Best movies like The Criminal Code
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Criminal Code Starring Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff, and more. If you liked The Criminal Code then you may also like: Over the Wall, Riot in Cell Block 11, Jail House Blues, The Jericho Mile, Alibi 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.
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.
The Criminal Code
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Riot in Cell Block 11
A prisoner leads his counterparts in a protest for better living conditions which turns violent and ugly.
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.
The Jericho Mile
A runner, serving a life sentence at Folsom Prison, works at becoming the world's fastest miler and wins a chance to compete for a spot on the Olympic team.
Alibi
Chick Williams, a prohibition gangster, rejoins his mob soon after being released from prison. When a policeman is murdered during a robbery, he falls under suspicion. The gangster took Joan, a policeman's daughter, to the theater, sneaked out during the intermission to commit the crime, then used her to support his alibi. The detective squad employs its most sophisticated and barbaric techniques, including planting an undercover agent in the gang, to bring him to justice.
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.
Brothers
Bob Naughton and Eddie Connolly are identical-twin brothers that were separated in infancy. Bob is raised by a rich lawyer, has all the advantages, but is a drunk with no moral character. Eddie is a pianist in a speak-easy but a man of high character. Bob commits a murder and Eddie is blamed and faces life in prison.
Brute Force
Timeworn Joe Collins and his fellow inmates live under the heavy thumb of the sadistic, power-tripping guard Captain Munsey. Only Collins' dreams of escape keep him going, but how can he possibly bust out of Munsey's chains?
Corrective Measures
Set in San Tiburon, the world's most dangerous maximum-security penitentiary and home to the world's most treacherous superpowered criminals, where tensions among the inmates and staff heighten, leading to anarchy that engulfs the prison and order is turned upside down.
Cry Danger
After serving five years of a life sentence, Rocky Mulloy hopes to clear his friend who's still in prison for the same crime.
Deathwatch
Based on a play by Jean Genet, a small-time thief battles with his gay cellmate over a third illiterate, muscular convict.
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.
Those High Grey Walls
Dr. MacAuley, a kindly, beloved country doctor, is sent to Fillmore Prison. His crime was for removing a bullet from a young man who was escaping from the police.
The Drag-Net
A playboy takes a job as an assistant district attorney, finds himself up against a tough crime boss and his gang.
Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison
A warden and his assistant clash over prison reform, triggering a violent riot.
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.
Before I Hang
A physician on death row for a mercy killing is allowed to experiment on a serum using a criminals' blood, but secretly tests it on himself. He gets a pardon, but finds out he's become a Jekyll-&-Hyde.
Two Seconds
A condemned murderer, in the process of being executed, relives the events that led to his being sentenced to die in the electric chair. Told in flashback, we witness a sleazy dancehall girl (Vivienne Osborne) dupe a high rise riveter (Edward G. Robinson) into marriage so she can live off of him. But when he loses his job and his marbles, she ends up supporting him with money from her side man--and misses no opportunity to rub it in Robinson's face that she's now supporting him in his emasculated state. As the animosity grows and things get more and more unbearable for Robinson, he is eventually driven to desperate measures.
Duffy of San Quentin
San Quentin's new warden crusades for reform and for a framed inmate who loves a nurse.
Revolt in the Big House
A crime boss tries to cause a riot and prison break while behind bars.
San Quentin
An ex-con sets up a program to straighten out hard-core prisoners. Things don't go as planned.
Convicts 4
After his death sentence is commuted to life in prison, John Resko is transferred from Sing-Sing to Dannemora where, with the help of a humane prison guard, he becomes a rehabilitated man and a successful painter.
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.
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.
Prison Break
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.
Public Hero Number 1
G-Man Jeff Crane poses as a crook to infiltrate the notorious Purple Gang, a band of hoodlums which preys upon other hoodlums. Orchestrating the jailbreak of the gang's leader, Crane joins him in a Dillinger-like flight across the country.
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.
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.