The Best Prison Movies on Prime Video

What it's about: Framed in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Jake Blues is just out of jail, and teams up with his brother, Elwood on a 'mission from God' to raise funds for the orphanage in which they grew up. The only thing they can do is do what they do best: play music. So they get their old band together, and set out on their way—while getting in a bit of trouble here and there.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: In the Deep South, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Escape from Alcatraz tells the story of the only three men ever to escape from the infamous maximum security prison at Alcatraz. In 29 years, the seemingly impenetrable federal penitentiary, which housed Al Capone and "Birdman" Robert Stroud, was only broken once - by three men never heard of again.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Aspiring comic Rupert Pupkin attempts to achieve success in show business by stalking his idol, a late night talk-show host who craves his own privacy.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Connie Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through New York City's underworld to get his brother Nick out of jail.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: After her son Kevin commits a horrific act, troubled mother Eva reflects on her complicated relationship with her disturbed son as he grew from a toddler into a teenager.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Hulu & Tribeca Short List) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: During a shootout in a saloon, Sheriff Hunt injures a suspicious stranger. One of the villagers takes care of him in prison. One day they both disappear – only the spear of a cannibal tribe is found. Hunt and a few of his men go in search of the prisoner and his nurse.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: After working as a drug courier and getting into a brutal shootout with police, a former boxer finds himself at the mercy of his enemies as they force him to instigate violent acts that turn the prison he resides in into a battleground.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A newly-released prison gangster is forced by the leaders of his gang to orchestrate a major crime with a brutal rival gang on the streets of Southern California.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocates them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: In small-town Texas, affable and popular mortician Bernie Tiede strikes up a friendship with Marjorie Nugent, a wealthy widow well known for her sour attitude. When she becomes controlling and abusive, Bernie goes to great lengths to remove himself from her grasp.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (Google Play, Prime Video & YouTube).

What it's about: A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The true story of Billy Moore, an English boxer incarcerated in Thailand's most notorious prison. Thrown into a world of drugs and violence, he finds his best chance to escape is to fight his way out in Muay Thai tournaments.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, this is the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Google Play).

What it's about: The Limey follows Wilson, a tough English ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine and an army of L.A.'s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened. After surviving a near-death beating, getting thrown from a building and being chased down a dangerous mountain road, the Englishman decides to dole out some bodily harm of his own.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Tribeca Short List), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: James Bond helps a Russian General escape into the west. He soon finds out that the KGB wants to kill him for helping the General. A little while later the General is kidnapped from the Secret Service leading 007 to be suspicious.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Starz), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz & Epix) & rent or buy from $13.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki's shrewd and intelligent polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: By 2017, the global economy has collapsed and American society has become a totalitarian police state, censoring all cultural activity. The government pacifies the populace by broadcasting a number of game shows in which convicted criminals fight for their lives, including the gladiator-style The Running Man, hosted by the ruthless Damon Killian, where “runners” attempt to evade “stalkers” and certain death for a chance to be pardoned and set free.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Showtime), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Showtime & Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Hildy, the journalist former wife of newspaper editor Walter Burns, visits his office to inform him that she's engaged and will be getting remarried the next day. Walter can't let that happen and frames the fiancé, Bruce Baldwin, for one thing after another, to keep him temporarily held in prison, while trying to steer Hildy into returning to her old job as his employee.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, SnagFilms & Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Dove Channel & Secrets of Cinema), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A junkie must face his true self to kick his drug addiction.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (SnagFilms & Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Fandor & Secrets of Cinema) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 2 services (Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: Five Jewish Hungarians, now U.S. citizens, tell their stories: before March, 1944, when Nazis began to exterminate Hungarian Jews, months in concentration camps, and visiting childhood homes more than 50 years later. An historian, a Sonderkommando, a doctor who experimented on Auschwitz prisoners, and US soldiers who were part of the liberation in April, 1945.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town that's rife with superstition and distrust of outsiders.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Prime Video).

What it's about: When a teenager from a political family in the Philippines is accused of a double murder, the country’s entire judicial system is put to the test after years of alleged corruption.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Corky, a tough female ex con and her lover Violet concoct a scheme to steal millions of stashed mob money and pin the blame on Violet's crooked boyfriend Caesar.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Fourth-generation Army Col. William McNamara is imprisoned in a brutal German POW camp. Still, as the senior-ranking American officer, he commands his fellow inmates, keeping a sense of honor alive in a place where honor is easy to destroy, all under the dangerous eye of the Luftwafe vetran Col. Wilhelm Visser. Never giving up the fight to win the war, McNamara is silently planning, waiting for his moment to strike back at the enemy. A murder in the camp gives him the chance to set a risky plan in motion. With a court martial to keep Visser and the Germans distracted, McNamara orchestrates a cunning scheme to escape and destroy a nearby munitions plant, enlisting the unwitting help of young Lt. Tommy Hart. Together with his men, McNamara uses a hero's resolve to carry out his mission, ultimately forced to weigh the value of his life against the good of his country.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 3 others). Coming soon to Prime Video on May 30th, 2019 (PDT).

