Best Prison movies that are award winners or nominees

Actors : Taye Diggs, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger, Richard Gere,
Directors : Rob Marshall,

Murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.

Actors : Thomas Kretschmann, Emilia Fox, Adrien Brody, Frank Finlay,
Directors : Roman Polanski,

A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II.

Actors : Peter Brocco, Michael Berryman, Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher,
Directors : Milos Forman,

A criminal pleads insanity after getting into trouble again and once in the mental institution rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.

Actors : Halle Berry, Taylor Simpson, Gabrielle Witcher, Billy Bob Thornton,
Directors : Marc Forster,

After a family tragedy, a racist prison guard reexamines his attitudes while falling in love with the African American wife of the last prisoner he executed.

Actors : Peter O'Toole, John Lone, Joan Chen, Ruocheng Ying,
Directors : Bernardo Bertolucci,

The story of the final Emperor of China.

Actors : J.D. Cannon, Strother Martin, Paul Newman, George Kennedy,
Directors : Stuart Rosenberg,

A laid back Southern man is sentenced to two years in a rural prison, but refuses to conform.

Actors : Angela Lansbury, Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh,
Directors : John Frankenheimer,

A former prisoner of war is brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy.

Actors : Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr., Philip Seymour Hoffman, Allie Mickelson,
Directors : Bennett Miller,

In 1959, Truman Capote learns of the murder of a Kansas family and decides to write a book about the case. While researching for his novel In Cold Blood, Capote forms a relationship with one of the killers, Perry Smith, who is on death row.

Actors : Sonia Braga, Raul Julia, José Lewgoy, William Hurt,
Directors : Hector Babenco,

A gay man and a political prisoner are together in a prison. The gay man narrates the stories of two fake movies and his own life.

Actors : Peter Fonda, Patricia Richardson, Christine Dunford, Tom Wood,
Directors : Victor Nunez,

A reclusive beekeeper slowly pulls his dysfunctional family back together, but not without having to fight his son's previous dastardly cohorts.

Actors : Robert Prosky, Susan Sarandon, Raymond J. Barry, Sean Penn,
Directors : Tim Robbins,

A nun, while comforting a convicted killer on death row, empathizes with both the killer and his victim's families.

Actors : Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, John Cassavetes,
Directors : Robert Aldrich,

During World War II, a rebellious U.S. Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead them into a mass assassination mission of German officers.

Actors : Brad Davis, Irene Miracle, Bo Hopkins, Paolo Bonacelli,
Directors : Alan Parker,

Billy Hayes, an American college student, is caught smuggling drugs out of Turkey and thrown into prison.

Actors : Michael Conrad, Eddie Albert, Burt Reynolds, Ed Lauter,
Directors : Robert Aldrich,

A sadistic warden asks a former pro quarterback, now serving time in his prison, to put together a team of inmates to take on (and get pummeled by) the guards.

Actors : Rod Steiger, Maria Schell, Stuart Whitman, Brenda de Banzie,
Directors : Guy Green,

A man who served prison time for intent to molest a child tries to build a new life with the help of a sympathetic psychiatrist.

Actors : John Ireland, Laurence Harvey, Sarah Miles, Robert Walker Jr.,
Directors : Laurence Harvey,

A bank robber is sentenced to prison for committing a murder during the robbery. His brother comes up with a plan to break him out of prison--but on the condition that his brother's girlfriend "date" him first.