Best Prison movies of 1970s

Actors : Charles Gérard, Lino Ventura, André Falcon, Françoise Fabian,
Directors : Claude Lelouch,

Released from prison apparently under a New Year amnesty, a criminal tries to pick up the threads of a life changed not only by his daring plan to rob a jewellers in out-of-season Cannes ...

Actors : Lino Ventura, Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Walter Chiari,
Directors : Terence Young,

When Joe Valachi (Charles Bronson) has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura), he must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. An unsuccessful attempt ...

Actors : Victor Izay, Tom Laughlin, Delores Taylor, Teresa Kelly,
Directors : Tom Laughlin,

After Billy Jack in sentenced to four years in prison for the "involuntary manslaughter" of the first film, the Freedom School expands and flourishes under the guidance of Jean Roberts. The...

Actors : Richard Beckinsale, Brian Wilde, Fulton Mackay, Ronnie Barker,
Directors : Dick Clement,

This prison comedy is based on the popular British television series of the same name. Long time Slade prison inmate Fletcher is ordered by Grouty to arrange a football match between the ...

Actors : Geraldine Chaplin, Moses Gunn, Anthony Perkins, Berry Berenson,
Directors : Alan Rudolph,

Just released from prison, a young woman arrives in town to "start a new life", but soon begins stalking a married construction worker for no apparent reason, turning his life inside out and eventually terrorizing him and his wife.

Actors : Mariette Hartley, Stefanie Powers, Michael Callan, Lee Van Cleef,
Directors : George McCowan,

Marshal Chris Adams turns down a friend's request to help stop the depredations of a gang of Mexican bandits. When his wife is killed by bank robbers and his friend is killed capturing the ...

Actors : Claude Brasseur, Bernadette Lafont, Guy Marchand, Charles Denner,
Directors : François Truffaut,

Stanislas Previne is a young sociologist, preparing a thesis on criminal women. He meets in prison Camille Bliss to interview her. Camille is accused to have murdered her lover Arthur and ...

Actors : Kayoko Shiraishi, Meiko Kaji, Yukie Kagawa, Fumio Watanabe,
Directors : Shun'ya Itô,

After spending a year in solitary confinement, Matsu escapes from prison with six more convicts, followed by the guards led by the vengeful warden who wants her dead at all costs.

Actors : Roosevelt Grier, Don Marshall, Roger Perry, Ray Milland,
Directors : Lee Frost,

Doctors are forced to transplant the head of a dying, racist surgeon onto the body of a black death row inmate.

Actors : Adam Faith, Billy Murray, Cheryl Campbell, Roger Daltrey,
Directors : Tom Clegg,

'John McVicar' was a London Bad Boy. He graduated to armed bank robbery and was Britain's "Public Enemy No. 1". He was captured and put into a high security prison. Will even the highest ...

Actors : Telly Savalas, Bud Spencer, James Coburn, Georges Géret,
Directors : Tonino Valerii,

Branded a coward for surrendering his New Mexico fort to the Confederates without firing a shot, a Union colonel attempts to redeem himself by leading a band of condemned prisoners on a suicide mission to recapture it.

Actors : Jorge Rivero, Barbara Hershey, James Coburn, Charlton Heston,
Directors : Andrew V. McLaglen,

In the early 20th century, some convicts while on a road gang escape and one of the convicts is Zach Provo, a half Indian, who was sent to prison during the latter part of the 19th century....

Actors : Dyanne Thorne, Jean-Guy Latour, Michel-René Labelle, Gilbert Beaumont,
Directors : Jean LaFleur,

Erotic adventure in Siberia.

Actors : Poul Bundgaard, Kirsten Walther, Ove Sprogøe, Morten Grunwald,
Directors : Erik Balling,

The Olsen gang in Jutland. Ones again Egon Olsen has a plan when he gets out of Vridslose State Prison. He has found out that the Germans left a large sum of money (in American dollars and ...

Actors : Jean-Louis Trintignant, Claudine Auger, Renato Salvatori, Alain Delon,
Directors : Jacques Deray,

This movie depicts the authentic story of the hunt for the dangerous criminal Emile Buisson, who escaped from prison in 1947. During three years Buisson manages to hide from detective ...

Actors : Roger Watkins, Kathy Curtin, Ken Fisher, Bill Schlageter,
Directors : Roger Watkins,

After being released from prison, a young gangster with a chip on his shoulder decides to punish society by making snuff films.

Actors : Frimann Falck Clausen, Tom Courtenay, Alf Malland, Espen Skjønberg,
Directors : Caspar Wrede,

Fly-on-the-wall treatment of an ordinary day in the life of a prisoner in Stalin's Gulag. Closely adapted from Solzhenitsyn's classic novel based on his own experiences. Shot entirely on ...

Actors : Wendell Burton, Michael Greer, Danny Freedman, Zooey Hall,

The young, naive Smitty is sent to prison for six months; Cathy, his girlfriend, watches as he disappears behind the bars and barbed wire. He's assigned a cell with Queenie, a balls-out ...

Actors : Richard Burton, Peter Ustinov, Elizabeth Taylor, Beau Bridges,
Directors : Peter Ustinov,

The Faust legend retold (loosely) and applied to a mentally disturbed patient in a hospital run by a doctor of dubious sanity himself. The patient (Burton) offers the innocent orderly (...

Actors : Patrick Barr, Ann Michelle, Barbara Markham, Ray Brooks,
Directors : Pete Walker,

An old man who lives in an old house conducts a correctional institute for girls. But he does not realize that the date is the present as he's been cooped up in the house. He is assisted by...