Favourite prison films
by RogerTheMovieManiac88 | created - 07 Apr 2023 | updated - 1 month ago | PublicA selection of my favourite films, either set in prisons, asylums, etc. or focusing upon those escaped or released from confinement, or upon those captured and awaiting imprisonment.
The prison bars and walls loom large and cast long shadows!
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1. A Man Escaped (1956)
Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, Thriller, War
A captured French Resistance fighter during World War II engineers a daunting escape from a German prison in France.
Director: Robert Bresson | Stars: François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice Beerblock, Roland Monod
Votes: 24,990
2. Comrades (1986)
183 min | Drama, History
The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of nineteenth century English farm laborers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.
Director: Bill Douglas | Stars: Robin Soans, William Gaminara, Stephen Bateman, Phil Davis
Votes: 933
3. Les Misérables (1935)
Approved | 108 min | Drama, History, Romance
In early-19th-century France, an ex-convict who failed to report to parole is relentlessly pursued over a 20-year period by an obsessive policeman.
Director: Richard Boleslawski | Stars: Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke, Rochelle Hudson
Votes: 3,925
4. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
G | 120 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of Sir Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarry.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Robert Shaw, Leo McKern
Votes: 37,150 | Gross: $28.35M
5. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Passed | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Wrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a Southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis
Votes: 14,433 | Gross: $1.42M
6. Runaway Train (I) (1985)
R | 111 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Two escaped convicts and a female railway worker find themselves trapped on a speeding train with no brakes and nobody driving.
Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy | Stars: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay, Kyle T. Heffner
Votes: 32,989 | Gross: $7.94M
7. Norte, the End of History (2013)
TV-MA | 250 min | Crime, Drama
An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption.
Director: Lav Diaz | Stars: Sid Lucero, Angeli Bayani, Archie Alemania, Soliman Cruz
Votes: 2,286
8. 3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Not Rated | 92 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
Broke small-time rancher Dan Evans is hired by the stagecoach line to put big-time captured outlaw leader Ben Wade on the 3:10 train to Yuma but Wade's gang tries to free him.
Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Felicia Farr, Leora Dana
Votes: 21,640
9. I'll Be Seeing You (1944)
Approved | 85 min | Drama, Family, Romance
A soldier suffering from combat fatigue meets a young woman on Christmas furlough from prison and their mutual loneliness blossoms into romance.
Directors: William Dieterle, George Cukor | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Spring Byington
Votes: 2,523
10. Each Dawn I Die (1939)
Approved | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A corrupt D.A. (Thurston Hall) with political ambitions is angered by news stories implicating him in criminal activity and decides to frame the reporter (James Cagney) for manslaughter in order to silence him.
Director: William Keighley | Stars: James Cagney, George Raft, Jane Bryan, George Bancroft
Votes: 3,733
11. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama
After his last crime has him looking at a long prison sentence for repeat offenses, a low level Boston gangster decides to snitch on his friends to avoid jail time.
Director: Peter Yates | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats
Votes: 12,197
12. It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)
92 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
An escaped convict tries to hide out at his former lover's house, but she has since married and is reluctant to help him.
Director: Robert Hamer | Stars: Googie Withers, Jack Warner, John McCallum, Edward Chapman
Votes: 2,378 | Gross: $0.01M
13. Star in the Dust (1956)
Approved | 80 min | Drama, Western
A sheriff planning on legally hanging a killer, has to contend with farmers who want to lynch him, and cattlemen who want to help him escape.
Director: Charles F. Haas | Stars: John Agar, Mamie Van Doren, Richard Boone, Coleen Gray
Votes: 661
14. Bandini (1963)
157 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
During the British Raj of the 1930s, a prison-doctor falls in love with a convict who eventually reveals the story of her past and her connection to a freedom fighter.
Director: Bimal Roy | Stars: Ashok Kumar, Nutan, Dharmendra, Raja Paranjpe
Votes: 886
15. Habeas Corpus (1986)
67 min | Drama
Experimental film that shows four days in the life of a man clandestinely kept in captivity. The images of his naked body alternate with those of a happy moment on a beach and with those of... See full summary »
Director: Jorge Acha | Stars: Jorge Díez, Luis Nieto, Óscar Bernales
Votes: 52
16. Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
Approved | 107 min | Drama, Western
A fiercely independent cowboy gets himself locked up in prison to escape with an old friend.
