Best movies like Prison Break

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Prison Break Starring Barton MacLane, Glenda Farrell, Paul Hurst, Constance Moore, and more. If you liked Prison Break then you may also like: Unchained, One Way Ticket, Over the Wall, Jail Bait, Jail House Blues 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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Story of a tuna fisherman who has been wrongfully convicted of a murder he did not commit. His exemplary behavior in prison ensures that he is up for early parole. He realizes, however, that his movements will be limited, and he will be unable to join and wed his beloved. The only solution is to escape and hunt down the real killer, himself.

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Know any good movies to watch like Prison Break 1938. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Unchained

This fact-based prison drama tells the tale of a band of prisoners living in the innovative 2,600-acre prison at Chino, California. The place takes a humanistic approach to reform and there are no armed guards, no lockups and no uniforms. The underlying philosophy is that if these things are not there, the prisoners will not want to escape, and will instead accept their punishment. A new inmate arrives and soon accustoms himself to the new idea. The story includes the Oscar nominated song Unchained Melody.

One Way Ticket

A convict marries the warder's daughter after his escape and she eventually persuades him to finish his sentence.

Over the Wall

When a singing, song-writing prizefighter is framed for murder and sent to the state pen, his girlfriend sets out to prove his innocence.

Jail Bait

Buster agrees to pose as a murderer to throw off the police while his room mate, a reporter, searches for the real killer.

Jail House Blues

A prisoner about to be pardoned puts it off until he can put on one last variety show for his fellow inmates.

Jailbreak

A reporter gets himself sent to prison so he can solve a murder behind bars.

The Big House

Convicted of manslaughter for a drunken driving accident, Kent Marlowe is sent to prison, where he meets vicious incarcerated figures who are planning an escape from the brutal conditions.

City of Fear

An escaped convict gets a hold of some radioactive material after his escape. Authorities desperately try to find the man that unknowingly is threating the lives of everyone in the city.

San Quentin

Ex-Army officer Jameson takes a job a prison guard at San Quentin. Joe, the brother of his new girlfriend May, is sentenced to the prison for robbery. When Jameson tries to separate lawbreakers from hardened criminals, badguy Hansen tries to stir up trouble by telling Joe about Jameson's interest in his sister.

One Girl's Confession

Cleo Moore stars as Mary Adams, whose first step on the road to ruin is a $25,000 robbery. Mary hides the money, then confesses to the crime, secure in the belief that she can dig up the loot upon her release from prison.

The Criminal Code

After young Robert Graham commits a murder while drunk and defending his girlfriend, he is prosecuted by ambitious Mark Brady and sentenced to 10 years. Six years later, Brady becomes the prison warden and offers the beleaguered Robert a job as his chauffeur. Robert cleans up his act, but, on the eve of his pardon, his cellmate drags him back into the world of violence, and he faces a difficult choice that could return him to prison.

Destiny

Framed for two crimes he didn't commit, and betrayed by his girl, Cliff Banks finds himself on the run from the police. Now distrustful of everyone, he finds a safe haven hiding out at a quaint country cottage under the care of a kindly old farmer and his daughter, a Cinderella-like blind woman who seems to be able to communicate with nature. There he is forced by their love to question his misanthropy.

The Escapist

Frank Perry is an institutionalized convict twelve years into a life sentence without parole. When his estranged daughter falls ill, he is determined to make peace with her before it's too late. He develops an ingenious escape plan, and recruits a dysfunctional band of escapists - misfits with a mutual dislike for one other but united by their desire to escape their hell hole of an existence.

Hell on Frisco Bay

A cop framed for a murder he did not commit hunts the San Francisco waterfront for the Mob racketeers who are responsible.

Island in the Sky

A secretary (Gloria Stuart) solves a murder for her boyfriend (Michael Whalen) in the district attorney's office.

A Man Betrayed

A businessman during the Great Depression discovers that his partners are crooked con-men, and he tries to make things right for the stockholders, but gets framed.

Alcatraz Island

A man who has been railroaded into prison is framed for the murder of a fellow inmate and must prove his innocence.

Smuggler's Gold

A deep-sea diver becomes romantically involved with the daughter of a gold smuggler.

I Cover the Underworld

Gunner O'Hara is about to be released from prison after serving a five-year sentence, and receives a visit from his twin brother John, a divinity student soon to be ordained as a priest. Aware that Gunner plans to resume his criminal career, John decides to stop him.

Women in Prison

The superintendent of a women's prison is pressured to pardon a member of a criminal gang. When she refuses, her daughter is framed on a manslaughter charge and sent to prison.

Deep Valley

A shy California farm girl falls head-over-heels in love with Barry Burnett, a fugitive from a chain gang building a road through the wilderness.

Paper Bullets

Circumstances force naive Rita Adams into serving an unjust prison term, but she emerges from it a cynical criminal who rises to power in the local crime organization.

Escape from Devil's Island

Two men escape from the French penal colony but not from their jealousy over a woman.

Duffy of San Quentin

San Quentin's new warden crusades for reform and for a framed inmate who loves a nurse.

My Buddy

A priest relates the tale of his friend, a WWI veteran, to the Post-War Planning Committee. Unable to get a job upon his return from the war, he puts off his marriage and works for a bootlegger. He is forced to take a rap for his boss, goes to prison, and forms a gang.

Dust Be My Destiny

Embittered after serving time for a burglary he did not commit, Joe Bell is soon back in jail, on a prison farm. His love for the foreman's daughter leads to a fight between them, leading to the older man's death due to a weak heart. Joe and Mabel go on the run as he thinks no-one would believe a nobody like him.

