"Fear is a funny thing. If forced to recall a movie about ghosts, demonic possession, alien beings (or the like) that legitimately scared the shit out of me, I'd be hard pressed to think of many, if any. Set a movie in a realistic prison filled with realistic characters, and considered me scared straight.
Whether it's the cold harshness of solitary confinement, the sadistic abuse from guards, or the survival of the fittest among prisoners, few things rock me more than a movie depicting the brutal accuracy of prison. Below are the 10 best films I've seen that take place within the unsympathetic confinement of penitentiary walls.
A few notes: I didn't take concentration camps and other prisoner of war camps into consideration. Perhaps a list for another day. Also, I'm only featuring films that predominately take place inside the hoosegow. As accurate and terrifying as the prison sequences in American History X are, for example, it isn't a film about prison."
Honorable mention: Oz (TV).
