Okay, everyone, it’s time to rank Prison Escape Movies.
What are the parameters? The criteria for this category seem straightforward, but might involve even more hair-splitting than usual, so please read the guidelines, or what we’ll have here is… failure to communicate.
First of all, not every movie that features a prison escape or escaped prisoners is a Prison Escape Movie. To be on this list, a movie must centrally feature the escape, both tonally and practically, emphasizing the conditions that create the need for the escape, the process of planning and strategizing the escape (including through teamwork), the actual escape, being on the run or pursued or recaptured, and/or a general atmosphere of fear, fascism, paranoia, and injustice.
One of the most important aspects of the Prison Escape Movie is an emphasis on the oppression and abjection promoted by the prison, as well as within the broken justice system that relies on carceral institutions. Chiefly, in a Prison Escape Movie, the prisoners attempt to extricate themselves for another chance at freedom, because freedom is absolutely worth the risks of being captured.
Even though there is a wealth of great prison break television out there, from Escape at Dannemora to Lupin to—hear me out—White Collar, this list is only for movies. They can be TV movies, though.
So, I’ll say this again… a movie with a big prison escape scene might not cause the film to qualify if the prison escape scene isn’t there to represent or underscore SOME existing themes of tyranny, fascism, subjugation, poverty, disenfranchisement, or inequality. Despite that one sequence, The Silence of the Lambs is not a Prison Escape Movie. It’s impossible for that movie to be more in favor of prison. Absolutely does not qualify. Neither does the 1966 Blake Edwards comedy The Great Race, even though Natalie Wood and Peter Falk bust out of prison together to save Jack Lemmon, who has stolen the identity of a Hapsburg prince. It’s a great movie, but the prison escape is merely a small comic interlude.
Actually, Silence brings me to another point: movies where the villain gets himself captured/relocated on purpose, and then breaks out of his container (such as Skyfall) do not count. Don’t count. And they will spend a night… in the box. The special-edition DVD box they each live in, on my shelf. Because I’m not taking them out to watch them and put them on this list.
Anyway, here goes. As always, we’re counting from worst to best.
45. Escape Plan, dir. Mikael Håfström (2013)
Sylvester Stallone plays a “structural-security authority” (lol) who is the victim of a conspiracy that causes him to get locked away in the world’s most top-secret prison. And he has to use his skills to escape, obviously. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in this movie as well, which also feels obvious, somehow. He plays another convict, and they decide to work together. Sly’s clear excitement about working with his friends is by far the best part of this otherwise terrible movie. Interestingly, though, this was the first movie my boyfriend suggested when I mentioned that I was putting together a ranking of prison escape movies, so I don’t know what that says about him. But it does say something.
44. Con Air, dir. Simon West (1997)
Few years are lived to the fullest the way Nicolas Cage lived in 1997. Con Air AND Face/Off? Incredible. He plays “newly paroled ex-con and former U.S. Ranger Cameron Poe” (quoting from IMDB because I really like the concision; well done guys) who is bound for a new life of freedom. But his prisoner transport plane… is hijacked by the other prisoners! This film features an amazing all-star cast, including John Cusack, John Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Dave Chappelle, and Danny Trejo, and I hope they were all paid a ton of money.
43. Face/Off, dir. John Woo (1997)
Face/Off gets props right off the bat for its incredibly punny title, and loses points for most everything else. Still, I do appreciate the balls-to-the-walls commitment to its cockamamie gambit, which involves John Travolta and Nicolas Cage as an FBI agent and terrorist/murderer (respectively), who wind up *surgically switching faces* in order to thwart a terrorist plot and get revenge (for Travolta) and also get more revenge (for Cage). Amazingly, this was actually the second movie my boyfriend suggested when I told him I was putting together a ranking of prison escape movies, and when I responded to say I had already placed it third-from-the-bottom on my list, I swear it broke his heart a little. (Looking into this.) (UPDATE: He says that while Escape Plan is just plain bad, Face/Off has a lot of interesting nuance. “It just really goes for it.” Which cannot be denied.)
42. Life, dir. Ted Demme (1997)
Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence star in this Prohibition-era buddy comedy (set in prison) about two strangers who wind up becoming the best of friends. I’m not going to tell you any more, or why it’s on this list, because that actually might spoil things. But it qualifies, okay? Fun fact: it also has an Academy Award nomination for best makeup. (Here’s to you, Rick Baker, popping up in the least expected places.)
