Le Trou

Toy Story 3 and Best Prison Movies

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One of the main threads of Toy Story 3 is how the toys escape (while sending up virtually every convention of the prison movie genre).  On NPR’s Fresh Air, Toy Story 3‘s editor Lee Unkrich and  screenwriter Michael Arndt recently discussed how they watched many prison movies for inspiration.  The interview is here.

The movie that they call the “most boring” is Le Trou, which actually tops my list of Best Prison Movies.

10 Best Prison Movies

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So how does A Prophet stack up against other films in that time honored genre – the Prison Movie? Can a French film rank high among the Alcatraz, Sing Sing and Folsom fare?

My top ten includes familiar themes – the fact-based stories, the great escape attempts, the characters who resist the oppressive authority and those who work the system to become crime bosses.  Plus Death Row.  My list includes American penitentiaries, British, French and Turkish prisons, enemy POW camps and Southern chain gangs.  But some of the best known prison movies do NOT make the cut.

Edward James Olmos, Pepe Serna and William Forsythe in a very under rated prison movie

See my list of 10 Best Prison Movies.