Best movies like Penitentiary

There's only one way out, and 100 fools stand in the way!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Penitentiary Starring Leon Isaac Kennedy, Thommy Pollard , Hazel Spears , Donovan Womack , and more. If you liked Penitentiary then you may also like: New Jersey Drive, Nightmare in Badham County, One Down, Two to Go, The Organization, Against the Wall and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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A hitchhiker named Martel Gordone gets in a fight with two bikers over a prostitute, and one of the bikers is killed. Gordone is arrested and sent to prison, where he joins the prison's boxing team in an effort to secure an early parole and to establish his dominance over the prison's toughest gang.

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New Jersey Drive

New Jersey Drive is a 1995 film about black youths in Newark, New Jersey, the unofficial "car theft capital of the world". Their favorite pastime is that of everybody in their neighborhood: stealing cars and joyriding. The trouble starts when they steal a police car and the cops launch a violent offensive that involves beating and even shooting suspects.

Nightmare in Badham County

Two UCLA coeds have engine trouble in small Southern town. When they spurn the local sheriff's advances he arranges for them to be taken to the women's prison on trivial charges (the judge is a cousin), where they must endure atrocities at the hands of the administrators of the prison and the prison guards.

One Down, Two to Go

A pair of tough cops go after the mob who jinxed the martial arts tournament and injured their buddy.

The Organization

After a group of young revolutionaries break into a company's corporate headquarters and steal $5,000,000 worth of heroin to keep it off the street, they call on San Francisco Police Lieutenant Virgil Tibbs for assistance.

Against the Wall

In 1971, a warden at Attica Penitentiary is caught up in a hostage crisis when inmates take over the prison to demand better living conditions.

Black Mama, White Mama

When two troublemaking female prisoners (one a revolutionary, the other a former harem-girl) can't seem to get along, they are chained together and extradited for safekeeping. The women, still chained together, stumble, stab, and cat-fight their way across the wilderness, igniting a bloody shootout between gangsters and a group of revolutionaries.

Death Race

Terminal Island, New York: 2020. Overcrowding in the US penal system has reached a breaking point. Prisons have been turned over to a monolithic Weyland Corporation, which sees jails full of thugs as an opportunity for televised sport. Adrenalized inmates, a global audience hungry for violence and a spectacular, enclosed arena come together to form the 'Death Race', the biggest, most brutal event.

Firepower

In the year 2007, crime has risen at an exponential rate. Once highly populated metropolises such as Los Angeles are no longer inhabitable. These cities have transformed into "Hell Zones," ruled by violent street gangs. The Hell Zone, formerly called the "Zone of Personal Freedom," is a safe-haven for criminal warpaths everywhere. This Hell Zone in LA is controlled by a criminal mastermind named Drexal (Joseph Ruskin). For the sake of entertaining his crowds of decadent losers and underlings, Drexal has staged a series of lethal, no-holds-barred matches in the "Death Ring," where the winner takes all of the glory...while the defeated one shall lose his self-respect (or maybe just his head). Meanwhile, two brave cops, Braniff (Chad McQueen), and Sledge (Gary Daniels) must risk their badges...and their lives when they enter Los Angeles's "Hell Zone."

Bloodmatch

Brick Bardo is on a mission to find out which one of the world's greatest kickboxers killed his brother. Five years ago, one of the four champs was fixing fights and set up his brother in the fight that took his life. Now Bardo must take on the gang in the ring for an all-out kickboxing fight to the finish.

Daybreak

When a substantial portion of the nation's populace falls victim to a deadly plague, the tyrannical government quarantines them in camps, offering no alternative except death. But a gutsy rebel named Torch sets out to help the afflicted by leading an underground effort to spirit the victims to humane sanctuary.

Short Eyes

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.

Lock Up

Frank Leone is nearing the end of his prison term for a relatively minor crime. Just before he is paroled, however, Warden Drumgoole takes charge. Drumgoole was assigned to a hell-hole prison after his administration was publicly humiliated by Leone, and has now arrived on the scene to ensure that Leone never sees the light of day.

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The Escapist

Denis Hopkins, a pilot, lives with his pregnant wife Valerie and has a comfortable lifestyle. When a gang of criminals led by the sadistic Ricky Barnes breaks into his home, he offers whatever the criminals want to protect his wife and unborn child, but the evil Ricky kills Valerie anyway. Their baby is saved, and later Barnes is arrested and sentenced to life in the maximum security prison, Sullen Voe. Denis fakes his own suicide, then assaults a police car in order to get himself arrested and sent to prison with the intention of tracking down and killing Ricky Barnes. He does not reveal his true name and is called John "What" by the prisoners and guards. Denis escapes from successive prisons, forcing his eventual transfer to Sullen Voe. When he reaches his objective, Ricky Barnes schedules a confrontation, but things do not quite turn out the way Denis had expected.

Caged Fury

Kat arrives in Los Angeles to audition for movies. However, after meeting a sleazy producer, she and her new friend find themselves in a women's prison run by sadistic guards and a lesbian warden.

