Our 2022 edition of the best prison escape movies on Amazon features some of the most popular recent blockbusters such as Escape Plan starring Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and 50 Cent but also classics including Escape from New York.
If you are a fan of prison escape plots, you will enjoy this collection: Freshly updated and now in an expanded list, our new selections are highly addictive and intriguing.
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Update: since original publishing of this guide, we did locate few more notable prison escape movies on Prime video. Here’s some more titles we’ve liked:
Alcatraz Prison Escape: Deathbed Confession
The true story, based on a Deathbed Confession, about what really happened to Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers who escaped from Alcatraz Prison in 1962. They made it- but what happened next is shocking. Investigated by the US Marshals.
Bandit
Gilbert Galvan Jr (Josh Duhamel), a charming criminal, escapes from prison and assumes a new identity. After falling in love with Andrea (Elisha Cuthbert), a caring social worker he can’t provide for, he turns to robbing banks and discovers that he’s exceptionally good at it. Addicted to the rush and money, he turns to loan shark and gangster Tommy Kay (Mel Gibson) for bigger opportunities.
Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman
Great Escapes with Morgan Freeman is hosted and executive produced by Morgan Freeman. He will explore real-life prison breaks that have captured the attention of the public. It’s an up close view of what the prisoners are faced with in executing their break outs. Famous escapes from Alcatraz, Dannemora, Pittsburgh State Penitentiary & other locations are recreated with actors playing KEY roles.
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52. Escape Plan (2013)
Tough and chiseled Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) knows how to infiltrate a prison — and bust out of one. His latest job leads to a double-cross, leaving him stuck in a high-tech facility with the worst that society has to offer.
Luckily for Ray, he meets Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), an inmate who secretly helps him hatch a plot to win his freedom. Only sad*stic warden Hobbes (Jim Caviezel) stands in the way of the two men successfully making it out alive.
51. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison for the murders of his wife and her lover and is sentenced to a tough prison. However, only Andy knows he didn’t commit the crimes. While there, he forms a friendship with Red (Morgan Freeman), experiences brutality of prison life, adapts, helps the warden, etc., all in 19 years.
50. The Next Three Days (2010)
Life for John and Lara Brennan (Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks) is miserable after she is convicted of a murder she says she did not commit.
Three years later while struggling with the demands of work and raising his son alone, John is still trying to establish her innocence. When her final appeal is rejected, Lara becomes suicidal, forcing John to exercise the only option he has left: Break her out of prison.
49. Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) is an honorable family man, until the day his wife and daughter are murdered in a home invasion. He hopes for justice, but a rising prosecutor named Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal with one of the killers in exchange for testimony.
Ten years later, that man is found dead and Shelton coolly admits his guilt. Then he hands Rice an ultimatum: Fix the broken legal system or suffer the consequences.
48. Shutter Island (2010)
The implausible escape of a brilliant murderess brings U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner (Mark Ruffalo) to Ashecliffe Hospital, a fortress-like insane asylum located on a remote, windswept island.
The woman appears to have vanished from a locked room, and there are hints of terrible deeds committed within the hospital walls. As the investigation deepens, Teddy realizes he will have to confront his own dark fears if he hopes to make it off the island alive.
47. Victory (1981)
The head of a German POW camp, soccer enthusiast Karl von Steiner (Max von Sydow) organizes a match between Nazi players and their Allied captives.
Orchestrated as a way to push the Third Reich agenda, the high-profile game is set to feature an international team led by John Colby (Michael Caine), a veteran British player. While the team, which also includes Luis Fernandez (Pelé) of Trinidad, trains for the match, Robert Hatch (Sylvester Stallone) plans a dangerous mass escape from the camp.
46. Escape from New York (1981)
In 1997, a major war between the United States and the Soviet Union is concluding, and the entire island of Manhattan has been converted into a giant maximum security prison.
When Air Force One is hijacked and crashes into the island, the president (Donald Pleasence) is taken hostage by a group of inmates. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal, is recruited to retrieve the president in exchange for his own freedom.
45. Room (2015)
Held captive for years in an enclosed space, a woman (Brie Larson) and her young son (Jacob Tremblay) finally gain their freedom, allowing the boy to experience the outside world for the first time.
44. Cube (1997)
Without remembering how they got there, several strangers awaken in a prison of cubic cells, some of them booby-trapped.
There’s onetime cop Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint), scientist Holloway (Nicky Guadagni), young math genius Leaven (Nicole de Boer), master of escapes Rennes (Wayne Robson), autistic savant Kazan (Andrew Miller) and architect Worth (David Hewlett), who might have more information on the maze than he lets on. The prisoners must use their combined skills if they are to escape.
43. Face/Off (1997)
Obsessed with bringing terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) to justice, FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) tracks down Troy, who has boarded a plane in Los Angeles.
