Favourite prison films
A selection of my favourite films, either set in prisons, asylums, etc. or focusing upon those escaped or released from confinement, or upon those captured and awaiting imprisonment.
The prison bars and walls loom large and cast long shadows!
The prison bars and walls loom large and cast long shadows!
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- DirectorRobert BressonStarsFrançois LeterrierCharles Le ClaincheMaurice BeerblockA captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from a German prison in France.
- DirectorBill DouglasStarsRobin SoansWilliam GaminaraStephen BatemanThe story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of nineteenth century English farm laborers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.
- DirectorRichard BoleslawskiStarsFredric MarchCharles LaughtonCedric HardwickeIn early-19th-century France, an ex-convict who failed to report to parole is relentlessly pursued over a 20-year period by an obsessive policeman.
- DirectorFred ZinnemannStarsPaul ScofieldWendy HillerRobert ShawThe story of Sir Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarry.
- DirectorMervyn LeRoyStarsPaul MuniGlenda FarrellHelen VinsonWrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a Southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.
- DirectorAndrey KonchalovskiyStarsJon VoightEric RobertsRebecca De MornayTwo escaped convicts and a female railway worker find themselves trapped on a speeding train with no brakes and nobody driving.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsSid LuceroAngeli BayaniArchie AlemaniaAn embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.
- DirectorDelmer DavesStarsGlenn FordVan HeflinFelicia FarrBroke small-time rancher Dan Evans is hired by the stagecoach line to put big-time captured outlaw leader Ben Wade on the 3:10 train to Yuma but Wade's gang tries to free him.
- DirectorWilliam DieterleGeorge CukorStarsGinger RogersJoseph CottenShirley TempleA soldier suffering from combat fatigue meets a young woman on Christmas furlough from prison and their mutual loneliness blossoms into romance.
- DirectorWilliam KeighleyStarsJames CagneyGeorge RaftJane BryanA corrupt D.A. (Thurston Hall) with political ambitions is angered by news stories implicating him in criminal activity and decides to frame the reporter (James Cagney) for manslaughter in order to silence him.
- DirectorPeter YatesStarsRobert MitchumPeter BoyleRichard JordanAfter his last crime has him looking at a long prison sentence for repeat offenses, a low level Boston gangster decides to snitch on his friends to avoid jail time.
- DirectorRobert HamerStarsGoogie WithersJack WarnerJohn McCallumAn escaped convict tries to hide out at his former lover's house, but she has since married and is reluctant to help him.
- DirectorCharles F. HaasStarsJohn AgarMamie Van DorenRichard BooneA sheriff planning on legally hanging a killer, has to contend with farmers who want to lynch him, and cattlemen who want to help him escape.
- DirectorBimal RoyStarsAshok KumarNutanDharmendraDuring the British Raj of the 1930s, a prison-doctor falls in love with a convict who eventually reveals the story of her past and her connection to a freedom fighter.
- DirectorJorge AchaStarsJorge DíezLuis NietoÓscar BernalesExperimental film that shows four days in the life of a man clandestinely kept in captivity. The images of his naked body alternate with those of a happy moment on a beach and with those of his captor, who spends his time looking at bodybuilding magazines.
- DirectorDavid MillerStarsKirk DouglasGena RowlandsWalter MatthauA fiercely independent cowboy gets himself locked up in prison to escape with an old friend.
- DirectorClaude ChabrolStarsIsabelle HuppertFrançois CluzetMarie TrintignantA housewife in Nazi-occupied France struggles to make ends meet when her husband returns home after being wounded in the war.
- DirectorRiccardo FredaStarsAmedeo NazzariGianna Maria CanaleArmando FrancioliPietro, an honest businessman, is wrongly accused of the murder of his business associate and jailed. Actually the man is alive and has set him up to avoid bankruptcy. Pietro's life is shattered of course and when after many years he is released from prison, he seeks revenge.
- DirectorJohn FordStarsWarner BaxterGloria StuartClaude GillingwaterThe story of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was imprisoned after innocently treating President Lincoln's assassin in 1865.
- DirectorSarah MaldororStarsCarlos PestanaNoureddine DreisMohamed ZinetAbuses by the Portuguese slave traders in their colony of Angola are depicted through the torture of one prisoner, based on ignorance and incomprehension.
- DirectorMichel BraultStarsHélène LoiselleJean LapointeGuy ProvostA fact-based account of ordinary citizens who found themselves arrested and imprisoned without charge for weeks during the October Crisis in 1970 Quebec.
- DirectorKudret GunesStarsIsmail BesikçiHediye DagliPiruzhan DogrulLeyla Zana, the first woman Kurdish MP to be elected to the Turkish Parliament in 1992, was impisoned in 1994 for 15 years for speaking in Kurdish in the Parliament. Kudret Gunes' personal look at the life of Zana takes her to her birth-place, friends and exiled husband.
- DirectorJ. Lee ThompsonStarsDiana DorsYvonne MitchellMichael CraigWoman abused by men meets a man she thinks loves her. He cheats, she kills his mistress. Based on Ruth Ellis, last woman executed in Britain. Less than
- DirectorArthur PennStarsPaul NewmanLita MilanJohn DehnerAfter his employer is murdered by rival cattlemen, a troubled and uneducated young cowboy vows revenge on the murderers.
- DirectorBilly WilderStarsWilliam HoldenDon TaylorOtto PremingerAfter two Americans are killed while escaping from a German P.O.W. camp in World War II, the barracks black marketeer, J.J. Sefton, is suspected of being an informer.