Top Ten Prison Flicks
AMC Movie List

Top Ten Prison Flicks

Welcome to the Big House. How would you rank these classic jailbird pics?

rank title points votes your vote
1 The Shawshank Redemption
Frank Darabont's adaptation chronicles the friendship between a rich boy (Tim Robbins) in for murder and a sage lifer (Morgan Freeman). 1412 1966
2 The Green Mile
Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan -- as a guard and death-row inmate -- strike up an unlikely friendship in this touching prison pic. 866 1458
3 Escape from Alcatraz
Clint Eastwood does his coiled-bundle-of-potential-violence thing as Frank Morris, who masterminded an escape from the the Rock. 625 1361
4 Cool Hand Luke
Stuart Rosenberg directed Paul Newman in the role of a knee-jerk authority hater whose antics don't fly in a Deep South prison camp. 537 1403
5 Birdman of Alcatraz
Inspired by the story of Robert Stroud, a hardened lifer with an unlikely love of birds, John Frankenheimer's movie is great drama. 251 1003
6 Midnight Express
American Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey and winds up in a prison that makes Alcatraz look like a spa. -57 1035
7 Brubaker
Robert Redford plays warden Henry Brubaker, who pisses off the Establishment by cleaning up Wakefield Prison, an Arkansas hellhole. -87 973
8 Caged Heat
The quintessential "chicks in the slammer" movie, whose poster really did say it all: "Women's Prison U.S.A. - Rape, Riot & Revenge!" -130 844
9 Brute Force
Burt Lancaster plays Joe Collins, a career criminal who's locked in a war of wills with the sadistic Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn). -315 697
10 Jailhouse Rock
Ex-con Elvis Presley gets thrown back into jail and finds a life-changing mentor in a guy who teaches him to play guitar. -334 830