Oz was an American television drama series created and written by Tom Fontana. It was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by HBO. It aired for six seasons between 1997 and 2003.

Oz is the nickname for the Oswald State Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison of undisclosed location. Many of the plot arcs are set in Emerald City ("Em City"), an experimental unit of the prison in which the unit manager attempts to emphasize rehabilitation and learning responsibility during incarceration. Emerald City is a controlled environment where there are a limited number of members of each racial and social group.

Oz avoids any easy answers as to the origin of violence and criminality. Even its worst inmates exhibit moments of humanity whereas its relatively-normal characters do commit atrocities as well. One of the perspectives proposed by Oz is that the wide-scale rehabilitation of prisoners is almost impossible if prisoners have no desire to change. The show focused extensively on the abuse of prisoners' rights, on counter-perspectives for/against the death penalty, and on the large increase of the incarcerated population in the U.S since the late 1990s.

The large ensemble cast included Rita Moreno, Ernie Hudson, Terry Kinney and Betty Buckley; later Law & Order stars Kathryn Erbe, Christopher Meloni, B. D. Wong, J. K. Simmons, Dean Winters and Kirk Acevedo; Lost stars Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Harold Perrineau Jr.; Dexter stars Erik King, David Zayas, and Lauren Vélez.; The Sopranos Edie Falco. Many of the actors from Oz have appeared as guest stars on The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Black Donnellys, New York Undercover, 24, Lost, the TV series Dexter, and in the various Law & Order series.

Oz (also released as 20th Century Oz) is a 1976 film written and directed by Chris Löfvén, and stars Joy Dunstan, Graham Matters, Bruce Spence, Gary Waddell, and Robin Ramsay. It received four nominations for the 1977 AFI Awards. The music is by Ross Wilson. The plot is a re-imagining of the The Wizard of Oz (1939 film).

Oz chronicles life inside an experimental cell block in the Oswald Maximum Security Correctional Facility: Level Four called Emerald City. Under unit manager Tim McManus and Warden Leo Glynn, the inmates in Em City all struggle to fulfill their own needs. Some fight for power; either power over the drug trade or power over the other inmate factions. Others want money, either through slinging 'tits' (drugs), gambling or other scams. Others, Corrections officers and inmates alike, simply want to survive long enough to make parole or even to see tomorrow. The show gives a no-holds-barred account of prison life with all the plots, subplots and conflicts given context and explaination by the show's wheelchair-bound narrator, Augustus Hill. Written by Michael Hofer

OZ chronicles the attempts of McManus (Terry Kinney) to keep control over the inmates of Em(erald) City as well as the drug trade and the violence. There have been many groups of inmates during the run of the show and not everybody makes it out alive. There's the gangstas (Adebisi, Wangler, Redding, Poet, Keene, Supreme Allah), Muslims (Said, Arif, Hamid Khan), Italians (Pancamo, Nappa, Schiebetta), bikers (Hoyt), Aryans (Schillinger, Robson, Mark Mack), Christians (Cloutier, Cudney), Latinos (Alvarez, Morales, Guerra, Hernandez), gays (Hanlon, Cramer) and a whole pile of others (the O'Riley brothers, Keller, Stanislovsky, etc.). And there's a great "everyman" character called Beecher who gives a good look at a normal man who made one tragic mistake. Besides the regular inmates, there's guest stars such as Method Man, Luke Perry, Master P, Treach, etc. and a bunch of prison staff doctors (Dr. Nathan), a nun/psychologist (Sister Peter Marie), a bunch of guards some honest, some crooked and of course the warden Leo Glynn. The whole thing is narrated and held together by inmates Augustus Hill, who provides the show with some context, some sense of theme, etc. and ties everything together really nicely. Written by LorgSkyegon