Highest-Rated Movies about 'Chain Gang'

The Green Mile (1999), Django Unchained (2012), Requiem for a Dream (2000), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), There Will Be Blood (2007), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Sullivan's Travels (1941), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Chain Gang movies.

#2. Django Unchained (2012)

Storyline: In 1858, a bounty hunter named Schultz seeks out a slave named Django and buys him because he needs him to find some men he is looking for. After finding them, Django wants to find his wife, Broomhilda, who along with him were sold separately by his former owner for trying to escape. Schultz offers to help him if he chooses to stay with him and be his partner. Eventually they learn that she was sold to a plantation in Mississippi. Knowing they can't just go in and say they want her, they come up with a plan so that the owner will welcome them into his home and they can find a way.

Plot Keywords: slavery, male frontal nudity, male nudity, female nudity, ku klux klan, sadism, racial violence ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#3. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Storyline: Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is a retired widow, living in a small apartment. She spends most of her time watching TV, especially a particular self-help show. She has delusions of rising above her current dull existence by being a guest on that show. Her son, Harry (Jared Leto) is a junkie but along with his friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) has visions of making it big by becoming a drug dealer. Harry's girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) could be fashion designer or artist but is swept along in Harry's drug-centric world. Meanwhile Sara has developed an addiction of her own. She desperately wants to lose weight and so goes on a crash course involving popping pills, pills which turn out to be very addictive and harmful to her mental state.

Plot Keywords: drug addiction, female frontal nudity, lesbian sex, female pubic hair, female nudity, heroin, sex scene ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#4. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Storyline: Having returned from fighting in World War I, James Allen doesn't want to settle into a humdrum life and decides to set off to find his fortune. He travels the length and breadth of America, working as a skilled tradesman in the construction industry. When times get tough however, he finds himself living in a shelter where an acquaintance suggests they go out for a hamburger. What the friend really has in mind is to rob the diner and Allen soon finds himself working on a chain gang with a long jail sentence. Allen manages to escape however and heads to Chicago where over several years he slowly but surely works his way up the ladder to become one of the most respected construction engineers in the city. His past catches up with him and despite protestations from civic leaders and his many friends in Chicago, he finds himself again on the chain gang. Escaping for a second time, he accepts that to survive, he must lead a life of crime.

Plot Keywords: blackmail, escaped prisoner, prison, world war one veteran, forced marriage, gold digger, false accusation ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#5. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Storyline: The intersecting life stories of Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday in early twentieth century California presents miner-turned-oilman Daniel Plainview, a driven man who will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. He works hard but also takes advantage of those around him at their expense if need be. His business partner/son (H.W.) is, in reality, an "acquired" child whose true biological single-parent father (working on one of Daniel's rigs) died in a workplace accident. Daniel is deeply protective of H.W. if only for what H.W. brings to the partnership. Eli Sunday is one in a pair of twins whose family farm Daniel purchases for the major oil deposit located on it. Eli, a local preacher and a self-proclaimed faith healer, wants the money from the sale of the property to finance his own church. The lives of the two competitive men often clash as Daniel pumps oil off the property and tries to acquire all the surrounding land at bargain prices to be able to build a pipeline to the ...

Plot Keywords: oil, misanthrope, alcoholic, alcoholism, shot in the head, milkshake, capitalism ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#6. Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Storyline: Luke Jackson is a cool, gutsy prisoner in a Southern chain gang, who, while refusing to buckle under to authority, keeps escaping and being recaptured. The prisoners admire Luke because, as Dragline explains it, "You're an original, that's what you are!" Nevertheless, the camp staff actively works to crush Luke until he finally breaks.

Plot Keywords: prison, fugitive, bet, egg, loss of mother, chain gang, death ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#7. Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Storyline: Sullivan is a successful, spoiled, and naive director of fluff films, with a heart-o-gold, who decides he wants to make a film about the troubles of the downtrodden poor. Much to the chagrin of his producers, he sets off in tramp's clothing with a single dime in his pocket to experience poverty first-hand, and gets some reality shock.

Plot Keywords: filmmaking, choking, chicago illinois, check, chase, charity, chopping wood ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#8. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Storyline: Loosely based on Homer's "Odyssey," the movie deals with the picaresque adventures of Ulysses Everett McGill and his companions Delmar and Pete in 1930s Mississipi. Sprung from a chain gang and trying to reach Everett's home to recover the buried loot of a bank heist they are confronted by a series of strange characters--among them sirens, a cyclops, bank robber George "Baby Face" Nelson (very annoyed by that nickname), a campaigning governor and his opponent, a KKK lynch mob, and a blind prophet who warns the trio that "the treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find."