Director: David Miller | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, Michael Kane
Votes: 9,949
17. Story of Women (1988)
108 min | Drama, History, Romance
A housewife in Nazi-occupied France struggles to make ends meet when her husband returns home after being wounded in the war.
Director: Claude Chabrol | Stars: Isabelle Huppert, François Cluzet, Marie Trintignant, Nils Tavernier
Votes: 5,742 | Gross: $0.44M
18. Double Cross (1951)
85 min | Crime, Drama
Pietro, an honest businessman, is wrongly accused of the murder of his business associate and jailed. Actually the man is alive and has set him up to avoid bankruptcy. Pietro's life is ... See full summary »
Director: Riccardo Freda | Stars: Amedeo Nazzari, Gianna Maria Canale, Armando Francioli, Arnoldo Foà
Votes: 87
19. The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936)
Approved | 96 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was imprisoned after innocently treating President Lincoln's assassin in 1865.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, Claude Gillingwater, Arthur Byron
Votes: 2,575
20. Monangambé (1968)
16 min | Short
Abuses by the Portuguese slave traders in their colony of Angola are depicted through the torture of one prisoner, based on ignorance and incomprehension.
Director: Sarah Maldoror | Stars: Carlos Pestana, Noureddine Dreis, Mohamed Zinet, Athmane Sabi
Votes: 75
21. Orders (1974)
109 min | Drama, History
A fact-based account of ordinary citizens who found themselves arrested and imprisoned without charge for weeks during the October Crisis in 1970 Quebec.
Director: Michel Brault | Stars: Hélène Loiselle, Jean Lapointe, Guy Provost, Claude Gauthier
Votes: 1,150
22. Leyla Zana, le cri au-delà de la voix étouffée (2002)
51 min | Documentary, Drama, History
Leyla Zana, the first woman Kurdish MP to be elected to the Turkish Parliament in 1992, was impisoned in 1994 for 15 years for speaking in Kurdish in the Parliament. Kudret Gunes' personal ... See full summary »
Director: Kudret Gunes | Stars: Ismail Besikçi, Hediye Dagli, Piruzhan Dogrul, Derwes Fehro
Votes: 38
23. Yield to the Night (1956)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Drama
Woman abused by men meets a man she thinks loves her. He cheats, she kills his mistress. Based on Ruth Ellis, last woman executed in Britain. Less than
Director: J. Lee Thompson | Stars: Diana Dors, Yvonne Mitchell, Michael Craig, Marie Ney
Votes: 1,481
24. The Left Handed Gun (1958)
Approved | 102 min | Drama, Western
After his employer is murdered by rival cattlemen, a troubled and uneducated young cowboy vows revenge on the murderers.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Paul Newman, Lita Milan, John Dehner, Hurd Hatfield
Votes: 4,644
25. Stalag 17 (1953)
Not Rated | 120 min | Comedy, Drama, War
After two Americans are killed while escaping from a German P.O.W. camp in World War II, the barracks black marketeer, J.J. Sefton, is suspected of being an informer.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Don Taylor, Otto Preminger, Robert Strauss
Votes: 58,805
26. The Green Mile (1999)
R | 189 min | Crime, Drama, Fantasy
A tale set on death row, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the lead guard, Paul Edgecombe, recognizes John's gift, he tries to help stave off the condemned man's execution.
Director: Frank Darabont | Stars: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt
Votes: 1,407,060 | Gross: $136.80M
27. Band of Thieves (1962)
69 min | Crime, Musical
Acker Bilk leads a prison jazz band. They are released and perform concerts, but soon return to crime and go back to prison, pleasing the jazz-loving governor who wanted their music to continue.