41. The Next Three Days, dir. Paul Haggis (2010)
Elizabeth Banks and Russell Crowe are a normal married couple, until one of them gets arrested for murder and thrown in prison. It’s the wife, which is a cool twist. Why have I said that? Well, read this comprehensive list and think about how many *other* female prison break stories there are. (In case you want it spoiled for you, the only other female jailbreak movie on this list is Chicken Run, so thanks very much, Hollywood.) (FOOTNOTE: I’d have thought Harley Quinn at least would have had something to contribute to this patriarchal pantheon, but zilch.) Anyway, after years go by and she’s not proven innocent by her final appeal, Russell Crowe decides his best move is just to bust her out.
40. Escape from Pretoria, dir. Francis Annan (2020)
I had virtually no idea that this film, which stars Daniel Radcliffe, was released last year, though knowledge of its existence probably would not have made my 2020 any better. Set during South Africa in 1979, it is the (true) story of two prisoners who attempt a daring escape. My only thoughts about it are that Daniel Radcliffe seems like a nice guy.
39. Bronson, dir. Nicolas Winding Refn (2008)
Tom Hardy stars as Michael Peterson, known as “Charles Bronson”—a former bare-knuckle boxer who became known as Britain’s most dangerous criminal, for orchestrating many violent escape attempts, many of which involved taking hostages. Given his preferred nickname, you’d think his crime would be identify theft, but no.
38. Papillon, dir. Michael Noer (2017)
Who the hell is going around, remaking Papillon? There are so many things to do these days, and “remake Papillon” isn’t one of those things. Think about this: Papillon was remade before a woman ever directed a superhero film. Papillon was remade before a nonwhite Asian woman ever won a Best Actress Oscar (I say “nonwhite” because Wikipedia insists Natalie Portman is Asian, because she was born in Israel). I can’t wrap my head around the fact that this was made. Were the producers just rich and bored? Guys, if you simply *need something to do,* my TV series about a female writer for a crime website who solves mysteries on the side needs a green light. Or, if you’re still committed to doing something “small potatoes,” I have a whole IKEA shelf that I need assembled and I need somebody to bring my compost to the nearest farmer’s market, since they shut down the one near me. Hit me up, so I can help you manage your time better.
37. Victory, dir. John Huston (1983)
For some reason, John Huston directed this film about a group of sporty Allied soldiers in a POW camp who are challenged by the head guard (Max von Sydow) to play a propagandistic soccer match against the Nazi team. They accept, plotting to use the game as a cover for a mass escape. Sylvester Stallone plays an American soldier who plots the exodus. It’s a quirky movie, but the best part is that you get to watch Michael Caine play soccer. And you know what? He’s not bad.
36. The Defiant Ones, dir. David Lowell Rich (1986)
Again with the superfluous remakes! I don’t know why, but The Defiant Ones was remade in the 80s with Carl Weathers and Robert Urich. It didn’t really need to be redone, but it was. It’s not bad. I like Carl Weathers.
35. Stir Crazy, dir. Sidney Poitier (1980)
Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are two best friends (wearing, at one point, matching Woodpecker costumes) wrongfully convicted of robbing a bank, who are determined to bust out of jail together. But actually, things don’t turn out so bad after the Warden learns that Gene Wilder is good at bronco-riding. There’s a competition coming up, after all.
34. Holes, dir. Andrew Davis (2003)
It’s not as good as the book Holes, though, what in this life IS as good as the book Holes? (It starts with the incredible line “there is no lake at Camp Green Lake” and only gets better from there.) This star-studded, earnest film adaptation of Louis Sachar’s classic novel tells of unlucky preteen Stanley Yelnats (Shia LeBeouf), who is wrongly convicted of theft and sentenced to serve out his time at a boys’ delinquent camp known as Camp Green Lake. It’s in the desert. Each day, every day, the boys have to dig a single, giant hole. They don’t know why, but they’re told by their guardian Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) that “it builds character.” Stanley, or as he’s known to the rest of the boys, “Caveman,” winds up befriending the camp’s pariah, a boy called “Zero” (Khleo Thomas). And together, they wind up fleeing from the camp, hiking through the dessert and inadvertently undoing the curse that has plagued Stanley’s family for generations. Also, all the actors who played the Camp Green Lake residents recorded a song for the film, and it played on Radio Disney like four times every hour in the early aughts. I discovered recently that I still know all the words.
