Summary

• From thrilling classics to modern adventures, prison escape movies offer varied genres and unforgettable journeys for fans of the genre.
• These movies explore desperate escapes, brutal captivity, and enduring friendships that transcend the boundaries of prison walls.
• Whether it's a daring plan in Alcatraz or a tale of hope in Shawshank, these films captivate audiences with gripping narratives and unforgettable characters.

Prison escape movies are a thrilling subgenre that has been around for decades and continues to be a draw today. Careful planning, coordination, and perfect execution are what it takes to successfully complete this kind of mission and some are not always lucky. Fans will find both among the best movies of this genre. From classics of the Golden Era of Hollywood to more recent adventures, prison escape movies carry a lasting legacy.

There's nothing quite like a character's desperate, determined, and dangerous attempt at freedom, whether they are innocent victims or endearing anti-heroes who belong in jail. However, while the concept of characters breaking out of their confinement might seem like a limiting genre, audiences might be surprised by how varied prison escape movies can be. From intense dramas to family-friendly comedies to epic adventures, these prison escape movies stand out in the genre.

15 The Way Back (2010)

Prisoners At A Gulag Escape And Face The Dangerous Walk To Freedom

Based on a much-disputed legend of a long walk to freedom taken by escaped prisoners from a Siberian gulag, The Way Back is a sprawling period drama in the spirit of director Peter Weir's most sweeping epics. The gulag presents a brutal and inhumane fate for these prisoners with the audience desperately hoping they can be freed from it. The escape from the gulag is really the simplest part of the main characters' ordeal but, of course, that isn't their real prison.

It becomes as much a survival movie as a prison escape movie with the prisoners facing the harsh elements.

Their 4000-mile journey across just about every kind of beautifully barren landscape imaginable wears them down to their cores and Weir never loses sight of the emotional details even in the most enormous backdrops. It becomes as much a survival movie as a prison escape movie with the prisoners facing the harsh elements, including freezing temperatures and vicious animals. The movie features a strong ensemble, including Saoirse Ronan, Ed Harris, and Colin Farrell.

14 King Of Devil's Island (2010)

Inmates In A Boy's Prison Rebel

A dramatization of life in a boy's prison on the Norwegian island of Bastøy in the early 20th century which leads to an insurrection by the detainees, King of Devil's Island is an unforgiving but deeply affecting drama.

The story begins with a new arrival at the Bastøy prison island where he befriends the other prisoners and attempts to fight back against the abuse and corruption he witnesses at the prison. Stellan Skarsgård leads a talented cast as the critically out-of-touch director of the prison.

However, it's the boys themselves who shine the brightest, creating an enveloping criminal world and unbreakably tough bonds of loyalty that could go toe to toe with the most seasoned gangster sagas. It is a harrowing story of a place that is meant to serve justice yet offers none to the young inmates, pushing them to the point of desperate acts.

13 Down By Law (1986)

Three Men Are Locked Up Together And Form A Connection

Jim Jarmusch directed the black-and-white prison escape movie Down By Law starring Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni. Waits and Lurie play two men who are set up for a crime they did not commit while Benigni is a tourist who is locked up for accidental manslaughter.

While most prison escape films focus on these complicated and intricate schemes of escaping, this one is unique in focusing on how these convicts interact with each other, presenting a charming and hilarious trio who form a unique dynamic.

Jarmusch’s penchant for snappy dialogue along with cinematographer Robby Müller's slow-paced and deliberate camerawork make this one of the more interesting movies about prison. There is a sweetness and fun to the movie that is rare in the genre. Like most of Jarmusch's movies, Down By Law developed a cult following that extended far beyond its initially quirky indie origins.

12 The Grand Illusion (1937)

World War I POWs Plan Their Escape

War movies and prison escape movies often overlap, as is the case with the French film The Grand Illusion from reserved French auteur Jean Renoir. The story follows two French pilots who are shot down and captured during World War I.

After being taken to a German POW camp, they continue to fuel their pride in the French war effort. They continuously attempt to escape before being sent to a seemingly inescapable prison.

Much like with the director's following masterpiece, The Rules of the Game, the insights into European culture and its decay are made incomparably poignant by the film's proximity to the beginning of the Second World War. It is a thought-provoking look at the futility of war and the humanity at the center of these conflicts. The Grand Illusion holds the distinction of being the first foreign language movie nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

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11 I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)

Based On A Real-Life Convict's Imprisonment In Georgia

Another prison escape movie from the earlier days of motion pictures, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang has the added impact of being based on a true story. Adapted from the experiences of Robert Elliott Burns on a Georgia chain gang after returning home to a life of a drifter from World War I, this 1930s Best Picture nominee is just as exciting and pertinent today as it was almost a century ago.

