Prison films seem to fall into several sub-genres - only some of which seem
to offer _punishment_ as spectacle in a significant way. (Insert obvious
cite of _Discipline and Punish_) Modern prisons aren't really about
punishment, but about psychological control - which is reflected both in
more metaphysical texts like Shankshaw and Cool Hand Luke, as well as
social problem pictures such as The Birdman of Alcatraz or Bad Boys, and
even prison comedies like The Longest Yard. Exploitation films like Caged
Heat (what was the one with Wendy O. Williams?) play with punishment as
spectacle, but usually in so hyperbolic a fashion as to take any real sting
out of it. Of the films mentioned in the posts so far, I think it's
significant that the most spectacular scenes of punishment occur in films
set in foreign locales: Papillon, Midnight Express, Asian-prison-camp
pictures (don't forget Missing in Action, Rambo, and the sequence in Deer
Hunter). It seems imprisonment needs to be removed from our immediate
social context and occur at the hands of an exotic other to make good
fodder for spectacle.
 
Other prison flicks:
 
Brubaker; Escape from Alcatraz;
and didn't Stallone make one?
 
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