33. Von Ryan’s Express, dir. Mark Robson (1965)
I’ve never been *super* sure why Frank Sinatra got cast in so many movies as a badass renegade (or tap dancer) but in Von Ryan’s Express, inhabiting a role clearly more suited for Lee Marvin, he plays an American POW who leads a bunch of British prisoners on a daring escape from a German prison camp in Italy.
32. The Count of Monte Cristo, dir. Rowland V. Lee (1934)
There are a million adaptations of The Count of Monte Cristo, and thankfully most of them are TV series, so I don’t have to watch them all for this list. Don’t get me wrong, I like The Count of Monte Cristo! I like it a lot and always have, since first cracking open my 700-page copy of the Dumas novel on the bleachers during seventh-grade gym class (no idea how I was allowed to do that). But there are three versions of that tale on this list alone! That’s a lot! Anyway, in this Depression-Era film adaptation, Robert Donat stars as Edmond Dantes, a merchant sailor who winds up wrongfully imprisoned after his best friend Fernand tricks him into delivering a letter from Napoleon Bonaparte. He is incarcerated at the Chateau d’If, without trial, while Fernand tells Edmond’s love that Edmond has died. And then he marries her! Twenty years later, Edmond makes his escape and dons a new identity to get revenge. Wouldn’t you? (This version is in last place among the three for its completely bonkers art direction and costume design…why does this Napoleonic French escape story often look like it takes place in the antebellum South?)
31. The Count of Monte Cristo, dir. Kevin Reynolds (2002)
This most medium version of the three Monte Cristos on this list, *sandwiched* (get it?) between the two others, stars Jim Caviezel as our falsely-accused Edmond, Guy Pearce as Fernand, and a nineteen-year-old Henry Cavill as the son Fernand had with Edmond’s former love Mercedes. Which is cute.
30. The Count of Monte Cristo, dir. David Greene (1975)
This best (and by that, please read: campiest) of the Monte Cristo adaptations stars Richard Chamberlain in a very Richard Chamberlain performance as Edmond and a middle-aged TONY CURTIS in a very middle-aged-Tony-Curtis performance as Fernand. It’s got a real, swinging 70s cast, including Louis Jourdan, Trevor Howard, Donald Pleasence, and Kate Nelligan. I’ve never been drunk, but I imagine it would be very fun to be drunk while watching this movie.
29. The Escapist, dir. Rupert Wyatt (2008)
The great Brian Cox leads an all-star cast in this Anglo-Irish Sundance release about an elderly inmate serving a lifelong prison sentence. He decides to break out of prison after his roommate (Dominic Cooper) becomes the target of the inmates’ dangerous ringleader Rizza (Damian Lewis). It’s notable for its interesting formal presentations (which has drawn comparisons to the nineteenth-century Ambrose Bierce short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”), as well as its intriguing, twisty third act.
28. Midnight Express, dir. Alan Parker (1978)
In this story, screen-written by a young Oliver Stone, an American college student is apprehended while attempting to smuggle some hash out of Turkey in 1970. But when he attempts to run away from the authorities, he is thrown into a prison, lorded over by a cruel warden, with no hope of extradition. Making friends with the band of prisoners in there for similar petty crimes (including Randy Quaid and John Hurt, there’s an odd couple for you), he learns that the only real way he’ll ever get home is to “catch the midnight express.” Which means, of course, “break out.”
27. The Defiant Ones, dir. Stanley Kramer (1958)
Not to be confused with that movie about Dr. Dre, The Defiant Ones is one of those well-meaning, old-school commentaries about American race relations that ascribes racial tensions to “mutual hatred” much more than raging, systemic white supremacy, but anyway, Tony Curtis and Sydney Poitier play two escaped convicts who are chained to one another as they make their way to freedom. And they hate each other, but the more time they spend with each other, the more they discover the other’s mutual humanity and treat one another with mutual respect. (Which is kind of (kind of) the movie equivalent of when the elementary school principal tells the bully-kid and the bullied-kid to shake hands and both say they’re sorry so everyone can move on with their day. But about racism in America. And with better acting.)
