The Green Mile (1999), Carandiru (2003), Midnight Express (1978), Brute Force (1947), Felon (2008), A Hidden Life (2019), Shot Caller (2017), Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Prison Life movies.
Storyline: Death Row guards at a penitentiary, in the 1930's, have a moral dilemma with their job when they discover one of their prisoners, a convicted murderer, has a special gift.
Plot Keywords: based on the works of stephen king, magical negro stereotype, death row, based on novel, prisoner, prison, southern u.s. ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Brazilian MD Drauzio Varella starts AIDS prevention in Brazil's largest prison, Carandiru, in São Paulo, where the population is nearly double its 4,000 maximum. Doc learns from experience and mainly stories the tragic stories of hideous crimes which landed scum there and passionate dramas adding otherwise decent people. Just when he believes to leave the prisoners happy with a soccer tournament, a silly clothing line argument kick-starts a politically opportune revolt repression.
Plot Keywords: doctor, prison riot, soccer football, soccer match, stabbing, trophy, one word title ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: On October 6, 1970 while boarding an international flight out of Istanbul Airport, American Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is caught attempting to smuggle two kilos of hashish out of the country, the drugs strapped to his body. He is told that he will be released if he cooperates with the authorities in identifying the person who sold him the hashish. Billy's troubles really begin when after that assistance, he makes a run for it and is recaptured. He is initially sentenced to just over four years for possession, with no time for the more harsh crime of smuggling. The prison environment is inhospitable in every sense, with a sadistic prison guard named Hamidou (Paul L. Smith) ruling the prison, he who relishes the mental and physical torture he inflicts on the prisoners for whatever reason. Told to trust no one, Billy does befriend a few of the other inmates, namely fellow American Jimmy Booth (Randy Quaid) (in for stealing two candlesticks from a mosque), a Swede named Erich (Norbert ...
Plot Keywords: female nudity, chewing gum, cave, catacomb, camera, cafe, burning money ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: At overcrowded Westgate Penitentiary, where violence and fear are the norm and the warden has less power than guards and leading prisoners, the least contented prisoner is tough, single-minded Joe Collins. Most of all, Joe hates chief guard Captain Munsey, a petty dictator who glories in absolute power. After one infraction too many, Joe and his cell-mates are put on the dreaded drain pipe detail; prompting an escape scheme that has every chance of turning into a bloodbath.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: prisoner, hairy chest, bare chested male, sadist, prison riot, social commentary, prison ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A family man, Wade Porter, is living the American Dream with his girlfriend Laura and their son Michael: they have a nice house, he has just raised a loan to make his company grow and they are going to get married. However their dream becomes a nightmare when Wade unintentionally kills a burglar that had broken into their house in the middle of the night on his lawn. He is sent to trial and accepts a deal proposed by the prosecutor, being sentenced to three years in prison. During the transportation, there is an incident in the bus and Wade is framed and sent to the maximum security wing under the command of the corrupt Lieutenant Jackson. His cell-mate John Smith that was sentenced to life after avenging the death of his family befriends Wade and gives helpful advice and instills hope in Wade that he will return to his family.
Plot Keywords: bare chested male, male nudity, male rear nudity, handcuffs, jail, inmate, hospital ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Based on real events, A Hidden Life is the story of an unsung hero, Bl. Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II. When the Austrian peasant farmer is faced with the threat of execution for treason, it is his unwavering faith and his love for his wife, Fani, and children that keeps his spirit alive.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: world war two, train, train station, voice over, sentenced to death, defiance, prisoner ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: White-collar business professional, happily married accidentally commits a crime. Sentenced to prison time, he must adjust and learn the ways of prison life. Throughout this, he struggles to do what's best for his family on the outside. The choices he makes in prison will have major repercussions, both to himself and his family, if he makes the wrong one.
Plot Keywords: prisoner, prison cell, letter, woman, weapon, cell phone, cage ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Nelson Mandela is a South African lawyer who joins the African National Congress in the 1940s when the law under the Apartheid system's brutal tyranny proves useless for his people. Forced to abandon peaceful protest for armed resistance after the Sharpeville Massacre, Mandela pays the price when he and his comrades are sentenced to life imprisonment for treason while his wife, Winnie, is abused by the authorities herself. Over the decades in chains, Mandela's spirit is unbowed as his struggle goes on in and beyond his captivity to become an international cause. However, as Winnie's determination hardens over the years into a violent ruthlessness, Nelson's own stature rises until he becomes the renowned leader of his movement. That status would be put to the test as his release nears and a way must be found to win a peaceful victory that will leave his country, and all its peoples, unstained.
