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Each one of them is gifted with a special skill and they must work together to escape an endless maze of deadly traps. Director: Vincenzo Natali | Stars: Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett, Andrew Miller. Votes: 247,589 | Gross: $0.50M. 5. Rescue Dawn (2006) PG-13 | 125 min | Adventure, Biography, War.
- Olivia Rutigliano
- The Great Escape, dir. John Sturges (1963) The Great Escape, a based-on-a-true-events, three-hour-long epic about a group of Allied(/Antifa) prisoners who attempt a gigantic escape from a Nazi POW camp, has everything—and everyone!
- A Man Escaped, dir. Robert Bresson (1956) Robert Bresson’s harrowing prison escape drama (which has a much longer title in French: Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut, which means “An inmate condemned to die has escaped, or the wind blows where it will”) will send your blood pressure through the roof.
- Cool Hand Luke, dir. Stuart Rosenberg (1967) There’s nothing quite like Cool Hand Luke, a stirring, multi-layered film about an “original” of a man named Luke Jackson (Paul Newman), who is sentenced to two years in a rural Southern prison (for the minor, anti-Capitalist crime of decapitating parking meters) and who completely refuses to conform to the warden’s behavioral rules, peacefully rebelling against petty tyranny and giving all the other prisoners hope.
- The Fugitive, dir. Andrew Davis (1993) Okay, so, technically in The Fugitive, the wrongfully-convicted Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) does not *break out of prison* so much as run away after several prisoners hijack their transport bus and attempt to escape, but the stakes are the same.
A young man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending three decades in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter-ego, Charles Bronson. Director: Nicolas Winding Refn | Stars: Tom Hardy, Kelly Adams, Luing Andrews, Katy Barker. Votes: 140,913 | Gross: $0.10M.
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- Maze (2017) The story of Europe’s biggest prison escape since the Second World War, as 38 IRA prisoners break out of Northern Ireland’s Maze prison in 1983.
- U.S. Marshals (1998) An airplane bearing gruff U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) crashes in the wilderness. On board the same flight is Mark Sheridan (Wesley Snipes), a federal prisoner accused of double murder, who escapes during the ensuing chaos, but not before rescuing several people from the wreckage.
- Son of a Gun (2014) JR, a small-time, teenage criminal finds himself locked up for a minor crime and forced to adapt to the harsh realities of prison life.
- The Count of Monte Cristo directed by Rowland Lee. In the midst of the tumultuous Napoleonic era, Frenchman Edmond Dantes (Robert Donat) is charged with a trumped-up crime and sent to prison.
- 15 The Way Back
- 14 King of Devil's Island
- 13 Down by Law
- 12 The Grand Illusion
- 11 I Am A Fugitive from A Chain Gang
- 10 Rescue Dawn
- 9 Midnight Express
- 8 Papillon
- 7 The Defiant Ones
- 6 A Man Escaped
Prisoners At A Gulag Escape And Face The Dangerous Walk To Freedom
Based on a much-disputed legend of a long walk to freedom taken by escaped prisoners from a Siberian gulag, The Way Back is a sprawling survival drama in the spirit of director Peter Weir's most sweeping epics. The escape from the gulag is really the simplest part of the main characters' ordeal but, of course, that isn't their real prison. Their 4000-mile journey across just about every kind of beautifully barren landscape imaginable wears them down to their cores and Weir never loses sight o...
Inmates In A Boy's Prison Rebel
A dramatization of life in a boy's prison on the Norwegian island of Bastøy in the early 20th century which leads to an insurrection by the detainees, King of Devil's Island is an unforgiving but deeply affecting drama. Stellan Skarsgård leads a talented cast as the critically out-of-touch director of the prison. However, it's the boys themselves who shine the brightest, creating an enveloping criminal world and unbreakably tough bonds of loyalty that could go toe to toe with the most seasone...
