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Prison Film

A subgenre of the crime film that centers on the difficult living conditions and volatile human interplay within the confines of a prison. Some of these films may also examine the difficulties encountered by ex-cons in adjusting to life "outside." In prison films, like in escape films, audience sympathy usually goes to the inmates or a single prisoner who is either innocent or abused by the system. Audiences continue to stream to movies like Murder in the First about a mistreated prisoner, and Shawshank Redemption, about a framed man who learns about life from a fellow inmate while in prison. Many of the films push prison even to the point of personal metaphor, as representative of how one can become a captive of one's own flaws. These films are often about transformation, where prison becomes a sort of monastery, as in the aforementioned Shawshank Redemption. The struggle of a man in confinement takes many forms, some times through out-and-out rebellion by the individual against the system (Cool Hand Luke), and other times -- The Birdman of Alcatraz -- it's more inward. There are usually graphic portrayals of the crime that runs rampant in prisons, drawing ironic parallels to prison reform and supposed prisoner rehabilitation.

Major Works
Rating
Year
 Title
 
 Director
  9 Stars 1995 Dead Man Walking   Tim Robbins
  9 Stars 1956 A Man Escaped   Robert Bresson
  9 Stars 1932 I Am a Fugitive from A Chain Gang   Mervyn LeRoy
  8 Stars 1994 The Shawshank Redemption   Frank Darabont
  8 Stars 1960 Le Trou   Jacques Becker
  8 Stars 1958 I Want to Live!   Robert Wise
  8 Stars 1967 Cool Hand Luke   Stuart Rosenberg
    7 Stars 1980 Scared Straight! Another Story   Richard Michaels
    7 Stars 1929 Thunderbolt   Josef von Sternberg
  7 Stars 1936 The Prisoner of Shark Island   John Ford
    7 Stars 1966 Deathwatch   Vic Morrow
  7 Stars 1950 Caged   John Cromwell
  7 Stars 1947 Brute Force   Jules Dassin
    7 Stars 1930 The Big House   Paul Fejos
    7 Stars 1983 Le Mur   Yilmaz Güney
    7 Stars 1962 Transport Z Raje   Zbynek Brynych
  7 Stars 1987 Prison on Fire   Ringo Lam
  7 Stars 1978 Midnight Express   Alan Parker
    7 Stars 1987 The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains   Daniel Mann
  7 Stars 1985 Kiss of the Spider Woman   Hector Babenco
  7 Stars 1982 Przesluchanie   Ryszard Bugajski
  7 Stars 1979 Escape from Alcatraz   Don Siegel
  7 Stars 1962 Birdman of Alcatraz   John Frankenheimer
    7 Stars 1980 Attica   Marvin J. Chomsky
    6 Stars 1989 Justice Denied   Paul Cowan
  6 Stars 1980 Stir   Stephen Wallace
    6 Stars 1940 Castle on the Hudson   Anatole Litvak
    6 Stars 1993 Prison for Children   Larry Peerce
  6 Stars 1957 Jailhouse Rock   Richard Thorpe
  6 Stars 1972 The Glass House   Tom Gries
  6 Stars 1980 Brubaker   Stuart Rosenberg
  6 Stars 1983 Bad Boys   Rick Rosenthal
  5 Stars 1999 The Hurricane   Norman Jewison
  5 Stars 1999 The Green Mile   Frank Darabont
  5 Stars 1999 Brokedown Palace   Jonathan Kaplan
  5 Stars 1999 Life   Ted Demme
  5 Stars 1998 Slam   Marc Levin
    5 Stars 1996 Life   Lawrence Johnston
  5 Stars 1995 Killer: A Journal of Murder   Tim Metcalfe
    5 Stars 1994 Reflections on a Crime   Marco Black
  5 Stars 1995 Murder in the First   Marc Rocco
    5 Stars 1994 Everynight...Everynight   Alkinos Tsilimidos
    5 Stars 1985 Turning to Stone   Eric Till
    5 Stars 1973 Den Foerste Kreds   Aleksander Ford