26. The Old Man and the Gun, dir. David Lowery (2018)
I was charmed by this film, the wholesome, reflective story of real-life serial prison escapee and lifelong bank robber Forrest Tucker, based on David Grann’s New Yorker profile on the man himself. Robert Redford is heartbreaking and wonderful as our restless, septuagenarian criminal protagonist (a kindly man who robs banks politely and without violence of any kind). There isn’t one giant prison escape sequence in here, but a nostalgic montage of sepia-tinted prison escapes stitched together from footage of Redford’s movies (it’s possible to read the whole film as a tender homage to Redford’s whole career of playing nice guys and shady-but-still-nice guys).
25. Abashiri Prison, dir. Teruo Ishii (1965)
In Abashiri Prison (Abashiri Bangaichi in Japanese), Shinichi (Ken Takakura), who is almost done serving his three-year prison sentence, winds up handcuffed to a dangerous convict named Gunda during Gunda’s escape from the jail and must journey through the snowy wilderness surrounding the prison.
24. Runaway Train, dir. Andrey Konchalovskiy (1985)
My brilliant mother called me to remind me to include this movie, in which Jon Voight and Eric Roberts are two escaped convicts in Alaska hiding out in a stopped train, which suddenly starts accelerating after an accident. And nobody’s driving, and there are no brakes. GASP!
23. Escape From New York, dir. John Carpenter (1981)
Friend-of-CrimeReads Mike Gonzales reminded me that John Carpenter’s classic Escape from New York is a prison escape movie, and he’s absolutely correct, not only because it has the tone of one, but also because it’s literally about a future in which the island of Manhattan has become a maximum security prison, and somehow, I forgot that whole part. But everything is okay—I re-watched it! Kurt Russell (in his prime) is Snake Plissken, the bank robber sent in to bust out the U.S. President (Donald Pleasence), after he crash-lands there. Making this film even more fun is that it stars Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, and Harry Dean Stanton, and that there must have been a mistake in the script because everybody keeps calling NYC’s 59th St Bridge the “69th St Bridge.”
22. Chicken Run, dir. Peter Lord and Nick Park (2000)
This plasticine classic from Aardman Animation is one of the few films on this list that kids can (maybe) watch. (Parents, know what you’re getting into: I saw it on VHS in the second grade and it would have made me a vegetarian on the spot had Babe not already planted those seeds.) In the film (which pastiches The Great Escape), several hens living on a farm run by cruel humans discover an opportunity to escape their confines after a slick rooster falls out of the sky into their pen. It seems like he can fly… and if he can teach them, he’s their ticket out. Probably. (The audience, though, and not the chickens, have a sense that he will disappoint them through the knowledge that this rooster is voiced by Mel Gibson, who is of course one of humanity’s greatest disappointments.)
21. King of Devil’s Island, dir. Marius Holst (2010)
The only way a prison escape movie can become more evil than simply by being about prison is to have the inmates be children. King of Devil’s Island is based on a true story, and that makes it all the worse. On Norway’s Bastoy Island is a home for delinquent boys, where the residents are used as cheap labor by sadistic guards and officials of the “school.” When a new, older boy arrives, though, he brings with him an escape plan, and for the first time, hope.
20. O Brother Where Art Thou?, dir. Joel Coen (and Ethan Coen) (2000)
O Brother Where Art Thou? is possibly a bit less of a prison escape movie than a musical retelling of The Odyssey set in the American South, but it tells the story of three prisoners (George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson) who escape from a chain gang and try to make it back home. Along the way, they wind up becoming incidental celebrities for making a hit recording of the song “Man of Constant Sorrow,” which is neat. T-Bone Burnett does the music, and you can TELL, because it’s one of the best and most thoughtful soundtracks around. Fun fact: the title comes from the 1941 Preston Sturges movie Sullivan’s Travels (O Brother Where Art Thou? is the name of the gritty drama our director-protagonist is trying to make, despite that the studio just wants him to make comedies). “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns.” And it does!
19. Stalag 17, dir. Billy Wilder (1953)
William Holden won his Academy Award for his portrayal of Sgt. J.J. Sefton in this dramedy about a cool-customer American POW who winds up having to ferret out which of his fellow inmates has been ratting out American escape attempts to the German command. Everyone else suspects him because he has no problem wheeling and dealing with the guards. But he definitely isn’t the mole.
18. Escape from Sobibor, dir. Jack Gold (1987)
Escape from Sobibor, starring Alan Arkin and Rutger Hauer, is based on the true story of the mass uprising and escape of prisoners in Sobibor’s Nazi death camp. Three hundred of the camp’s six-hundred prisoners managed to escape (though up to seventy were later captured), making it the most successful rebellion by Jewish concentration camp prisoners.
