The Best Prison Movies on Prime Video

What it's about: The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 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, relocate 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 & fuboTV), stream on a TV everywhere service (TCM) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 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, Hulu & Epix), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 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 & 2 others), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Epix, Dove Channel & 2 others), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: It's a dreary Christmas 1944 for the American POWs in Stalag 17 and the men in Barracks 4, all sergeants, have to deal with a grave problem—there seems to be a security leak.

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

What it's about: Trying to reverse a family curse, brothers Jimmy and Clyde Logan set out to execute an elaborate robbery during the legendary Coca-Cola 600 race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.

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

What it's about: In 1997, the island of Manhattan has been walled off and turned into a giant maximum security prison within which the country's worst criminals are left to form their own anarchic society. However, when the President of the United States crash lands on the island, the authorities turn to a former soldier and current convict to rescue him.

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: A justice drama based on a true story about a man on death row who, in his last days, forms a strong relationship with a nun who teaches him forgiveness and gives him spirituality, as she accompanies him to his execution.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (PopcornFlix & Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, CBS All Access & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 2 others).

What it's about: A young man, whose only possession is a motorcycle, spends his time riding around the city looking for empty apartments. After finding one, he hangs out for a while, fixing himself something to eat, washing laundry or making small repairs in return. He always tries to leave before the owners get back but in one ostensibly empty mansion he meets the abused wife of a rich man and she escapes with him...

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: 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 watch free online (Sony Crackle, PopcornFlix, Tubi & 1 other), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Hulu, Sundance Now & 1 other) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: 19-year-old Eric, arrogant and ultra-violent, is prematurely transferred to the same adult prison facility as his estranged father. As his explosive temper quickly finds him enemies in both prison authorities and fellow inmates — and his already volatile relationship with his father is pushed past breaking point — Eric is approached by a volunteer psychotherapist, who runs an anger management group for prisoners. Torn between gang politics, prison corruption, and a glimmer of something better, Eric finds himself in a fight for his own life, unsure if his own father is there to protect him or join in punishing him.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play, Prime Video & 4 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 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Charlie's got a 'job' to do. Having just left prison he finds one his of friends has attempted a high risk job in Torino, Italy, right under the nose of the mafia. Charlie's friend doesn't get very far, so Charlie takes over the 'job'. Using three Mini Coopers, a couple of Jaguars and a bus, he hopes to bring Torino to a standstill, steal a fortune in gold and escape in the chaos.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle, PopcornFlix & Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, CBS All Access & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 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: Based on a true story: Norwegian winter, 1915. On the island Bastøy, outside Oslo, a group of young boys aged 11 to 18, are held in an institution for delinquent youth, notorious for its sadistic regime. One day a new boy, Erling, arrives, determined to escape from the island. After a tragic incident, he ends up leading the boys in a violent uprising. When the boys manage to take over the island, 150 soldiers are sent in to restore order.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (iTunes & Prime Video).

What it's about: Russian terrorists conspire to hijack the aircraft with the president and his family on board. The commander in chief finds himself facing an impossible predicament: give in to the terrorists and sacrifice his family, or risk everything to uphold his principles - and the integrity of the nation.

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

What it's about: Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Tribeca Short List) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A career criminal (Gibson) nabbed by Mexican authorities is placed in a tough prison where he learns to survive with the help of a 9-year-old boy.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu) & stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video).

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 (Sony Crackle, PopcornFlix, Tubi & 1 other), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Google Play & Microsoft).

What it's about: A married couple's life is turned upside down when the wife is accused of a murder. Lara Brennan is arrested for murdering her boss with whom she had an argument. It seems she was seen leaving the scene of the crime and her fingerprints were on the murder weapon. Her husband, John would spend the next few years trying to get her released, but there's no evidence that negates the evidence against her. And when the strain of being separated from her family, especially her son, gets to her, John decides to break her out. So he does a lot of research to find a way.

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

What it's about: A hardened convict and a younger prisoner escape from a brutal prison in the middle of winter only to find themselves on an out-of-control train with a female railway worker while being pursued by the vengeful head of security.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 1 service (iTunes).

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 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 & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride...

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

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 & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: A woman struggles to interact with her family and find her place in society after spending fifteen years in prison.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), 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: A junkie must face his true self to kick his drug addiction.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi, Vudu & IMDb TV), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Fandor, Mubi & 4 others), stream on a TV everywhere service (TCM) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

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 rife with superstition and a distrust of outsiders.

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

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 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Two bank robbers fall in love with the girl they've kidnapped.

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

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: Three juvenile delinquents arrive at a correctional center and are put under the care of an experienced guard.

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

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 & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

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 watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Sundance Now & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: A martial arts instructor working at a police academy gets imprisoned after killing a man by accident. But when a vicious killer starts targeting martial arts masters, the instructor offers to help the police in return for his freedom.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, Hiyah & Shudder) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: Borneo, 1941, during World War II. When the Japanese occupy the island, American writer Agnes Newton Keith is separated from her husband and imprisoned with her son in a prison camp run by the enigmatic Colonel Suga…

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

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, Epix & Kanopy) & stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix).

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 & Vudu), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video, ConTV, Shudder & 1 other) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 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 watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Dolemite is a pimp who was set up by Willie Greene and the cops, who have planted drugs, stolen furs, and guns in his trunk and got him sentenced to 20 years in jail. One day, Queen B and a warden planned to get him out of Jail and get Willie Green and Mitchell busted for what they did to him.

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

What it's about: A man bumps into an old crush and becomes obsessed. After several failed attempts at winning her over, he kidnaps her and holds her captive underneath the animal shelter where he works.

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

What it's about: Years ago, the young Five Fingers fought for the rural town of Marseilles against brutal police oppression. Now, after fleeing in disgrace, Tau, one of them, returns to Marseilles, seeking only a peaceful life. When he finds the town under new threat, he must reluctantly fight to free it.

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

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 $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Biopic about 1970s Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), 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: Life of a King is the true story of one man's mission to give inner city kids of Washington DC something he never had - a future. After being incarcerated for eighteen years, Eugene Brown established the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids off the streets and working towards lives they never believed they were capable of. This is his inspirational story.

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

What it's about: Bill Meceita, a boy whose family was murdered in front of him by a gang, sets out 15 years later to exact revenge. On his journey, he finds himself continually sparring and occasionally cooperating with Ryan, a gunfighter on his own quest for vengeance, who knows more than he says about Bill's tragedy.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 2 services (Prime Video & Vudu).