Director: Peter Bezencenet | Stars: Acker Bilk, Colin Smith, Jonathan Mortimer, Ronald McKay
Votes: 97
28. Prisonnières (1988)
99 min | Crime, Drama
A women's prison. Women arrive, some for as long as eight years. They work making teddy bears. Dessombes, the head matron, misses little. She gets intelligence from Marthe, an older convict... See full summary »
Director: Charlotte Silvera | Stars: Marie-Christine Barrault, Annie Girardot, Bernadette Lafont, Milva
Votes: 122
29. Larks on a String (1969)
94 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Set in the late 1940s, the film concerns the treatment of suspect "bourgeois elements", a professor, a saxophonist, and a milkman, who are put to work in a junkyard for rehabilitation.
Director: Jirí Menzel | Stars: Rudolf Hrusínský, Vlastimil Brodský, Václav Neckár, Jitka Zelenohorská
Votes: 2,186
30. A Date for Mad Mary (2016)
82 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A woman newly released from prison seeks a date to bring to her best friend's wedding.
Director: Darren Thornton | Stars: Seána Kerslake, Carolyn Bracken, Denise McCormack, Barbara Brennan
Votes: 2,320
31. Turn the Key Softly (1953)
81 min | Crime, Drama
Follows three women through their first day of freedom after they are released from prison.
Director: Jack Lee | Stars: Yvonne Mitchell, Terence Morgan, Joan Collins, Kathleen Harrison
Votes: 711
32. Seventeen Years (1999)
90 min | Drama
Tao Lan and Yu Xiaoqin are teenage stepsisters. They go to the same high school, sleep in the same bedroom, but couldn't be more different. The first is wild, a bit of a vagabond, while the... See full summary »
Director: Yuan Zhang | Stars: Lin Liu, Bingbing Li, Yeding Li, Song Liang
Votes: 631
33. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
GP | 127 min | Crime, Drama
A laid-back Southern man is sentenced to two years in a rural prison, but refuses to conform.
Director: Stuart Rosenberg | Stars: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin, J.D. Cannon
Votes: 188,506 | Gross: $16.22M
34. Papillon (1973)
R | 151 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A French convict in the 1930s befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence in the South American penal colony on Devil's Island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, Don Gordon
Votes: 138,354 | Gross: $53.27M
35. The Great Escape (1963)
Approved | 172 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Allied prisoners of war plan for several hundred of their number to escape from a German camp during World War II.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson
Votes: 258,863 | Gross: $12.10M
36. Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
PG | 112 min | Action, Biography, Crime
Alcatraz is the most secure prison of its time. It is believed that no one can ever escape from it, until three daring men make a possibly successful attempt at escaping from one of the most infamous prisons in the world.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan, Roberts Blossom, Jack Thibeau
Votes: 147,410 | Gross: $43.00M
37. The Last Castle (2001)
R | 131 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
A court-martialed General rallies together twelve hundred inmates to rise against a corrupt and sadistic warden.
Director: Rod Lurie | Stars: Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Steve Burton
Votes: 85,279 | Gross: $18.21M
38. Dead Man Walking (1995)
R | 122 min | Crime, Drama
A nun, while comforting a convicted killer on death row, empathizes with both the killer and his victim's families.
Director: Tim Robbins | Stars: Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Robert Prosky, Raymond J. Barry
Votes: 101,764 | Gross: $39.39M
39. White Heat (1949)
Not Rated | 114 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly
Votes: 35,738
40. There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)
R | 126 min | Comedy, Western
A charming but totally ruthless criminal is sent to a remote Arizona prison. He enlists the help of his cellmates in an escape attempt with the promise of sharing his hidden loot.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Hume Cronyn, Warren Oates
Votes: 5,234 | Gross: $0.64M
41. 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932)
Passed | 78 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Brash hoodlum Tom Connors enters Sing Sing cocksure of himself and disrespectful toward authority, but his tough but compassionate warden changes him.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Arthur Byron, Lyle Talbot
Votes: 2,959
42. City Without Men (1943)
Approved | 75 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A young woman's husband has been imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. In order to be near him to try to help him get his sentence overturned, she moves into a boardinghouse near the prison whose residents are the wives of inmates.
Director: Sidney Salkow | Stars: Linda Darnell, Edgar Buchanan, Michael Duane, Sara Allgood
Votes: 175
43. Condemned! (1929)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama
Suave thief Colman is sent to Devil's Island, where he becomes romantically involved with the wife of sadistic warden Digges.
