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.
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