Jimmy Boyle was a young Glaswegian hard man born into, and fully embracing, a life of crime. When Jimmy was imprisoned for murder his first reaction was rage, but while incarcerated he experienced an epiphany and embarked on a journey as far removed from his earlier infamy as it was possible to get. Based on Jimmy Boyle's own life ‘A Sense Of Freedom' is a powerful, often brutal, tale of redemption. find out more...

Based on the notorious Australian criminal Mark "Chopper" Read, the film works in flashback as Mark recounts from his prison cell his many (perhaps embellished) exploits, the vast majority of which involve a frequently fatal act of violence. 'Chopper' is both disturbing, gruesome and extremely funny, with a powerhouse central performance. Not for the faint hearted, but you'd probably already guessed that. find out more...

In the name of psychology an experiment was conducted with twenty male volunteers, 12 of them would be prisoners and 8 would be guards, living in a prison environment that was designed to be as realistic as possible over a period of two weeks. Astoundingly and disturbingly what followed was a complete melt down of our delicately created morality and humanity, the experiment turning into a desperate fight for survival by the 12 inmates in the face of their increasingly tyrannical overseers. Based find out more...

Sentenced to life on 'The Rock', amidst brutal warders and unpleasant fellow inmates, Frank Morris set himself the task, starting with a pair of nail-clippers, of escaping. Eventually Frank and two fellow prisoners made their bid for freedom and, though none ever publically resurfaced, their bodies were never found and lore logs these guys as the only successful escapees from this soulless prison. A nailbiting thriller, one of Eastwood's best, that never lets up from start to finish. find out more...

Arrested for the fatal beating of an old lady, petty thief and prostitute Barbara Graham is truculent and aggressive with the police who arrest her as a suspect, but when the evidence against her begins to pile up Barbara relises it's not just her innocence she's going to have to fight for, it's her very life. 'I Want To Live' is a harrowing but utterly addictive story, with an Oscar winning tour de force by Susan Hayward in the central role.

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Based on a true story: Norwegian winter, early 20th century. On the island Bastoy, located in the Oslo fjord live a group of delinquent, young boys aged 11 to 18. The boys daily, sadistic regime is run by the guards and the principal who bestow both mental and physical abuse on them. Instead of the boys being straightened out with education they end up being used as cheap, manual labor. The boys attempt to survive by adapting to their inhumane conditions. One day a n find out more...

A crackingly realised biog of a man who relentlessly dodged death with a cocky ambivalence that frankly defies credulity. 'Mesrine' is stylishly shot, smoothly directed and perfectly, charmingly, sociopathically performed by Cassell. A tight, pacey thriller considerably enhanced by the fact that it's based in, well…fact. This first film takes us from his brutal initiation as a soldier during the horrors of Algeria's fight for liberation to the end of the 1960s via France and French Canada. find out more...

The frightening story of a naive young American caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey and sentenced to years inside a particularly vicious prison regime. The despair and desolation are brought home brutally. John Hurt is magnificent as the eccentric British prison veteran. find out more...

Alcatraz, 1938; after 3 years in solitary, a hellish hole in the ground with no heat, light or human contact, petty crook Henri Young emerges as a madman. When he kills another inmate there is only one man - attorney James Stamphill - willing to challenge the barbarity of Alcatraz. Moving and riveting with great performances from all three leads. find out more...

The tale of two men banged up for years in the notorious French penal colony Devil's Island. Two escape bids by one of them results in years of solitary confinement but make him simply more determined to flee, even as old age approachs. The ultimate prison escape movie loosely based on a true story. find out more...