On the Yard: Coolest Prison Movies

Eric Love, 19, is locked up in prison. On his first day, he assaults another inmate and several guards. He's offered group therapy and his dad, an inmate as well, tries to talk sense into him. Can he be rehabilitated?

A laid-back Southern man is sentenced to two years in a rural prison, but refuses to conform.

A corrupt D.A. (Thurston Hall) with political ambitions is angered by news stories implicating him in criminal activity and decides to frame the reporter (James Cagney) for manslaughter in order to silence him.

Chopper tells the intense story of Mark "Chopper" Read, a legendary criminal who wrote his autobiography while serving a jail sentence in prison. His book, "From the Inside", upon which the film is based, was a best-seller.

Two men are framed and sent to jail, where they meet a murderer who helps them escape and leave the state.

A prostitute sentenced to death for murder pleads her innocence.

Alcatraz is the most secure prison of its time. It is believed that no one can ever escape from it, until three daring men make a possibly successful attempt at escaping from one of the most infamous prisons in the world.

A surly convicted murderer held in permanent isolation redeems himself when he becomes a renowned bird expert.

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.

A child molester sent to prison finds that criminals exact harsher justice than society.

A gentle, naive, pregnant 19-year-old widow is slowly, inexorably ground down by the hardened criminals, sadistic guards, and matron at a woman's prison. Will she be the same person when her sentence is up?

An Irish man's coerced confession to an I.R.A. bombing he did not commit results in the imprisonment of his father as well. Meanwhile, a British lawyer fights to clear their names and free them.

The difficulties of a career burglar to reinsert himself after being released on parole.

A convict falls in love with his new cellmate's sister, only to become embroiled in a planned break-out which is certain to have lethal consequences.

A young thief takes up long-distance running when he is sent to a borstal.

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.

Chicago crime kid, Mick O'Brien, is sent to reform school after accidentally killing a rival's kid brother.

Two guys end up in prison after attempting to sell beer to a policeman during Prohibition.

The life and times of Virgil Starkwell, inept bank robber.

Fed up with the inhumane prison living conditions, a general prison riot breaks out, leading to hostage-taking, a stand-off with the guards and eventual negotiations with the prison administration officials.

A young man goes to prison and a tough, older convict takes him under his wing as a mentor.

At a tough penitentiary, prisoner Joe Collins plans to rebel against Captain Munsey, the power-mad chief guard.

Billy Hayes, an American college student, is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison.

"Punishment Park" is a pseudo-documentary purporting to be a film crews's news coverage of the team of soldiers escorting a group of hippies, draft dodgers, and anti-establishment types across the desert in a type of capture the flag game. The soldiers vow not to interfere with the rebels' progress and merely shepherd them along to their destination. At that point, having obtained their goal, they will be released. The film crew's coverage is meant to insure that the military's intentions are honorable. As the representatives of the 60's counter-culture get nearer to passing this arbitrary test, the soldiers become increasingly hostile, attempting to force the hippies out of their pacifist behavior. A lot of this film appears improvised and in several scenes real tempers seem to flare as some of the "acting" got overaggressive. This is a interesting exercise in situational ethics. The cinéma vérité style, hand-held camera, and ambiguous demands of the director - would the actors be able to maintain their roles given the hazing they were taking - pushed some to the brink. The cast's emotions are clearly on the surface. Unfortunately this film has gone completely underground and is next to impossible to find. It would offer a captivating document of the distrust that existed between soldiers willfully serving in the military and those persons who opposed the war peacefully.

Brash hoodlum Tom Connors enters Sing Sing prison cocksure of himself and disrespectful toward authority, but the tough but compassionate warden is able to effect change in him.