Director: Wesley Ruggles | Stars: Ronald Colman, Ann Harding, Louis Wolheim, William Elmer
Votes: 584
44. Rio Bravo (1959)
Passed | 141 min | Western
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson
Votes: 68,045 | Gross: $12.54M
45. True Crime (1999)
R | 127 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Can an over-the-hill journalist uncover the evidence that can prove a death row inmate's innocence just hours before his execution?
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Isaiah Washington, LisaGay Hamilton, James Woods
Votes: 38,514 | Gross: $16.64M
46. Fury (1936)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When a wrongly-accused prisoner barely survives a lynch-mob attack and is presumed dead, he vindictively decides to fake his death and frame the mob for his supposed murder.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot
Votes: 13,726
47. Deshonra (1952)
101 min | Crime, Drama
A nurse is framed for murder by negligence. She goes to prison pregnant by her rich boss.
Director: Daniel Tinayre | Stars: Fanny Navarro, Mecha Ortiz, Tita Merello, Jorge Rigaud
Votes: 40
48. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
Passed | 116 min | Drama, Romance
In 15th-century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.
Director: William Dieterle | Stars: Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 12,278 | Gross: $3.27M
49. Call Northside 777 (1948)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker
Votes: 10,237
50. The Bravados (1958)
Approved | 98 min | Drama, Western
A man is chasing four outlaws who killed his wife and finds them in a small town's jail, but they escape to Mexico.
Director: Henry King | Stars: Gregory Peck, Joan Collins, Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi
Votes: 6,397
51. A Killing in a Small Town (1990 TV Movie)
R | 100 min | Drama
The gory ax-murder of one mousy, suburban Texas housewife by another is nearly as shocking as the excuse offered by the bespectacled defendant's attorney: self-defense. Could it be so?
Director: Stephen Gyllenhaal | Stars: Barbara Hershey, Brian Dennehy, John Terry, Richard Gilliland
Votes: 764
52. Jack McCall, Desperado (1953)
Approved | 76 min | Western
A Southerner fighting for the North is unjustly accused of treason and escapes to find the witness who could clear his name, but he also seeks the two Yankee soldiers who killed his parents.
Director: Sidney Salkow | Stars: George Montgomery, Angela Stevens, Douglas Kennedy, James Seay
Votes: 245
53. Hellgate (1952)
Approved | 87 min | Western
A man is framed and sent to toughest prison in the territory.
Director: Charles Marquis Warren | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Joan Leslie, Ward Bond, James Arness
Votes: 530
54. Black Patch (1957)
Passed | 82 min | Western
In a New Mexico town, two former pals from the Civil War meet again but one is the town marshal and the other is a wanted bank robber.
Director: Allen H. Miner | Stars: George Montgomery, Diane Brewster, Tom Pittman, Leo Gordon
Votes: 331
55. Brute Force (1947)
Passed | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
At a tough penitentiary, prisoner Joe Collins plans to rebel against Captain Munsey, the power-mad chief guard.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo
Votes: 11,535
56. The Hill (1965)
Approved | 123 min | Drama, War
In a North African military prison during World War II, five new prisoners struggle to survive in the face of brutal punishment and sadistic guards.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Sean Connery, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen, Alfred Lynch
Votes: 15,157
57. Escape from New York (1981)
R | 99 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
In 1997, when the U.S. president crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber is sent in to rescue him.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence
Votes: 157,459 | Gross: $25.24M
58. Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)
Not Rated | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Fed up with the inhumane prison living conditions, a general prison riot breaks out, leading to hostage-taking, a stand-off with the guards and eventual negotiations with the prison administration officials.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Neville Brand, Emile Meyer, Frank Faylen, Leo Gordon
Votes: 2,426
59. Con Air (1997)
R | 115 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
Newly-paroled ex-con and former U.S. Ranger Cameron Poe finds himself trapped in a prisoner-transport plane when the passengers seize control.
Director: Simon West | Stars: Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Colm Meaney
Votes: 319,202 | Gross: $101.12M
60. Jailhouse Rock (1957)
Not Rated | 96 min | Drama, Music, Musical
After serving time for manslaughter, young Vince Everett becomes a teenage rock star.