In Hell

A man must survive a prison where hardened criminals battle to the death for the warden's entertainment.

Hammer

Hotheaded laborer B.J. Hammer can't go long without ending up in a fight, and, after he comes out on top in a particularly impressive workplace scuffle, word of his brawling skills makes its way to Davis, a top boxing manager. Hammer is hired by Davis and begins a lucrative career in the ring, only to find out that his new employer wants him to throw a fight and take part in other illicit activities. Hammer reacts to this news violently, and the feud is on.

Storm Catcher

A renegade general plots to bomb Washington using a new top secret jet called the Storm Catcher. The only trouble is only one man is capable of flying it. So they seek to put him on the run in a conspiracy that makes him appear to have murdered several men and stolen the plane. Then try to murder his wife and take his daughter prisoner. Threatening to kill his daughter if he doesn't help, he appears trapped. However, his best friend who is the plane's computer specialist has a few tricks up his sleeve.

6.5 / 10 1973 Drama
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The Mack

Goldie returns from five years at the state pen and winds up king of the pimping game. Trouble comes in the form of two corrupt white cops and a crime lord who wants him to return to the small time.

Prison Heat

Four American babes on vacation in the Middle East run into trouble when they are imprisoned by corrupt army officials and that's where the fun begins.

Sugar Boxx

Sugar State Women’s Prison. An Everglades hellhole where innocent girls are forced to slave in the swamps by day then turn tricks for the warden by night. A prison camp where corruption, brutality, and sexual abuse are all part of the daily routine. But when reporter Valerie March goes undercover inside Sugar State, that’s when the powder keg really explodes! Follow Valerie through prison life - catfights, knife fights, rape, whippings, prostitution, and the “hot box” - before she and her fellow inmates take bloody, unforgettable revenge on their captors. Inspired by the great women-in-prison films of the past, SUGAR BOXX takes everything one step further. SUGAR BOXX has it all.

The Black Godfather

The heroes in The Black Godfather are members of an African-American criminal organization. Like Brando in The Godfather, they're not averse to robbery and murder, but they do draw the line at narcotics. When the Mafia infiltrates the 'hood with dangerous drugs, the Black Godfather (Rod Perry) orders his minions to put an end to this perfidy.

4.6 / 10 1978 Action
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Mean Dog Blues

A victim of circumstance, country and western musician Paul Ramsey finds himself on a Southern chain gang.

A Lesson Before Dying

In the 1940s South, an African-American man is wrongly accused of the killing a a white store owner. In his defense, his white attorney equates him with a lowly hog, to indicate that he didn't have the sense to know what he was doing. Nevertheless convicted, he is sentenced to die, but his godmother and the aunt of the local schoolteacher convince school teacher go to the convicted man's cell each day to try to reaffirm to him that he is not an animal but a man with dignity.

Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad

A number of slaves risk their lives to escape their masters with their only help coming from the famous secret slave escape network.

6.5 / 10 2002 Drama Crime
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Undisputed

Monroe Hutchens is the heavyweight champion of Sweetwater, a maximum security prison. He was convicted to a life sentence due to a passionate crime. Iceman Chambers is the heavyweight champion, who lost his title due to a rape conviction to ten years in Sweetwater. WHen these two giants collide in the same prison, they fight against each other disputing who is the real champion.

Doing Hard Time

A father's eight year old son is murdered in a gangland shooting. The father (Boris Kodjoe) gets himself thrown into prison to avenge his son's death.

4.9 / 10 1963 Drama Crime
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The Ceremony

A man has an affair with his condemned brother's girlfriend while plotting his escape in Tangier.

Fist of Honor

As two rival Godfathers view to take control of the city, a hot-tempered family member kills two relatives of the opposing family, breaking the "Truce of Honor". Now the war begins! As a young boxer seeks revenge for his fiancée's death, the streets become a real-life battlefield... to settle the score!

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Rage and Honor

Witnessing a drug deal involving local gang members and cops, an Australian police officer feels he can no longer be just an observer. He joins forces with a local teacher who just happens to be a karate expert and together they try to take back the streets.

Penitentiary II

An ex-con, on parole and trying to straighten his life out, decides to resume his boxing career when one of his prison enemies escapes and kills his girlfriend.

Penitentiary III

A man is framed for murder and sent to prison. He is beaten and tortured, then forced to fight the prison's worst killer, a martial-arts fighting midget called Thud.

Breaking Point

The Mafia tries to take revenge against a man who testified against them in court.

The Pursuit of Happiness

William Popper is the son of a stockbroker and is thoroughly disenchanted with "the system." So much so that even though he can prove that he ran over a woman in his car entirely by accident, he accepts a sentence for manslaughter.

Marked Man

A jailed auto mechanic must run for his life after he witnesses the murder of a fellow inmate by two prison guards.

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing

Heavyweight Champ George "Iceman" Chambers is sent to a Russian jail on trumped-up drug charges. In order to win his freedom he must fight against the jailhouse fighting champ Uri Boyka in a battle to the death. This time he is not fighting for a title, he is fighting for his life!

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