What it's about: A woman framed for her husband's murder suspects he is still alive; as she has already been tried for the crime, she can't be re-prosecuted if she finds and kills him.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Hulu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: On New Year's Eve, inside a police station that's about to be closed for good, officer Jake Roenick must cobble together a force made up cops and criminals to save themselves from a mob looking to kill mobster Marion Bishop.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Showtime & Starz), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The life of American public enemy number one who was shot by the police in 1934. After a shoot-out kills five FBI agents in Kansas City the Bureau target John Dillinger as one of the men to hunt down. Waiting for him to break Federal law they sort out several other mobsters, while Dillinger's bank robbing exploits make him something of a folk hero. Escaping from jail he finds Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson have joined the gang and pretty soon he is Public Enemy Number One. Now the G-men really are after him.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Angel is released from juvenile detention on the eve of her 18th birthday. Haunted by her past, she embarks on a journey with her 10 year-old sister that could destroy their future.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Grier and Haig are thieving mercenaries who engineer a prison break from the outside.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Suburbanite Ron is spoiled, young and not overly worried about the marijuana charges leveled against him. But, after being made out to be a drug dealer, he faces a five-year jail sentence in San Quentin State Prison. Physically frail and unaccustomed to his rough surroundings, Ron is primed to fall victim to sexual predators and bullying guards – that is, until he's befriended by Earl, a veteran inmate who finds meaning in protecting the vulnerable new kid.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Prime Video).

What it's about: In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it - and it would quickly came back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison. Making his directorial debut, Jon Stewart tells the tale of Bahari's months-long imprisonment and interrogation in this powerful and affecting docudrama featuring a potent and performance by Gael García Bernal recounting Bahari's efforts to maintain his hope and his sanity in the face of isolation and persecution-through memories of his family, recollections of the music he loves, and thoughts of his wife and unborn child.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A drama centered around the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (FX) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: At the height of the frontier era, a train races through the Rocky Mountains on a classified mission to a remote army post. But one by one the passengers are being murdered, and their only hope is the mysterious John Deakin, who's being transported to face trial for murder.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Hulu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: This time, a cataclysmic temblor hits Los Angeles, turning it into an island. The president views the quake as a sign from above, expels Los Angeles from the country and makes it a penal colony for those found guilty of moral crimes. When his daughter, part of a resistance movement, steals the control unit for a doomsday weapon, Snake again gets tapped to save the day.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Hulu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Desperate to repay his debt to his ex-wife, an ex-con plots a heist at his new employer's country home, unaware that a second criminal has also targeted the property, and rigged it with a series of deadly traps.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix, Tubi TV & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, ConTV & Shudder) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A young man who is charged with child molestation is placed in New York City’s infamous Tombs prison. When the other inmates in his cell block find out what he is charged with, life becomes extremely difficult for him.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

What it's about: A prim and proper schoolgirl goes against her mother's wishes when she dates a motorcycle-riding juvenile delinquent.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: Female prisoners in a Phillippine jail are being subjected to sadistic torture. Five of the women--along with the help of two men--plot an escape.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Shout Factory TV) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: Mind-control technology has taken society by a storm, a multiplayer on-line game called "Slayers" allows players to control human prisoners in mass-scale. Simon controls Kable, the online champion of the game. Kable's ultimate challenge becomes regaining his identity and independence by defeating the game's mastermind.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Hulu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Rachel, a rookie cop, is about to begin her first night shift in a neglected police station in a Scottish, backwater town. The kind of place where the tide has gone out and stranded a motley bunch of the aimless, the forgotten, the bitter-and-twisted who all think that, really, they deserve to be somewhere else. They all think they're there by accident and that, with a little luck, life is going to get better. Wrong, on both counts. Six is about to arrive - and All Hell Will Break Loose!

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Shudder) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: Behind the walls of the Compound, LA’s most violent juvenile offenders await their trials. To their advocates, they’re kids. To the system, they’re adults. To their victims, they’re monsters. Who are they to you?

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Starz), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Starz) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: After serving 28 years in prison for accidentally killing the son of a crime boss, newly paroled gangster Val reunites with his former partners in crime, Doc and Hirsch, for a night on the town. As the three men revisit old haunts, reflect on their glory days and try to make up for lost time, one wrestles with a terrible quandary: Doc has orders to kill Val, and time is running out for him to figure out a way out of his dilemma.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Hulu), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 8 services (iTunes, Google Play & 6 others).

What it's about: A story about a mentally ill man wrongfully accused of murder and his relationship with his lovingly adorable 6 year old daughter.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (Prime Video).

What it's about: When Valerie returns home from prison years after killing her neighbour in an apparent drunk driving accident, she wants nothing more than to move on - until the deceased's son shows up at her door and it becomes clear that the past is not easily forgotten.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).