Director: Richard Thorpe | Stars: Elvis Presley, Judy Tyler, Mickey Shaughnessy, Vaughn Taylor
Votes: 9,832 | Gross: $4.00M
61. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
R | 136 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke
Votes: 881,188 | Gross: $6.21M
62. Song of Love (1950)
Not Rated | 26 min | Short, Drama, Fantasy
Two prisoners in complete isolation, separated by the thick brick walls, and desperately in need of human contact, devise a most unusual kind of communication.
Director: Jean Genet | Stars: Bravo, Jean Genet, Java, Coco Le Martiniquais
Votes: 3,707
63. Michael (II) (2011)
Not Rated | 96 min | Drama, Thriller
Five months in the life of a pedophile who keeps a 10-year-old boy locked in his basement.
Director: Markus Schleinzer | Stars: Michael Fuith, David Rauchenberger, Christine Kain, Ursula Strauss
Votes: 5,114 | Gross: $0.02M
64. Paths of Glory (1957)
Approved | 88 min | Drama, War
After a failed attack on a German position, a general orders three soldiers, chosen at random, court-martialed for cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready
Votes: 212,223
65. A Page of Madness (1926)
Not Rated | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A man takes a job at an asylum with hopes of freeing his imprisoned wife.
Director: Teinosuke Kinugasa | Stars: Masuo Inoue, Ayako Iijima, Yoshie Nakagawa, Hiroshi Nemoto
Votes: 4,573
66. Closet Land (1991)
R | 89 min | Drama, Thriller
In a drab police state, an author of children's books is interrogated by a sadistic, secret policeman. She's under suspicion of embedding anti-government messages in her stories.
Director: Radha Bharadwaj | Stars: Madeleine Stowe, Alan Rickman
Votes: 3,050 | Gross: $0.26M
67. La cabina (1972 TV Movie)
35 min | Drama, Horror
A man gets trapped inside a telephone box and nobody is able to free him.
Director: Antonio Mercero | Stars: José Luis López Vázquez, Agustín González, Goyo Lebrero, Tito García
Votes: 4,572
68. The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
R | 114 min | Drama
Three young Irish women struggle to maintain their spirits while they endure dehumanizing abuse as inmates of a Magdalene Sisters Asylum.
Director: Peter Mullan | Stars: Eileen Walsh, Dorothy Duffy, Nora-Jane Noone, Anne-Marie Duff
Votes: 28,459 | Gross: $4.89M
69. Redundant (1976)
99 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
After seven years in prison, Voldemars Viters returns to the outside world. He is 46 and has nothing - no family, no work. However, he agrees to take part in one last heist - the robbing of a jewelry shop, before starting a new life.
Director: Aloizs Brencs | Stars: Vytautas Tomkus, Valdemars Zandbergs, Astrida Kairisha, Harijs Liepins
Votes: 64
70. Kala Pani (1958)
164 min | Crime, Musical, Romance
Based on A.J.Cronin's 'Beyond This Place', this movie narrates the story of an untiring crusade for justice. A young man, learning about his father's wrongful implication in a ... See full summary »
Director: Raj Khosla | Stars: Dev Anand, Madhubala, Nalini Jaywant, Agha
Votes: 357
71. Web of Evidence (1959)
Approved | 90 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A British-American returns to Britain after 20 years to discover that his father has been jailed since WW2 for a murder that took place in murky circumstances.
Director: Jack Cardiff | Stars: Van Johnson, Vera Miles, Emlyn Williams, Bernard Lee
Votes: 320
72. Do Ankhen Barah Haath (1957)
143 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Progressive, reform-minded young warden gets permission to take six surly murderers from prison to dilapidated country farm, to rehabilitate it and themselves through hard work and kindly guidance.
Director: Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre | Stars: Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre, Sandhya, Ulhas, Brij Mohan Vyas
Votes: 1,904
73. Moteris ir keturi jos vyrai (1983)
91 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Story set in a Baltic fishermen's settlement at the turn of the 20th century. The film's heroine keeps losing one husband after another, but there's always someone from the family to come and take care of her children and her house.
Director: Algimantas Puipa | Stars: Jurate Onaityte, Antanas Surna, Vidas Petkevicius, Saulius Balandis
Votes: 130
74. The Mysterious Rider (1948)
90 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Giacomo Casanova returns to Venice, to help his brother, falsely accused of robbery.
