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- Olivia Rutigliano
- The Great Escape, dir. John Sturges (1963) The Great Escape, a based-on-a-true-events, three-hour-long epic about a group of Allied(/Antifa) prisoners who attempt a gigantic escape from a Nazi POW camp, has everything—and everyone!
- A Man Escaped, dir. Robert Bresson (1956) Robert Bresson’s harrowing prison escape drama (which has a much longer title in French: Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut, which means “An inmate condemned to die has escaped, or the wind blows where it will”) will send your blood pressure through the roof.
- Cool Hand Luke, dir. Stuart Rosenberg (1967) There’s nothing quite like Cool Hand Luke, a stirring, multi-layered film about an “original” of a man named Luke Jackson (Paul Newman), who is sentenced to two years in a rural Southern prison (for the minor, anti-Capitalist crime of decapitating parking meters) and who completely refuses to conform to the warden’s behavioral rules, peacefully rebelling against petty tyranny and giving all the other prisoners hope.
- The Fugitive, dir. Andrew Davis (1993) Okay, so, technically in The Fugitive, the wrongfully-convicted Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) does not *break out of prison* so much as run away after several prisoners hijack their transport bus and attempt to escape, but the stakes are the same.
Sep 22, 2024 · The Great Escape, in a word, is great.It's perhaps the quintessential prison escape movie, being a nearly three-hour epic centering on a team of prisoners and their plan to break out of a heavily ...
- Jeremy Urquhart
- Maze (2017) The story of Europe’s biggest prison escape since the Second World War, as 38 IRA prisoners break out of Northern Ireland’s Maze prison in 1983.
- U.S. Marshals (1998) An airplane bearing gruff U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) crashes in the wilderness. On board the same flight is Mark Sheridan (Wesley Snipes), a federal prisoner accused of double murder, who escapes during the ensuing chaos, but not before rescuing several people from the wreckage.
- Son of a Gun (2014) JR, a small-time, teenage criminal finds himself locked up for a minor crime and forced to adapt to the harsh realities of prison life.
- The Count of Monte Cristo directed by Rowland Lee. In the midst of the tumultuous Napoleonic era, Frenchman Edmond Dantes (Robert Donat) is charged with a trumped-up crime and sent to prison.
- 15 The Way Back
- 14 King of Devil's Island
- 13 Down by Law
- 12 The Grand Illusion
- 11 I Am A Fugitive from A Chain Gang
- 10 Rescue Dawn
- 9 Midnight Express
- 8 Papillon
- 7 The Defiant Ones
- 6 A Man Escaped
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. Their 4000-mile journey acr...
Inmates In A Boy's Prison Rebel
A dramatization of life ina 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...
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 commitwhile 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...
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...
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 gangafter 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. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang may not sound like a movie with as wide a scope as it has but the...
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 documentaryLittle 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 h...
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 account of his time in a Turkish prison, the film takes many liberties with its story. Despite that, Parker’s direct...
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...
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 actorsbein...
A Man Plans An Escape In Nazi-Occupied France
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 France 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 t...
- Colin Mccormick
Jul 13, 2016 · With our MOs and mea culpas now accounted for, let's tackle the 19 Best Prison Movie Escapes of All Time. See if you agree. 19. Cube (1997) Cube tells the story of six strangers placed, against their will, into a cube-like structure rigged with deadly traps reminiscent of the Saw films. But don't call this one a copycat.
- Aric Mitchell
"Not every movie that features a prison escape or escaped prisoners is a Prison Escape Movie. To be on this list, a movie must centrally feature the escape, both tonally and practically, emphasizing the conditions that create the need for the escape, the process of planning and strategizing the escape (including through teamwork), the actual escape, being on the run or pursued or recaptured ...
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Jul 25, 2024 · The Great Escape's exciting blend of suspense, adventure, and camaraderie ultimately cements its place as one of the best prison break movies of all time. Released: 1963. Directed by: John Sturges. Also ranks #1 on Great War Movies With Hardly Any Violence In Them. Also ranks #2 on The Greatest '60s Movies, Ranked.