Plot Keywords: greek mythology, slapstick comedy, based on novel, great depression, escaped convict, mississippi, chain gang ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#9. The Life of David Gale (2003)

Storyline: When anti-death-penalty activist David Gale is convicted and condemned to death for the murder of a colleague, reporter Bitsey Bloom sets out to learn the story behind Gale's crime. What she finds challenges her belief in Gale's guilt and, finally, in the justice system.

Plot Keywords: murder, video footage, shower, nudity, death penalty, female nudity, wrongful conviction ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#10. Take the Money and Run (1969)

Storyline: This film is presented as a documentary on the life of an incompetent, petty criminal called Virgil Starkwell. It describes the early childhood and youth of Virgil, his failure at a musical career, and his obsession with bank robberies. The film uses a voice over narrative and interviews with his family, friends and acquaintances.

Plot Keywords: independent film, fbi, fugitive, hostage, hotel, job interview, love at first sight ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#11. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016)

Storyline: After the 2008 financial crisis that nearly destroyed the world economy, none of the American financial institutions faced prosecutions for their shady dealings that contributed to this debacle, except one. Abacus Federal Savings Bank, a small Chinese-American bank that catered to the neglected market of their community, was indicted on fraud charges and loan falsifications. As the bank disputed these accusations, many in the mainstream news media noticed that far larger competitors appeared to have committed similar misdeeds without legal consequence; likely because they were "too big to fail." This film explores the history of Abacus and its legal battle for survival against this hypocritical, and likely racist, application of the law that seemed to determined to punish them as a scapegoat for crimes that much larger felons deserve to face.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)

Plot Keywords: dysfunctional family, mother daughter relationship, father daughter relationship, jury trial, sibling rivalry, xenophobia, sister sister relationship ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#12. There Was a Crooked Man (1970)

Storyline: Charm, intelligence and success in criminal career doesn't prevent Paris Pitman Jr. to start doing ten years in prison, in the middle of the Arizona desert. However, those years should pass quickly because of a $500,000 loot previously stashed away. New idealistic warden would only make Pitman think of getting his fortune even sooner. He starts to manipulate everyone to achieve his goal.—Dragan Antulov <dragan.antulov@altbbs.fido.hr>

Plot Keywords: 1880s, caught having sex, voyeur, prison riot, peeping tom, money, male rear nudity ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#13. 48 Hrs. (1982)

Storyline: Oddball cop and tough guy, Jack Cates is the only survivor of a cop shooting and in hunting down the murderer collects Reggie Hammond from jail for 48 hours. Hammond is oddly motivated to help. The killer is searching for his stash of cash. Cates and Hammond who have the Black-white, cop-crook thing to work out make surprisingly good partners as they navigate through the city looking for their suspect.

Plot Keywords: cop, buddy cop, tough cop, maverick cop, police detective, action violence, bar fight ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#14. Nevada Smith (1966)

Storyline: Nevada Smith is the young son of an American-Indian mother and white father. When his father and mother are killed by three men over gold, Nevada sets out to find them and kill them. The boy is taken in by a gun merchant. The gun merchant shows him how to shoot, to shoot on time, and to shoot straight. Everything that Nevada does goes to killing those three men. He learns to read and write just to learn their location. He pays people to tell him where they're at. He even goes to prison to kill one of them. While the movie is a Western and has plenty of action, it also takes a deep look into vengeance and how one can change after a haunting incident.—Chase Ard <Bullitt357@aol.com>

Plot Keywords: revenge, man murders a woman, stabbed with a knife, sadistic cruelty, stabbed to death, mentor, loss of father ...

Movie Details Click Here!

#15. The Buccaneer (1938)

Storyline: In the War of 1812, the British have sacked Washington and hope to capture New Orleans, where pirate Jean Lafitte romances blueblooded Annette de Remy and openly sells his loot in a pirates' market. But he never attacks American ships. Can the British bribe Lafitte to help them? Can Lafitte persuade American authorities of his loyalty? Will a love triangle between Annette and pretty Dutch girl Gretchen (survivor of a pirates' prize) bring about Lafitte's undoing?—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

Plot Keywords: based on novel, dog, lieutenant, bare chested male, dinner, fire, slave ...

Movie Details Click Here!