After the plane crashes and Troy is severely injured, possibly dead, Archer undergoes surgery to remove his face and replace it with Troy’s. As Archer tries to use his disguise to elicit information about a bomb from Troy’s brother, Troy awakes from a coma and forces the doctor who performed the surgery to give him Archer’s face.
42. In The Name Of The Father (1993)
Unemployed young Irishman Gerry Conlon (Daniel Day-Lewis) gets by as a petty thief in 1970s Belfast. When local IRA leaders get fed up with him, he flees to England and meets up with his friend Paul Hill (John Lynch).
On the same night that the IRA bombs a nearby pub, the friends get kicked out of their communal digs and are forced to sleep in a park. He returns to Belfast, but is arrested as the prime suspect in the bombing and imprisoned, where he spends 15 years trying to clear his name.
41. The Colditz Story (1995)
The story of the legendary breakout by World War II Allied POWs from Colditz Castle, the Germans’ supposedly escape-proof fortress in Saxony. Undaunted by the threat of execution, the inmates try every conceivable means of escape – until someone hits upon the audacious idea of walking out dressed as enemy officers.
40. The Rock (1996)
FBI chemical warfare expert Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) is sent on an urgent mission with a former British spy, John Patrick Mason (Sean Connery), to stop Gen. Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris) from launching chemical weapons on Alcatraz Island into San Francisco.
Gen. Hummel demands $100 million in war reparations to be paid to the families of slain servicemen who died on covert operations. After their SEAL team is wiped out, Stanley and John deal with the soldiers on their own.
39. Lockout (2012)
Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace), the daughter of the American president, leads a humanitarian mission to MS One, an outer-space prison in which the 500 most dangerous criminals from Earth are kept in a state of artificial sleep.
Just as Emilie arrives, the now-awakened prisoners stage a violent rebellion, and she and the MS One crew are taken hostage. Emilie’s only chance for salvation lies with Snow (Guy Pearce), a wrongly convicted agent who has been promised his freedom if he saves her.
38. Camp X-Ray (2014)
A female guard (Kristen Stewart) at Guantanamo Bay forms an unlikely friendship with one of the facility’s longtime detainees.
37. Get the gringo (2012)
A youngster helps an American career criminal (Mel Gibson) learn to survive behind the walls of a brutal Mexican prison.
36. The Old Man & the Gun (2018)
At the age of 70, Forrest Tucker makes an audacious escape from San Quentin, conducting an unprecedented string of heists that confound authorities and enchant the public.
Wrapped up in the pursuit are detective John Hunt, who becomes captivated with Forrest’s commitment to his craft, and a woman who loves him in spite of his chosen profession.
35. Unbroken (2014)
As a boy, Louis “Louie” Zamperini is always in trouble, but with the help of his older brother, he turns his life around and channels his energy into running, later qualifying for the 1936 Olympics.
When World War II breaks out, Louie enlists in the military. After his plane crashes in the Pacific, he survives an incredible 47 days adrift in a raft, until his capture by the Japanese navy. Sent to a POW camp, Louie becomes the favorite target of a particularly cruel prison commander.
34. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) is having difficulty adjusting to his hard-labor sentence in Mississippi. He scams his way off the chain gang with simple Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) and maladjusted Pete (John Turturro), then the trio sets out to pursue freedom and the promise of a fortune in buried treasure.
With nothing to lose and still in shackles, their hasty run takes them on an incredible journey of awesome experiences and colorful characters.
33. Escape Plan 2: Hades (2018)
Ray Breslin manages an elite team of security specialists trained in the art of breaking people out of the world’s most impenetrable prisons.
When his trusted operative, Shu Ren, is kidnapped and disappears inside the most elaborate prison ever built, Ray assembles an elite team to assist in the rescue.
32. Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood), a hardened con with a history of prison breaks, is sent to serve the rest of his life sentence at Alcatraz — America’s most infamously brutal and inescapable maximum security prison.
Morris quickly realizes the prison’s dehumanizing effects and clashes with its cruel warden (Patrick McGoohan). Fed up with life at Alcatraz, Morris and two convict brothers (Fred Ward, Jack Thibeau) meticulously plan the unthinkable: an escape from the island.
31. The Escapist (2008)
Fourteen years into a life sentence, convict Frank Perry (Brian Cox) plans to escape from prison after learning his daughter nearly overdosed from heroin.
With the help of fellow prisoners, Frank begins digging tunnels that will lead to the outside world. As Frank and his friends dig, he fends off Rizza (Damian Lewis), a fearsome gangster who runs the inside of the prison, and his brother, Tony (Steven Mackintosh), a junkie with designs on Frank’s cellmate, Lacey (Dominic Cooper).