Director: Riccardo Freda | Stars: Vittorio Gassman, María Mercader, Yvonne Sanson, Gianna Maria Canale
Votes: 196
75. Black and White (1932)
3 min | Animation, Short
The film addresses issues of racism in the Jim Crow American South. Themes of racial injustice, racial violence, working-class solidarity dominate the film. It depicts black men working in ... See full summary »
Directors: Leonid Amalrik, Ivan Ivanov-Vano | Star: Konstantin Eggert
Votes: 140
76. It's Never Too Late to Mend (1937)
70 min | Drama
An evil prison administrator cruelly abuses the inmates at his prison, until one day the tables are turned.
Director: David MacDonald | Stars: Tod Slaughter, Jack Livesey, Marjorie Taylor, Ian Colin
Votes: 257
77. My Brother's Keeper (1948)
Approved | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
War hero George Martin escapes prison handcuffed to crook Willie Stannard. They obtain railway tickets. Pursued by police and press, George aims to break free from Willie and escape.
Director: Alfred Roome | Stars: Jack Warner, Jane Hylton, George Cole, Bill Owen
Votes: 316
78. Crne ptice (1967)
85 min | Drama, War
WW2 story about group of prisoners who are trying to escape the death camp, run by local pro-Nazi militia.
Director: Eduard Galic | Stars: Vojislav Miric, Fabijan Sovagovic, Ivan Subic, Ivo Serdar
Votes: 80
79. Buried Alive (1939)
Approved | 62 min | Drama, Thriller
A prison trustee rescues a despondent executioner from a bar-room brawl, and is blamed for the fight by a tabloid reporter who actually started it, and loses parole, becomes embittered, and gets blamed for murder of guard.
Director: Victor Halperin | Stars: Beverly Roberts, Robert Wilcox, Paul McVey, Ted Osborne
Votes: 221
80. Amnesty (2011)
83 min | Drama
Conjugal visits unite two strangers visiting a prison to meet their incarcerated spouses. During these visits, Elsa and Spetim find the companionship missing from their lives. But a ... See full summary »
Director: Bujar Alimani | Stars: Luli Bitri, Karafil Shena, Todi Llupi, Mirela Naska
Votes: 227
81. Signpost to Murder (1964)
Approved | 78 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
An escapee from an asylum takes refuge in a woman's house; but she has dark secrets of her own.
Director: George Englund | Stars: Joanne Woodward, Stuart Whitman, Edward Mulhare, Alan Napier
Votes: 539
82. Boot Polish (1954)
90 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
Preteen brother and sister, abandoned by their father, to be taken care of, by an abusive prostitute aunt, survive life in an Indian squatters' camp, aided by a friendly cripple, by learning to shine shoes instead of begging.
Director: Prakash Arora | Stars: Kumari Naaz, Ratan Kumar, David Abraham, Chand Burke
Votes: 883
83. The Break (1962)
Not Rated | 77 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A dangerous prisoner, Jacko Thomas, overpowers his police guard and jumps from a speeding train in the Dartmoor countryside. In the ensuing fight Jacko kills the guard and makes his way to ... See full summary »
Director: Lance Comfort | Stars: Tony Britton, William Lucas, Eddie Byrne, Robert Urquhart
Votes: 155
84. The Lawless Breed (1952)
Approved | 83 min | Biography, Western
After being released from prison, former gun-fighter John Wesley Hardin hopes to have his autobiography published in order to rehabilitate his tarnished reputation.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Rock Hudson, Julie Adams, Mary Castle, John McIntire
Votes: 1,416
85. Pennies from Heaven (1936)
Passed | 81 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
Larry Poole, in prison on a false charge, promise an inmate that when he gets out he will look up and help out a family. The family turns out to be a young girl, Patsy Smith, and her elderly grandfather who need lots of help.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Bing Crosby, Madge Evans, Edith Fellows, Louis Armstrong
Votes: 794
86. Love (1971)
88 min | Drama
The wife of a political prisoner tends to her mother-in-law and keeps from the old woman the truth about her son, whom she believes is in New York making a film.