This starkly realistic drama showed that there were complexities to the world.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang may not sound like a movie with as wide a scope as it has but the barbarity of the chain gang itself is only a part of the story's depiction of the wider prison of a corrupt and self-perpetuating criminal system. In an age in which the movies had a very clear cut idea of what prisoners are and the kind of people who find themselves in those situations, this starkly realistic drama showed that there were complexities to the world.

10 Rescue Dawn (2006)

The Brutal Fight For Survival Of A Real-Life Vietnam War POW

Werner Herzog is a filmmaker who jumps between documentary and narrative movies, but one subject inspired him to explore it in both mediums. Herzog made the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly in 1997 about Dieter Dengler, a US pilot whose plane was shot down in the country of Laos during the Vietnam War and taken prisoner.

Herzog then proceeded to explore the same story in the movie Rescue Dawn, a dramatization of the horrors and brutality that Dengler faced before deciding that his only hope of survival was escape.

The film is an intense look at Dengler's revolt and eventual escape with another prisoner from the cruel and torturous captivity. Steve Zahn gives a compelling performance as the other prisoner who s Dengler in the ambitious and dangerous escape. It is another amazing transformative role for Christian Bale as Dengler whose survival story is gripping and triumphant.

9 Midnight Express (1978)

A Young Drug Smuggler Attempts To Survive In Turkish Prison

Alan Parker’s Midnight Express is a tough story to watch though it’s a seminal prison escape movie. College student Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is arrested and sent to a Turkish prison for attempting to smuggle hash out of Istanbul. As a foreigner in the dangerous prison system, Billy quickly finds that he will not survive in this prison and makes plans to escape. Based on Hayes’s of his time in a Turkish prison, the film takes many liberties with its story.

Despite that, Parker’s direction and the performances of the cast are all excellent as well as Giorgio Moroder’s Oscar-winning score. The movie takes the audience on a compelling journey with Hayes as it is a foolish choice that ends him in prison but the inhumanity and torture he endures makes the audience hope for his escape.

8 Papillon (1973)

Two Unlikely Friends Plan An Escape From A South American Prison

The starring duo of Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman make for a wonderful pair in the thriller Papillon. The story is based on supposed true events and follows two prisoners who form an unlikely friendship during their respective life sentences in a South American prison. During this time, one of the prisoners plots an escape and kicks off one of the most daring plots in film history.

The movie is an old-school Hollywood adventure with a mixture of excitement and dread with the daunting task laid before the protagonists. McQueen is an actor whose movie star charisma lights up the screen but it is interesting to see him in a more vulnerable role here, often seen as one of his best performances. The movie was remade in 2017 with Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek but this original version remains the superior adaptation of the story.

7 The Defiant Ones (1958)

Sidney Poitier Makes History

Stanley Kramer’s 1958 drama, The Defiant Ones, is a thoughtful and tense film about the struggles of race relations in the 1950s. Two convicts seize an opportunity to escape from a chain gang while chained together, despite hating each other. It is a setup that became a cornerstone of the buddy action movie genre with this movie influencing so many others.

However, its cultural importance goes beyond that. Starring Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier, this film won two Oscars, with both actors being nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. This was a landmark, as Poitier was the first Black actor to be nominated for the award. The movie is a brilliant showcase of how social issues, such as race relations in America in this case, can be dealt with in a meaningful way in the middle of an entertaining adventure.

6 A Man Escaped (1956)

A Man Plans An Escape In Nazi-Occupied

In stark contrast to Renoir's The Grand Illusion, Robert Bresson's devoutly ascetic war movie displays the unfeeling brutality of the Nazi occupation of through one prisoner's experience.

Based on the memoirs of André Devigny, A Man Escaped follows a French resistance fight who is captured and imprisoned with the looming threat of being executed. Though weakened, afraid, and unsure of where he is, the man takes charge of his fate and plans a daring escape.

A Man Escaped is timelessly tense and the cold, objective level of detail in the construction of every part of the escape makes it all feel so much more real. Bresson constructs the movie with a confident minimalist approach, never wasting a shot. It is also an impressive trick that the movie is able to build incredible tension and suspense even as the title of the movie spoils the ending.