Prison film Prison film A prison film is a film genre concerned with prison life and often prison escape. These films range from acclaimed dramas examining the nature of prisons, such as "Cool Hand Luke", "Midnight Express", "Brubaker", "Escape from Alcatraz", "The Shawshank Redemption", and "Kiss of the Spider Woman" to actioners like "Lock Up" and "Undisputed", and even comedies satirizing the genre like "Stir Crazy", "Life", and "Let's Go To Prison". Themes repeatedly visited in the action films include escape attempts, gang activities inside the prison, guard and management cruelty, and an entire subgenre of films where the toughest prisoners are
Midnight Express (film) criticised this version, including Billy Hayes himself. Later, both Stone and Hayes expressed their regret about how Turkish people were portrayed in the film. The film's title is prison slang for an inmate's escape attempt. The film was released on October 6, 1978. Upon release, it received generally-positive reviews from critics. Many praised Davis's performance as well as the cast, the writing, the direction, and the musical score by Giorgio Moroder. However, Hayes and others criticized the film for portraying the Turkish prison men as violent and villainous and for deviating too much from the material source. The film grossed