Director: Károly Makk | Stars: Lili Darvas, Mari Törőcsik, Iván Darvas, Erzsi Orsolya
Votes: 2,179
87. This Land Is Mine (1943)
Approved | 103 min | Drama, War
A mild-mannered school teacher in a German-occupied town during World War II finds himself torn between collaboration and resistance.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, George Sanders, Walter Slezak
Votes: 3,732
88. Two Seconds (1932)
67 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A condemned murderer, in the process of being executed, relives the events that led to his being sentenced to die in the electric chair.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Vivienne Osborne, Guy Kibbee, Preston Foster
Votes: 1,300
89. I Became a Criminal (1947)
Approved | 78 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After WW2, former RAF airman Clem Morgan joins a gang of black-market smugglers-thieves but when a robbery goes wrong, Clem is caught , framed for a policeman's murder, and is sent to prison where he plots his escape and revenge.
Director: Alberto Cavalcanti | Stars: Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Griffith Jones, Rene Ray
Votes: 1,908
90. Hero (II) (1983)
Not Rated | 173 min | Action, Drama, Romance
After his friend is imprisoned, a hitman kidnaps the daughter of the police commissioner by telling her that he is a police officer.
Director: Subhash Ghai | Stars: Sanjeev Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Meenakshi Sheshadri
Votes: 959
91. My Favorite Brunette (1947)
Passed | 87 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Shortly before his execution on the death row in San Quentin, amateur sleuth and baby photographer Ronnie Jackson tells reporters how he got there.
Director: Elliott Nugent | Stars: Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr.
Votes: 3,843
92. The Whole Town's Talking (1935)
Approved | 93 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A meek milquetoast clerk is mistaken for public enemy N° 1, and the notorious killer takes advantage of the situation.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Arthur Hohl, James Donlan
Votes: 3,208
93. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978)
108 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
After suffering racist abuse throughout his life - which intensifies following his marriage to a white woman - a half-Aboriginal farmhand finds himself driven to murder.
Director: Fred Schepisi | Stars: Tommy Lewis, Freddy Reynolds, Angela Punch McGregor, Ray Barrett
Votes: 2,529
94. I Walk Alone (1947)
Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Frankie Madison leaves prison expecting a share from his ex-partner. But Prohibition bootlegging didn't prepare Frankie for Big Business.
Director: Byron Haskin | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Wendell Corey
Votes: 3,287
95. The Night Visitor (1971)
GP | 106 min | Crime, Thriller, Horror
In a Scandinavian insane asylum, murderer Salem sneaks out at night to exact his revenge on those who he deems responsible for his predicament.
Director: Laslo Benedek | Stars: Max von Sydow, Trevor Howard, Liv Ullmann, Per Oscarsson
Votes: 1,978
96. Trapped (1949)
Approved | 78 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Secret Service agents make a deal with a counterfeiting inmate to be released on early parole if he will help them recover some bogus moneymaking plates, but he plans to double cross them.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Payton, John Hoyt, James Todd
Votes: 1,635
97. Ambush at Tomahawk Gap (1953)
Passed | 73 min | Action, Drama, Romance
An innocent cowboy convicted with three robbers, fresh out of Yuma Territorial Prison, travels with them to get a share of their hidden loot.
Director: Fred F. Sears | Stars: John Hodiak, John Derek, David Brian, María Elena Marqués
Votes: 600
98. Where the Money Is (2000)
PG-13 | 89 min | Drama, Comedy, Crime
Old bank robber Henry, paralyzed from a stroke, is moved from a prison hospital to a retirement home, where Carol is a nurse. She doesn't believe he's paralyzed and sees him as a way out of her boring life.
Director: Marek Kanievska | Stars: Paul Newman, Linda Fiorentino, Dermot Mulroney, Susan Barnes
Votes: 6,402 | Gross: $5.66M
99. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
Not Rated | 104 min | Drama, Sport
A young thief takes up long-distance running when he is sent to a borstal.
Director: Tony Richardson | Stars: Michael Redgrave, Tom Courtenay, Avis Bunnage, Alec McCowen
Votes: 9,372
100. They Live by Night (1948)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance
An escaped convict injured during a robbery falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen
Votes: 9,354
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