25 Essential Prison Movies

Kyle Patrick Alvarez‘s “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” now playing in limited release, took fourteen years to get made, and finally arrived at Sundance 2015 with a stellar ensemble including Billy Crudup, Ezra Miller, Olivia Thirlby, Tye Sheridan and Michael Angarano. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the uncompromising nature of the film, the reception was divided (our own rave is here) but even those on the more negative end of the spectrum tended to use words like “compelling,” “vivid” and “effective” in their critiques. And those are adjectives that this film (which scooped the Screenwriting award for Tim Talbott) shares with the best in the wide and variegated genre of the prison movie.

The microcosmic possibilities of life on the inside have been mined many times for dramas, comedies, spoofs and thrillers that, while set in penal institutions or situations that resemble them, actually comment on human psychology or on the society outside those walls. And we got to thinking about our own favorite prison movies through the ages. Here are 25 we’d consider a great primer in the genre.

“Army of Shadows” (1969)
Thanks to a much-deserved critical reevaluation by Cahiers du Cinema in the 90s, this unfairly censored and derided Jean-Pierre Melville masterpiece was restored and finally given a proper US theatrical release in 2006 (and a gorgeous blu-ray by Criterion… that cover, be still our cinephile hearts!), nearly forty years after it was made and fell foul of the French political and social climate in the upheaval after May 1968. It stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Melville classics like “Bob le Flambeur,” “Le Samouraï” and “Le Cercle Rouge” in being, like many of his films, focused on the nitty-gritty of process of (usually criminal) work, while balancing a cool, composed artfulness. ‘Shadows’ zeroes in on the French resistance during World War II, following a small band of fighters as they dodge and weave into and out of captivity by brutal Gestapo agents. Melville’s trademark existentialism is in full swing here, as is a brutally honest fatalistic streak. These characters (including the great Lino Ventura) know that death is around the corner, yet they continue to fight and scratch through an unromantic, bleak existence that is somehow rendered deeply compelling by Melville’s muscular style.

“Birdman Of Alcatraz” (1962)
The most famous prison in the history of the U.S. was unquestionably Alcatraz, the island fortress off the coast of San Francisco, and its most famous inmate (beyond Al Capone) was probably Robert Stroud, the subject of John Frankenheimer’s “Birdman Of Alcatraz.” In an excellent performance by Burt Lancaster, Stroud, sent to prison at 19, is sentenced to life after killing a guard, but, per the screenplay based on Thomas E. Gaddis’ book, becomes a model of reform thanks to his interest in ornithology, which saw him become a world-renowned, published expert in bird diseases, despite never again leaving jail. The film is admirably liberal in its support of prison rehabilitation and it condemnation of the inhumanity of imprisonment (Karl Malden makes a great villain as the warden), but there’s a disingenuousness to its approach to Stroud, which overlooks the more troubling aspects of his personality in favor of a more mild-mannered persona, even if Lancaster occasionally sprinkles in some edge. Frankenheimer seems a touch wasted on the quieter material, bar a late prison riot that brings some needed energy to the film, but it’s still an engaging prison biopic if you can overlook the (probably to be expected) glossed-over nature of the scripting.