: having confessionals; the way the show is shot; hearing from the expert voices as they comment on the goings-on; the sheer twists and turns befitting of a television stunt. The “phases” might be a way for the psych overlords of this show to test the dynamics of power, but they are also clearly attempts to make the whole show narratively interesting. Take the “Role Reversal” phase: It functions much like a plot twist. But the larger issue is that this “experiment,” if that’s what they wanted this to be, was already built upon a facade: It was flawed the moment the contestants knew they were going to be on TV. Anything they might do beyond that is not an “accurate” depiction of how someone would act when given the benefit of the cloak of power, which often lets people violate rights and human decency in private. Instead, what we are getting is, both literally and figuratively, a show. Additionally, the phases and interventions might’ve created behaviors or feelings that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred. The guards, after all, are also just following orders. None of the guards wanted to do the riot drills, and yet, understandably, being forced to get on the ground and get handcuffed for no reason sowed discontent among some inmates.

The original Stanford Prison Experiment was incredibly flawed, and is now seen as something of a stain on the record of the psychology discipline. (The one good thing that came from it is, arguably, that it is held up as a prime example of what not to do.) But, in the same way you can’t say it was aboveboard and ethical, you also can’t say it wasn’t, in many ways, truly raw and revealing. Nothing about this new, televised version is “revealing,” and certainly nothing is “raw.” It’s all just gloss. And it’s not even interesting or compelling television, but a slog of episodes that play out exactly how you would expect, because they involve characters and plot points we’ve already seen many times over on our screens.

After all is said and done, I wrestle with the so-called “intention” of this project. I don’t entirely believe that someone really thought we needed a new exploration of the Stanford Prison Experiment as much as I believe Netflix thought it would make good TV, like another variation on Squid Game: The Challenge or Wonka’s The Golden Ticket. (It didn’t). But, mostly, I take issue with the central question: Does power corrupt? Whatever the answer is, you’re not going to find it here.