Parole Fixer

This expose of the U.S. parole system, as seen through the eyes of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, takes dead aim on lawyers who manipulate the justice system in order to get undeserving convicts parole from prisons. The point is made when FBI agents are assigned to track down "Big Boy" Bradmore, who after getting an undeserved parole, via the efforts of a shyster lawyer, promptly murders an FBI agent.

City Without Men

A young woman's husband has been imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. In order to be near him to try to help him get his sentence overturned, she moves into a boardinghouse near the prison whose residents are the wives of inmates.

When Were You Born

A San Francisco astrologer correctly predicts a ship passenger's death and then helps the police look for the murderer.

Sing Sing Nights

A respected war correspondent is found murdered, with three bullets--from three different guns--in him. Three different men are arrested, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder, but only one can be the actual killer. A criminologist sets out to find who is really guilty.

Federal Man-Hunt

By a daring ruse and inside help, Pete Rennick, a noted criminal behind bars on federal charges, escapes from the prison, and all of the law-agencies and local police are out to catch him with roadblocks and every car searched, but the escapee gets away. Bill Hasford, a private detective, investigating a racket finds it leads to the wanted man, and has the biggest adventure of his career.

Forced Landing

In this high-flying mystery set aboard a cross-country flight to New York, some of the passengers are kidnappers who are trying to locate a hidden cache of loot. Unfortunately, something goes wrong during the trip and the pilots must land the plane in the Arizona desert during a terrible storm. There all of the passengers and crew find cramped accommodations in a lonely farmhouse where murder, mystery and mayhem occur.

Outside These Walls

Walen plays Dan Sparling, a convicted embezzler who becomes editor of his prison newspaper. After serving out his sentence, he sets up an independent newspaper devoted to attacking corruption in public life, encountering various difficulties due to his being an ex-con and opposition from the incumbent administration.

Parole Racket

Following a long investigation, Police Detective-Lieutenant Anthony "Tony" Roberts becomes convinced that there is some powerful unknown-master-mind leader behind the gangs of crooks who are terrorizing the city, and it has something to do with paroled convicts. He sets up a scheme with his supervisor to have himself shamed by being demoted to a patrolman and then caught in the act of receiving bribe-money from a racketeer. He is convicted and sent to prison, and the manner in which his parole is arranged leads him, dangerously, to the secret-head of the gang.

Midnight Morals

A rookie cop falls for a "taxi dancer" in a dance hall, but his father has strong objections to the relationship.

San Quentin

An ex-con sets up a program to straighten out hard-core prisoners. Things don't go as planned.

Return to Warbow

Three escaped prisoners return to the site of a robbery to find the stolen money that was never recovered. Western.

Death Flies East

Evelyn Vail (Florence Rice) is a nurse convicted of poisoning a patient. Out on parole, Evelyn decides to fly to Sing-Sing and confront death row inmate who accused her of the deed in the first place. On board the airliner, Evelyn makes the acquaintance of John Robinson Gordon (Nagel), who is transporting a revolutionary munitions formula to Washington, D.C. Another passenger, Baker (Robert Allen), complains of having been poisoned and leaves the plane during a stopover in Dallas. Back in the air, Gordon's bodyguard, Lieutenant O'Brien (Fred Kelsey), suffers the same fate, but this time the poison proves fatal. The plane returns to Dallas, where Police Captain Barrie (William B. Davidson) accused poor Evelyn of the crime. Happily, Gordon can prove otherwise and the real culprit is unmasked.

A Fight to the Finish

A feud between taxicab companies forms the basis of this drama. The trouble begins when the hero is double-crossed and framed for a murder by his rival with whom he was competing for the position of fleet superintendent in the city's biggest cab company.

Cell 2455 Death Row

A Death Row inmate uses his prison law studies to fight for his life. Based on a true story.

Buried Alive

A prison trustee rescues a despondent executioner from a bar-room brawl, and is blamed for the fight by a tabloid reporter who actually started it, and loses parole, becomes embittered, and gets blamed for murder of guard.

Behind Prison Gates

An agent for the state attorney general poses as a convict to learn about bank loot.

Within These Walls

Michael Howland, a stern hanging judge, is assigned to take over a chaotic prison. There Michael imposes a strict regime of discipline on the inmates. He is similarly rigid and harsh with his own two children Tommie and Anne. However, his son Tommie Howland eventually ends up incarcerated in his father's prison.

Men of San Quentin

A corrupt official at San Quentin tries to frame an innocent guard for several murders within the prison.

Roger Touhy, Gangster

Set during Prohibition, the movie centers on Touhy's rise from small time thug to the city's most powerful bootlegger whose empire is rivaled only by that of Al Capone (who is referred to, but never named in the story). It is his rival who frames Touhy for kidnapping and arranges for him to serve a life-long term in Stateville prison. Determined to be free again, the desperate Touhy and his cellmate Basil "the Owl" Banghart, begin plotting a violent break out.

The Abductors

Two men (Victor McLaglen, George Macready) botch the kidnapping of a warden's daughter (Fay Spain), then plot to ransom Abraham Lincoln's corpse.

Prison Nurse

A state prison is threatened by approaching floods, an epidemic of typhoid fever breaks out among the inmates, the prison's only doctor falls sick, there are only three nurses to administer vaccines and take care of stricken patients--and a group of prisoners is planning to use the chaos as a cover for a mass escape.

Shadows of Sing Sing

Muriel Rossi (Mary Brian), the sister of a racketeer, Al Rossi (Harry Woods), falls in love with Bob Martel (Bruce Cabot), the son of a police detective, Joe Martel (Grant Mitchell). Their love affair causes bot families problems when Bob is framed, but saved as a result of his father's access to police department films.

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