17. Rescue Dawn, dir. Werner Herzog (2007)
Rescue Dawn is an excellent film from German director, and noted Baby Yoda enthusiast, Werner Herzog. He directs Christian Bale as Dieter Dengler, a German-American US Navy pilot whose plane is shot down in a raid over Laos in 1965. Found and arrested by local townsfolk, he is tortured and sent to a prison camp, where he gets to know several prisoners and quickly plans to escape, but not all the inmates support his scheme. Aside from being a gripping, searing film, directed with the utmost gravity by Herzog, it also features a surprising, heavy performance by Steve Zahn.
16. Logan Lucky, dir. Steven Soderbergh (2017)
Rather like one of the race cars featured prominently in this film’s second act, Logan Lucky is a neat, compartmentalized, hurtling movie that carefully maneuvers through breakneck swerves and twists. It’s half-heist, half-prison escape, about three siblings (Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, and Riley Keough) who want to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during a NASCAR race. But to do it, they’ll need a pro safecracker to help. But the guy they want (Daniel Craig, doing another weird southern drawl) is currently serving a prison sentence. Which makes for an amazing alibi, if they can actually bust him out. Bonus: This safecracking/explosives-expert is named Joe Bang, which is what Dickens would have named him, had he somehow lived to become a Hollywood screenwriter.
15. Out of Sight, dir. Steven Soderbergh (1998)
I’ve discussed the merits of the highly multifaceted Out of Sight elsewhere on this site, and here I go again. Stephen Soderbergh directs this dark, sexy, sad love story between George Clooney (PEAK 90s Clooney), a bank robber who escapes from prison, and J-Lo (PEAK 90s J-Lo), a U.S. Marshal whom he winds up having to kidnap in order to make his getaway. He, in hiding, and she, captive, spend their meet-cute together in the trunk of a car, and their chemistry is pretty unreal. Clearly into one another, but knowing they are on opposite sides of the law, this opens a passionate pursuit story like no other.
14. The Grand Budapest Hotel, dir, Wes Anderson (2014)
The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson’s most pastel film, is perfect at capturing so many different aesthetics of Weimar-Era Eastern Europe, including a prison escape sequence which is somehow as droll as it is nerve-racking.
13. Down By Law, dir. Jim Jarmusch (1983)
My elderly high school Driver’s Ed teacher introduced me to the films of Jim Jarmusch, and it changed my life (I’ll never forget you, Mr. Fisher!). Technically, he told me to watch Mystery Train and said nothing about Down By Law, but it doesn’t matter—whenever I watch a Jarmusch movie I think of him. Anyway, Down by Law is a very folksy, gravelly, and frequently funny film about two very lazy men (Tom Waits and John Lurie) who are framed for a crime they didn’t commit and sent to jail. But in prison, they wind up meeting an eccentric and very Italian murderer (Roberto Benigni), through whose limited command of English he informs them that he knows how to escape. It’s great.
12. Brute Force, dir. Jules Dassin (1947)
Because it’s more about conflict within a prison, I almost forgot to include this classic (which is weird, because I *own* the Criterion DVD). It’s about a prisoner (Burt Lancaster) who rebels against the sadistic, manipulative, and tyrannical warden (Hume Cronyn) in charge of the jail, but thankfully our pal Mike Gonzales noticed its absence and reminded me. There is an escape in it! I swear, it counts.
11. Le Trou, dir. Jacques Becker (1960)
Le Trou (which means “the hole” in French, setting the mood pretttttty perfectly) is a real prisoner’s dilemma of a prison escape movie, about four inmates who invite a newcomer into their longstanding escape plan, only to ignite a slow fuse of insecurity, mistrust, and fear.
10. Toy Story 3, dir. Lee Unkrich (2010)
Unbelievably, Toy Story 3 is a prison escape movie, and I’m not just saying that to make some sort of hot take. It is. It is a truth universally acknowledged. And it’s a great one, not to mention full of Cool Hand Luke references.
9. I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, dir. Mervyn LeRoy (1932)
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a very depressing movie from Hollywood’s first few talkie years, about an aimless WWI veteran (Paul Muni) who winds up ruining his entire life after being tricked into committing a robbery—for which he gets sent to prison, is assigned to a chain gang, and escapes, only to find that, even when he’s free, he really has no future.
