10 Best Prison Movies

So how does A Prophet stack up against other films in that time honored genre – the Prison Movie? Can a French film rank high among the Alcatraz, Sing Sing and Folsom fare?

My top ten includes familiar themes – the fact-based stories, the great escape attempts, the characters who resist the oppressive authority and those who work the system to become crime bosses.  Plus Death Row.  My list includes American penitentiaries, British, French and Turkish prisons, enemy POW camps and Southern chain gangs.  But some of the best known prison movies do NOT make the cut.

Edward James Olmos, Pepe Serna and William Forsythe in a very under rated prison movie

See my list of 10 Best Prison Movies.