30. Escape from Pretoria (2020)
Two white South Africans, imprisoned for working on behalf of the African National Congress, are determined to escape from the notorious Pretoria Prison.
29. Papillon (1973)
Convicted murderer Henri Charriere (Steve McQueen), known as “Papillon” for his butterfly chest tattoo, is transported to French Guiana to serve his sentence in a work camp.
Determined to escape, Papillon forms an unlikely relationship with the frail but notorious forger Louis Dega (Dustin Hoffman), who reluctantly joins in the attempt. Despite the harshness of solitary confinement, brutal conditions and constant threats of betrayal, Papillon leads a desperate escape off the island.
28. Midnight Express (1978)
Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is a young American caught by Turkish police while attempting to smuggle hash out of Istanbul. He’s tried and sent to prison for four years, where he endures all manner of privation and abuse.
As he finishes up his time, he’s shocked to learn that the Turkish High Court has added a further 30 years to his sentence. He is now thoroughly demoralized, and his life in prison grows increasingly unbearable until he concludes that escape is his only option.
27. Felon (2008)
A loving husband and father finds his life transformed into a waking nightmare when he accidentally kills a burglar.
Sentenced to spend three years in a maximum security prison, the man suffers the wrath of the sad*stic head guard and is forced to share a cell with a notorious mass-murderer. In order to survive the ordeal and get back to his family, he will have to become the toughest felon of all.
26. The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
The classic story of an innocent man wrongly, but deliberately imprisoned and his brilliant strategy for revenge against those who betrayed him.
Dashing young sailor Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel) is a guileless and honest young man whose peaceful life and plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk) are abruptly shattered when his best friend Fernand (Guy Pearce), who wants Mercedes for himself, deceives him.
25. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
When petty criminal Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn’t play by the rules of either the sad*stic warden (Strother Martin) or the yard’s resident heavy, Dragline (George Kennedy), who ends up admiring the new guy’s unbreakable will.
Luke’s bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison’s dreaded solitary confinement cell, “the box,” make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.
24. Starred Up (2013)
An explosive teenager runs into his equally violent father after being switched to an adult prison from a facility for juveniles.
23. The Defiant Ones (1958)
In 1950s America, members of a chain gang are being transported through the South when their truck crashes. Two of the convicts, John “Joker” Jackson (Tony Curtis) and Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier), who are chained together, find an opportunity to escape. Jackson is white, Cullen is black and, at first, the men appear to be opposites in every way.
But as they flee across the country, the two form a deep bond. A female landowner leads Jackson to make a difficult decision about his own freedom.
22. Out of Sight (1998)
Meet Jack Foley (George Clooney), the most successful bank robber in the country. On the day he busts out of jail, he finds himself stealing something far more precious than money … Karen Sisco’s (Jennifer Lopez) heart.
She’s smart. She’s sexy, and unfortunately for Jack, she’s a Federal Marshal. Now, they’re willing to risk it all to find out if there’s more between them than just the law.
21. Con Air (1997)
Just-paroled army ranger Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is headed back to his wife (Monica Potter), but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed “Jailbird” with some of the worst criminals living.
Along with Diamond Dog (Ving Rhames) and Baby-O (Mykelti Williamson), genius serial killer Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom (John Malkovich) unleashes a violent escape plot in mid-flight. Secretly working with U.S. Marshall Vince Larkin (John Cusack), Poe tries to foil Grissom’s plan.
20. The Wooden Horse (1950)
In camp Stalag Luft III, the Nazis have built the prisoners’ huts so far from the fence that underground escape is virtually impossible.
One British officer, inspired by the tale of the Trojan Horse, proposes a daring plan to start a tunnel close to the boundary using a wooden vaulting horse as cover.
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19. Rescue Dawn (2006)
During the Vietnam War, German-born US pilot Dieter Dengler is shot down over Laos and taken prisoner. Tortured and starved, Dieter resolves to escape with fellow prisoners Duane and Gene.
When they finally make their daring break into the jungle, the escapees discover that the dense, humid rainforest can be a terrifying prison in itself.
18. Escape Plan: The Extractors (2019)
After security expert Ray Breslin is hired to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Hong Kong tech mogul from a formidable Latvian prison, Breslin’s girlfriend is also captured.
Now he and his team, must pull off a deadly rescue mission to confront their sad*stic foe and save the hostages, hidden in the depths of the prison complex, before time runs out.
17. Papillon (2017)
A new remake: The epic story of Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld who is framed for murder and condemned to life in the notorious penal colony on Devil’s Island.
Determined to regain his freedom, Papillon forms an unlikely alliance with convicted counterfeiter Louis Dega, who in exchange for protection, agrees to finance Papillon’s escape.
16. The Great Escape (1963)
Imprisoned during World War II in a German POW camp, a group of Allied soldiers are intent on breaking out, not only to escape, but also to draw Nazi forces away from battle to search for fugitives.