8. Escape from Alcatraz, dir. Don Siegel (1979)
Grrr, it’s Clint Eastwood as a genius criminal plotting to escape from the most difficult place to escape from, in this classic film, based on J. Campbell Bruce’s novel of the same name (which is, in turn, based on a real escape from Alcatraz in 1962). A classic. Also, Patrick McGoohan (who was really good at playing villains after his stint in The Prisoner, amirite) is the Warden who doesn’t think Clint can do it. We’ll just see about that.
7. The Shawshank Redemption, dir. Frank Darabont (1994)
I imagine I’m going to get a lot of choleric messages from men incensed by my placing The Shawshank Redemption at #7 but, whatever, it’s at #7. Based on a short story by Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption is the beautiful and often gut-wrenching story about a wrongfully imprisoned man, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), and the friend he makes while in jail, “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman), who bond over common acts of love and decency during very many long years. Until Andy finally escapes, with some help from Rita Hayworth.
6. Papillon, dir. Franklin J. Schaffner (1973)
God, Papillon. This very upsetting, moving film adapts Henri Charrière’s memoir of the same name, chronicling his time spent in the Devil’s Island penal colony in French Guyana. Steve McQueen plays Charrière (or “Papillon,” as he’s known, because of his butterfly tattoo), a man wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to a life of hard labor. Dustin Hoffman is Louis Dega, convicted embezzler, who becomes Papillon’s most trusted friend, and who helps him plot his escape. This movie is rough (be prepared to close your eyes if you’re not a huge fan of bugs), but it’s also pretty breathtaking. Also nauseating (bugs). But breathtaking, too!
5. La Grande Illusion, dir. Jean Renoir (1937)
Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion, the somber, sobering story of a multi-national, cross-class assemblage of officers in a POW camp during World War I (several of whom plot to escape), is widely considered one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces ever made. It features career performances from Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, and Erich von Stroheim, as well as a fascinating meditation on class solidarity.
4. The Fugitive, dir. Andrew Davis (1993)
Okay, so, technically in The Fugitive, the wrongfully-convicted Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) does not *break out of prison* so much as run away after several prisoners hijack their transport bus and attempt to escape, but the stakes are the same. Kimble is on death row for the murder of his wife, which he absolutely did not commit, and is determined to clear his name, running like hell and changing his identity and doing everything he can to avoid capture by the jeans-wearing human bloodhound of U.S. Marshall, Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones, in an incredibly well-deserved Oscar-winning performance). I love this movie so much. Sam Gerard may not care, but I do.
3. Cool Hand Luke, dir. Stuart Rosenberg (1967)
There’s nothing quite like Cool Hand Luke, a stirring, multi-layered film about an “original” of a man named Luke Jackson (Paul Newman), who is sentenced to two years in a rural Southern prison (for the minor, anti-Capitalist crime of decapitating parking meters) and who completely refuses to conform to the warden’s behavioral rules, peacefully rebelling against petty tyranny and giving all the other prisoners hope. And he tries to escape too, or it wouldn’t be on this list, now would it? (Also, shoutout to my dad, who loves a lot of movies on this list, but definitely loves this movie the most. Thanks, in part, to both him and this movie, for teaching me never to back down against a bully.)
2. A Man Escaped, dir. Robert Bresson (1956)
Robert Bresson’s harrowing prison escape drama (which has a much longer title in French: Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut, which means “An inmate condemned to die has escaped, or the wind blows where it will”) will send your blood pressure through the roof. It follows an imprisoned French Resistance fighter, Lt. Fontaine (François Leterrier), who, terrified and weak, attempts to escape from a Nazi camp during WWII to avoid his inevitable death sentence.
1. The Great Escape, dir. John Sturges (1963)
The Great Escape, a based-on-a-true-events, three-hour-long epic about a group of Allied(/Antifa) prisoners who attempt a gigantic escape from a Nazi POW camp, has everything—and everyone! Steve McQueen! James Garner! Donald Pleasence! Richard Attenborough! Charles Bronson! James Coburn! A pre-Illya/definitely-pre-Ducky David McCallum! The soundtrack is amazing. The stunts are so awesome. Plus, it has one of the biggest nail-biter plots in film history. Also, everyone in this film is so goddamn cool.