Plot Keywords: based on book, male underwear, forced to strip, man forced to strip, undressing, unfaithful wife, adultery ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: After hiding his loot and getting thrown in jail, Ruby, a brooding outlaw encounters Quentin, a dim-witted and garrulous giant who befriends him. After Quentin botches a solo escape attempt, they make a break together. Unable to shake the clumsy Quentin Ruby is forced to take him along as he pursues his former partners in crime to avenge the death of the woman he loved and get to the money before they do.
Plot Keywords: prison escape, odd couple, on the run, buddy movie, tomb, prison life, police car ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: James Gregory once lived in a farm and had befriended a native youth, Bafana, and had even had a photograph taken with him. Years later, now married to Gloria and father of three children (Chris, Brett, and Natasha), James has nothing but shame and regret, as many South African Caucasians in the oppressive Apartheid-era ridiculed him, leading him to hate Africans. He seeks to redeem himself by spying on imprisoned African National Congress Leader, Nelson Mandela. In the restrictive high security prison his job is to censor all written and verbal communications between prisoners, their visitors, and correspondence. James is uncomfortable when he witnesses Caucasian police and security officers' brutality against civilians, including infants, and tries to understand why Nelson became a rebel. This leads him to examine the 'Freedom Charter', a banned document, reportedly known to incite violence against 'whites'. And when he does read this document, he changes his mind about Nelson's ...
Plot Keywords: prison cell, political prisoner, husband wife reunion, freedom fighter, 1990s, 1980s, 1970s ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Dodger Lane (Peter Sellers) has planned the perfect robbery while in prison. He intends to break out of prison, steal a fortune in diamonds, and break back into prison before anyone notices. With only a few days' sentence left, and the perfect alibi, what could possibly go wrong?—Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com>
Plot Keywords: prisoner, passenger train, prison, diamond, robbery, milkman, sultan ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the mid-1990s, two inmates bury the burned bodies of two lifers at Mississippi's infamous Parchman Farm; a third old-timer relates their story. They'd served 65 years for a murder they didn't commit, framed by a local sheriff while buying moonshine whiskey for a Manhattan club owner to whom they owed money. In flashbacks we see this odd couple thrown together (Ray is a fast-talking con man, and Claude is a serious man about to start work as a bank teller), the loss of Ray's watch (sterling silver, from his daddy), the murder and trial, the hardships of Parchman, and the love-hate relationship of Claude and Ray as they spend 65 years bickering and looking for a way to escape.
Plot Keywords: baseball, 1990s, affection, black humor, death, escape attempt, fat man ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Mobster Tommy Gordon isn't worried about being sentenced to Sing Sing prison because his political pals have promised him a quick parole. A troublesome prisoner, he finally concedes that his friends have deserted him, and he makes an effort to reform. When his girlfriend Kay is injured in an accident, Warden Long gives Tommy a pass to go see her. But trouble erupts when Tommy encounters the man responsible for his imprisonment.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
Plot Keywords: based on book, self defense, convict, suicide, murder, priest, new york city ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: An armored car is robbed by three men. A passing police officer and one of the robbers exchange fire. The robber is Paulie. In a flashback we follow him and his closest friend, Brian, as they grow up together in South Boston. They're tough guys, thugs, doing jobs for the local boss and chaffing to do more. Paulie's the leader. Brian drinks too much and free bases, ignoring his wife and two young boys. Life-changing events lead him to try to go straight, look for work, take what comes his way, and go to A.A. meetings. He struggles. Paulie shows him the plans for the armored car job. Will they do it? "I am who I am," Brian tells his wife. Is crime his only skill?
Plot Keywords: punctuation in title, man dressed as woman, machine gun, letter, infidelity, husband wife relationship, hospital ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Another in a unrelated series of Warner's penitentiary tours in three different decades. This one is California's notorious Folsom Prison prior to its 1944 reformation make-over. Ben Rickey, the prison's sadistic old-school warden who believes that the prison system if for punishment rather than reformation, rules Folsom with an iron-hand. He highly resents his university-trained assistant, Mark Benson, who does not share Rickey's beliefs. Rickey, hoping the results will be disastrous, gives Benson permission to try his modern method. He tolerates Benson's innovations until convict "Red" Pardue is killed by another prisoner. Benson blames Rickey, who had refused Pardue protection after he had reported an escape attempt. Benson resigns and Rickey brings back his concentration-camp program. Chuck Daniels, a hardened convict, then stage his long-planned prison break. A bloody riot ensues in which Rickey is murdered and the escapees are accidentally killed by a dynamite blast while taking revenge on a treacherous convict.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: revolver, convict, reformation, protection, prisoner, penitentiary, escape attempt ...
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