IndieWire's Our 15 Favorite Prison Breaks at the Movies

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The Playlist Staff
Oct 15, 2013 2:01 pm

“You’ll like it, it’s about a prison break” says Andy Dufresne in “The Shawshank Redemption” about the book they’re shelving, Alexander Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo.” “We oughta file that under ‘educational’ too, oughtn’t we?” quips Red in reply, and indeed, with the sheer number of prison escape books and movies that exist, you’d imagine that all a really dedicated inmate has to do is watch or read enough of them before they’d stumble across a plot that could be adapted for their own situation. (Note: The Playlist does not condone real-life attempts at fleeing prison unless you’re totally innocent, a prisoner of war or you have a really cool plan that involves disguises and dummies and stuff.) This week a movie in a similar vein is released and we highly doubt it will be accused of having any educational content whatsoever: “Escape Plan.” Starring brawny side of aged beef Sylvester Stallone and tanned leather pommel horse Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film puts “the world’s foremost authority on structural security” (that’s a thing?) into the “world’s most top-secret escape-proof prison” (also a thing?) and has him team up with his cellmate to devise an exit strategy while also finding out who framed him and why.

While this film (previously titled “The Tomb”) may look dumber than a bucket of hair, and has been strangely un-buzzy despite its starry cast (Jim Caviezel, 50 Cent, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vinnie Jones and Amy Ryan also appear), we’re fully prepared to accept that it’s could be a lot of fun in a brainless, unreconstructed way, mainly because as often-visited as the territory may be, we have kind of a weakness for prison break films, even when they’re ever so silly. Perhaps it’s something metaphorical about anti-authoritarianism and sticking it to the man or perhaps we’ve killed a bunch of people (watch those critical comments guys!) and realize it’s just a matter of time before we’re caught and incarcerated ourselves. Whatever the truth is here’s a jolly good sampler of 15 of our arbitrarily chosen favorite movie prison breaks, and what we might be able to learn from them. Be warned, though, since we’re talking about the success or failure of the schemes, here be *SPOILERS* throughout.

There are a gazillion prison break films, of course, ranging from all-out comedies (“The Parole Officer,” “Lucky Break,” “Stir Crazy” “O Brother Where Art Thou?” among others) to gritty dramas (“Papillon,” “Midnight Express,” “Brute Force,” “Runaway Train” “The Defiant Ones,” “Lonely are the Brave” to name just a few) and hitting all points in between. And no doubt you’ll have your favorites that we missed out so feel free to shout them out in the comments below especially if there’s one that you feel boasts a particularly ingenious and/or foolproof plan. You never know, right?

Note: List does not appear to be ranked.

See also: IndieWire's 25 Essential Prison Movies