  5 Stars 1991 False Arrest   Bill L. Norton
    5 Stars 1975 Cage Without a Key   Buzz Kulik
  5 Stars 1998 Ghosts... of the Civil Dead   John Hillcoat
  5 Stars 1937 San Quentin   Lloyd Bacon
    5 Stars 1958 Revolt in the Big House   R. G. Springsteen
  5 Stars 1962 The Quare Fellow   Arthur Dreifuss
  5 Stars 1965 The Hill   Sidney Lumet
    5 Stars 1940 Devil's Island   William B. Clemens
    5 Stars 1950 Convicted   Henry Levin
    5 Stars 1929 Condemned   Wesley Ruggles
    5 Stars 1990 The Cage   Rick Cluchey
  5 Stars 1970 There Was a Crooked Man   Joseph L. Mankiewicz
  5 Stars 1977 Short Eyes   Robert M. Young
  5 Stars 1979 Scum   Alan Clarke
    5 Stars 1954 Riot in Cell Block 11   Don Siegel
  5 Stars 1939 Mutiny in the Big House   William Nigh
    5 Stars 1978 Mean Dog Blues   Mel Stuart
    5 Stars 1985 Gulag   Roger Young
    5 Stars 1989 Dead Man Out   Richard Pearce
  5 Stars 1993 Dangerous Relations   Georg Stanford Brown
    5 Stars 1931 The Criminal Code   Howard Hawks
    5 Stars 1991 Common Bonds   Allan A. Goldstein
  5 Stars 1974 Caged Heat   Jonathan Demme
    5 Stars 1984 L'Addition   Denis Amar
  5 Stars 1974 Born Innocent   Donald Wrye
    4 Stars 1999 Ormai E Fatta!   Enzo Monteleone
  4 Stars 1998 Return to Paradise   Joseph Ruben
    4 Stars 1998 14 Tage Lebenslaenglich   Roland Suso Richter
    4 Stars 1995 Eskapo   Chito S. Roño
    4 Stars 1995 Zona Lyube   Dmitry Zolotukhin
  4 Stars 1994 Against the Wall   John Frankenheimer
    4 Stars 1945 Within These Walls   H. Bruce Humberstone
    4 Stars 1938 Over the Wall   Frank McDonald
    4 Stars 1981 Inmates: A Love Story   Guy Green
    4 Stars 1980 Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story   Paul Krasny
    4 Stars 1954 The Weak and the Wicked   J. Lee Thompson
    4 Stars 1937 We Who Are About to Die   William Christy Cabanne
    4 Stars 1955 Unchained   Hall Bartlett
    4 Stars 1933 20,000 Years in Sing-Sing   Michael Curtiz
    4 Stars 1939 Those High Grey Walls   Charles Vidor
    4 Stars 1950 So Young, So Bad   Bernard Vorhaus
    4 Stars 1931 The Shadow Between   Norman Walker
    4 Stars 1971 1,000 Convicts and a Woman   Raymond Austin
    4 Stars 1949 Now Barabbas Was a Robber   Gordon Parry
    4 Stars 1940 Men without Souls   Nick Grinde
    4 Stars 1945 Girls of the Big House   George Archainbaud
    4 Stars 1962 Convicts Four   Millard Kaufman
    4 Stars 1940 Convicted Woman   Nick Grinde
    4 Stars 1938 Condemned Women   Lew Landers
    4 Stars 1977 Brothers   Arthur Barron
    4 Stars 1956 Blonde Bait   Elmo Williams
    4 Stars 1939 Behind Prison Gates   Charles Barton
    4 Stars 1931 Wicked   Allan Dwan
    4 Stars 1987 Weeds   John Hancock
  4 Stars 1938 Prison Break   Arthur Lubin
    4 Stars 1971 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich   Caspar Wrede
    4 Stars 1979 On the Yard   Raphael Silver
  4 Stars 1937 Never Too Late to Mend   David MacDonald
    4 Stars 1982 Love Child   Larry Peerce
    4 Stars 1932 The Last Mile   Sam Bischoff
    4 Stars 1971 Fortune and Men's Eyes   Harvey Hart
  4 Stars 1939 Each Dawn I Die   William Keighley
  3 Stars 1982 Scrubbers   Mai Zetterling
    3 Stars 1968 Riot   Buzz Kulik
  3 Stars 1979 10 Violent Women   Ted Mikels
    2 Stars 1971 Women in Chains   Bernard Kowalski
    2 Stars 1973 The Slams   Jonathan Kaplan
    2 Stars 1955 Hold Back Tomorrow   Hugo Haas
    1 Stars 1957 Untamed Youth   Howard W. Koch
 
 
 
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