Among the prisoners determined to escape are American Captain Virgil Hilts (Steve McQueen) and British Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenborough). Outwitting their captors by digging a tunnel out of the prison grounds, the soldiers find the stakes much higher when escape becomes a reality.
15. The Way Back (2010)
Denounced by his wife as a possible spy in 1939, Janusz (Jim Sturgess) finds himself in a remote Siberian labor camp. Faced with brutal conditions inside and out, Janusz is determined to escape.
A blizzard provides him with the perfect opportunity, and he and a small group of fellow prisoners make a break for it. Escape, however, is the easy part, for Janusz and his companions face a 4,000 mile trek on foot through the frozen Himalayas before they can truly be free.
14. Undisputed 3: Redemption (2010)
A champion fighter gets transferred to a Ukrainian facility to fight in a prison tournament.
13. Life (1999)
During Prohibition, loudmouth Harlem grifter Ray (Eddie Murphy) and the no-nonsense Claude (Martin Lawrence) team up on a bootlegging mission to Mississippi that could bring them big bucks.
But they run into trouble when a crooked lawman hits them with a phony murder charge. Ray and Claude are given life sentences and shipped off to jail, where they must think of a way to prove their innocence and avoid the brutal guards while battling their biggest enemies — their opposing personalities.
12. Snowpiercer (2013)
Survivors of Earth’s second ice age live out their days on a luxury train that ploughs through snow and ice. The train’s poorest residents, who live in the squalid caboose, plan to improve their lot by taking over the engine room.
11. The Fugitive (1993)
Wrongfully accused of murdering his wife, Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) escapes from the law in an attempt to find her killer and clear his name.
Pursuing him is a team of U.S. marshals led by Deputy Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), a determined detective who will not rest until Richard is captured. As Richard leads the team through a series of intricate chases, he discovers the secrets behind his wife’s death and struggles to expose the killer before it is too late.
10. The Last Castle (2001)
A respected and decorated general’s career ends in disgrace when he disobeys orders and is sent to a maximum-security prison dubbed the Castle.
Perceiving the injustice at work within the prison system, he rallies his fellow convicts into a rag-tag army and mounts a revolt against the autocratic warden, who runs the institution with an iron fist.
9. Public Enemies (2009)
Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger’s (Johnny Depp) charm and audacity endear him to much of America’s downtrodden public, but he’s also a thorn in the side of J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) and the fledgling FBI.
Desperate to capture the elusive outlaw, Hoover makes Dillinger his first Public Enemy Number One and assigns his top agent, Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale), the task of bringing him in dead or alive.
8. Shot Caller (2017)
A California stockbroker is arrested and charged for a fatal DUI accident, and on his lawyer’s advice, takes a plea deal which sees him sentenced to 16 months in prison. While incarcerated, he becomes involved with a violent white supremacist gang.
7. Logan Lucky (2017)
West Virginia family man Jimmy Logan teams up with his one-armed brother Clyde and sister Mellie to steal money from the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
Jimmy also recruits demolition expert Joe Bang to help them break into the track’s underground system. Complications arise when a mix-up forces the crew to pull off the heist during a popular NASCAR race, while also trying to dodge a relentless FBI agent.
6. The Green Mile (1999)
Not technically a prison break movie but to some extent fits the category: Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) walked the mile with a variety of cons. He had never encountered someone like John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), a massive black man convicted of brutally killing a pair of young sisters.
Coffey had the size and strength to kill anyone, but not the demeanor. Beyond his simple, naive nature and a deathly fear of the dark, Coffey seemed to possess a prodigious, supernatural gift. Paul began to question whether Coffey was truly guilty of murdering the two girls.
5. Escape from L.A. (1996)
In 2013, the United States president (Cliff Robertson) is exiling all citizens who don’t conform to his hyper-conservative views to Los Angeles, which became an island after a huge earthquake.
But, when the president’s daughter nabs the detonator to her dad’s apocalyptic weapon and sneaks into L.A. to be with the rebel leader she loves, the government taps commando-turned-crook Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) to retrieve the young woman. And, if he doesn’t succeed quickly, he’ll be executed.
4. Prison Break: The Final Break (2009)
A man (Wentworth Miller) hatches a plan to rescue his pregnant girlfriend (Sarah Wayne Callies) from a women’s prison.
3. 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.
Fellow prisoner and Australia’s most notorious criminal, Brendan Lynch, offers JR protection, but it comes at a price. Upon release, JR must help secure Lynch’s freedom by staging a daring prison break.
2. 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.
Gerard is ordered to hunt down the fugitive along with State Department agent John Royce (Robert Downey Jr.), and the two pursue Sheridan relentlessly, despite growing doubts about his guilt.
1. 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.
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