I Asked My Prisoner Mates to Review Their Favourite Prison Movies

The public’s perception of prison life is shaped almost entirely by movies and documentaries, all offering a sensationalised glimpse into the world inside. Interestingly, prisoners are faced with a similar problem. Their only window into the surrounding world is delivered via smuggled USB drives full of porn and HBO.

The issue is that movies aren’t a good measure of reality. Movies create a kind of feedback loop, whereby prisons look far darker and more interesting than they are. Prisoners like this image too, because the reality of incarceration is just repetition and tedium.

What I find interesting is talking to my friends in prison about prison movies. I like asking them which are the most accurate, which are the most enjoyable, and whether those two things are the same. And their answers are a surprisingly good way to learn about prison life.

So here they are: my prisoner mates talking about their favourite prison movies.

The Green Mile

Loz, Goulburn Prison
Serving 14 years

I remember first watching The Green Mile about five years ago. It was one of those rare moments that the whole unit fell into a dull silence. You hear that same quiet when the screws take the beatings too far and end up killing an inmate. A lot of us feel like we shouldn’t be here, like in some way the system played us, and we like how this movie helps us to believe in miracles.

We are emotional people in jail. We all feel hard done by, and this story really played at our heartstrings. That’s why a lot of inmates turn to God in here. We are on the edge. We’re vulnerable. We need stories to hold onto, or else there isn’t much here for us. This film is a sad reality. Sometimes hope doesn’t get you over the line. Sometimes you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes the world was stacked against you but you just take it on the chin, workout, and move along.

Shawshank Redemption

Tony M, Loddon Prison
Serving five years

I’ve seen guys like Andy waltz around the yard, not knowing where to stand or how to talk. It breaks your heart, man. They get stood on and spit at and chewed out of the system, broken men. This movie has made the boys look at weird cunts like Andy in a different way. Brains is the strongest weapon on the yard. All of a sudden these guys are a long term asset.

In jail people are only worth their value and sometimes that can be reduced to amounting to not much more than a drag of a smuggled cigarette. People get jazzed over prescription meds, you know what I mean? But this story offers the dream of hope. Perseverance is what jail is all about. Those that can tick their minds over and persevere against all odds. Not think about who’s got a visit this week and who hasn’t. Who has money in their account and who doesn’t. Time in the joint is about perseverance and this movie shows it. Repetition, strong character and keeping focused on coming out the other side.

Blood In Blood Out

John C, Port Phillip Prison
Serving eight years

Blood In Blood Out shows how the gang life can bury you. And it gets deeper in the system. Everyone clicks together depending on their race or religion. A lot of the boys in here had the same story, a gang life that put them in prison and trapped them even when they got out because they had to take revenge or put in work for someone who didn’t have the balls to do it themselves. It reminds you that some people believe in the gangster fairytale more than the motherfuckers making money from the rort. This movie shows it for what it is. A trap, man.

A Prophet (Un Prophete)

Ramey, Fulham Prison
Serving five years

A Syrian kid who was running drugs from Sydney snuck this French movie on a USB into our unit. None of us were interested because we thought, “Fuck subtitles.” Seriously, who can be fucked with that shit? But he conned two boys into watching it and the word spread throughout our whole yard that this was the most realistic prison film they’d seen. Before you knew it everyone was deleting their favourite Mia Khalifa porno and watching this French prison movie. This film shows the relationship between the streets and jail, how it’s all connected, how it goes down—it’s fucking pinpoint. We’ve all heard of shot callers organising hits across the country from their cells in supermax. It’s no joke, at one point one the biggest dealers in Australia was operating from a maximum security yard, organising keys and kidnappings in every state.

American Me

Chris B, Barwon Prison
Serving 11 years

This movie is the only real account of how the corruption of jail life can wake up a man’s spirit. He realises that the laws of prison aren’t fit for men, they are for animals. The smart ones doing a lot of time have come to terms with the fact that that’s what they are. So they do their time easy. Jail is about whoever can be the most staunch, the stories that go from jail to jail spread and half of them are bullshit but people air raid to the point where the other jails need to be more violent and ridiculous just to keep up their name.

Everyone in here will tell you the same hard-luck story and preach about family but wouldn’t know the first fucking thing about it, just ask their parents. We have nothing to do but think. So we become obsessed with things that are imaginary. They don’t apply in real life. And when you try to apply it you get shanked by you’re own fucking boys, the ones you trust most, because they actually believed the shit you’ve been spinning to them for the last 10 years.

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