Top 10 Best Prison Movies

10. O Brother, Where Art Thou, 2000
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a 2000 adventure comedy film written, produced, edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning in supporting roles. Set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression, the film's story is a modern satire loosely based on Homer’s Life
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9. The Longest Yard, 1974
Ex-football star Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) ends up in a prison run by sadistic sports-nut Warden Hazen (Eddie Albert). Strong-armed into forming an inmate football team, Crewe manages to instill an esprit de corps previously lacking in the prisoners' lives. Besides, they now have the chance to beat the guards' football team, headed by the hissable Capt. Knauer (Ed Lauter). Hazen orders Crewe to throw the match; otherwise, Crewe will never get the pardon he's been promised. The football game that follows consumes nearly a third of the picture.~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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8. American History X, 1998
American History X is a 1998 American drama film directed by Tony Kaye and written by David McKenna. It stars Edward Norton and Edward Furlong, and co-stars Fairuza Balk, Stacy Keach, Elliott Gould, Avery Brooks, Ethan Suplee and Beverly D'Angelo.
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7. Escape from Alcatraz, 1979
Escape from Alcatraz is a 1979 American prison film, directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood. It is based on true events. It dramatizes possibly the only successful escape attempt from the maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island.
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6. Papillon, 1973
Papillon is a 1973 prison film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, based on the best-selling autobiography by the French convict Henri Charrière. The film stars Steve McQueen as Henri Charrière, and Dustin Hoffman as Louis Dega.
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5. The Great Escape, 1963
The Great Escape is based on the true story of a group of Allied prisoners of war who managed to escape from an allegedly impenetrable Nazi prison camp during World War II. At the beginning of the film, the Nazis gather all their most devious and troublesome POWs and place them at a new prison camp, which was designed to be impervious to escapes. Immediately, the prisoners develop a scheme where they will leave the camp by building three separate escape tunnels.
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4. Cool Hand Luke, 1967
Paul Newman was nominated for an Oscar and George Kennedy received one for his work in this allegorical prison drama. Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to a stretch on a southern chain gang after he's arrested for drunkenly decapitating parking meters. While the avowed ambition of the captain (Strother Martin) is for each prisoner to get their mind right, it soon becomes obvious that Luke is not about to kowtow to anybody.
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3. The Green Mile, 1999
The Green Mile is a 1999 American drama film directed by Frank Darabont adapted from the 1996 Stephen King novel of the same name.
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2. Midnight Express, 1978
Midnight Express is a 1978 American/British film directed by Alan Parker and produced by David Puttnam. It is based on Billy Hayes' 1977 book Midnight Express and was adapted into the screenplay by Oliver Stone.
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1. The Shawshank Redemption
In 1946, a banker named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of a double murder, even though he stubbornly proclaims his innocence. He's sentenced to a life term at the Shawshank State Prison in Maine, where another lifer, Ellis Red Redding (Morgan Freeman), picks him as the new recruit most likely to crack under the pressure.
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