Three Men Are Locked Up Together And Form A Connection
Jim Jarmusch directed the black-and-white prison escape movie Down By Law starring Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni as three men who were arrested, with the first being incarcerated by accident. While most prison escape films focus on these complicated and intricate schemes of escaping, this one is unique in focusing on how these convicts interact with each other. Jarmusch’s penchant for snappy dialogue along with cinematographer Robby Müller's slow-paced and deliberate camerawork m...
World War I POWs Plan Their Escape
War movies and prison escape movies often overlap, as is the case with the French film The Grand Illusion. A group of French POWs in World War I ceaselessly plot their escape in this iconic anti-war drama from revered auteur filmmaker Jean Renoir. Much like with the director's following masterpiece, The Rules of the Game, the insights into European culture and its decay are made incomparably poignant by the film's proximity to the beginning of the Second World War. The Grand Illusion holds th...
Based On A Real-Life Convict's Imprisonment In Georgia
Another prison escape movie from in earlier days of motion pictures,I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang has the added impact of being based on a true story. Adapted from the experiences of Robert Elliott Burnson a Georgia chain gang after returning home to a life of a drifter from World War I, this 1930s Best Picture nominee is just as exciting and pertinent today as it was almost a century ago. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang may not sound like a movie with as wide a scope as it has but the...
The Brutal Fight For Survival Of A Real-Life Vietnam War POW
Werner Herzog is a filmmaker who jumps between documentary and narrative movies, but one subject inspired him to explore it in both mediums. Herzog made the documentaryLittle Dieter Needs to Fly in 1997about Dieter Dengler, a US pilot whose plane was shot down in the country of Laos during the Vietnam War. Herzog then proceeded to explore the same story in the movie Rescue Dawn. The film is an intense look at Dengler's revolt and eventual escape with another prisoner from the brutal captivity...
A Young Drug Smuggler Attempts To Survive In Turkish Prison
Alan Parker’s Midnight Express is a tough story to watch though it’s a seminal prison escape movie. College student Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is arrested and sent to a Turkish prison for attempting to smuggle hash out of Istanbul. Based on Hayes’s account of his time in a Turkish prison, the film takes many liberties with its story. Despite that, Parker’s direction and the performances of the cast are all excellent as well as Giorgio Moroder’s Oscar-winning score. The movie takes the audience...
Two Unlikely Friends Plan An Escape From A South American Prison
The starring duo of Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman make for a wonderful pair in the thriller Papillon. The story is based on supposed true eventsand follows two prisoners who form an unlikely friendship during their respective life sentencesin a South American prison. During this time, one of the prisoners plots an escape and kicks off one of the most daring plots in film history. McQueen is an actor whose movie star charisma lights up the screen but it is interesting to see him in a more v...
Sidney Poitier Makes History
Stanley Kramer’s 1958 drama, The Defiant Ones, is a thoughtful and tense film about the struggles of race relations in the 1950s. Two convicts seize an opportunity to escape from a chain gang while chained together, despite hating each other. It is a setup that became a cornerstone of the buddy action movie genre with this movie influencing so many others. However, its cultural importance goes beyond that. Starring Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier, this film won two Oscars, with both actors bei...
A Man Plans An Escape In Nazi-Occupied France
In stark contrast to Renoir's The Grand Illusion, Robert Bresson's devoutly ascetic war movie displays the unfeeling brutality of the Nazi occupation of France through one prisoner's experience. Based on the memoirs of André Devigny, A Man Escaped is timelessly tense and the cold, objective level of detail in the construction of every part of the escape makes it all feel so much more real. It is also an impressive trick that the movie is able to build tension and suspense even as the title of...
- Colin Mccormick
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.
Apr 15, 2024 · Watchworthy. Film. Fact-checked by: Karen Lindell. The best horror movies in every subgenre of horror. Whether it's evil dolls, terrible vacations, or anything in between, we've got a list for it. The 15 Escape Room Horror Movies That Are The Best Type Of Puzzle To Solve, as voted on by fans. Current Top 3: Cube, Saw II, The Cabin in the Woods.
