Best movies like Escape From Pretoria

Similar in 82%

Chronicle of an Escape (2006)

Plot Summary:

The true story of four men who narrowly escaped death at the hands of Argentina's military death squads during the 1970s is brought to the screen in this thriller. In 1977, Claudio Tamburrini (Rodrigo de la Serna) was a goalie for a minor-league football team when he was abducted by members of the Argentine military police and taken to an unofficial detention center on the false suspicion that he was a terrorist. Over 30,000 people lost their lives at the hands of Argentinean authorities under the military junta that ruled the country between 1976 and 1983, and as he was tortured by intelligence agents looking for information he didn't have, Tamburrini fully expected to become another victim. After many sessions of brutal torture, Tamburrini and his fellow captives Guillermo (Nazareno Casero) and Tano (Martin Urruty) were being readied for execution when, in a final desperate act, Tamburrini dove out a window during a rainstorm.

Similar in 82%

The Escapist (2008)

Plot Summary:

Frank Perry is an institutionalized convict twelve years into a life sentence without parole. When his estranged daughter falls ill, he is determined to make peace with her before it's too late. He develops an ingenious escape plan, and recruits a dysfunctional band of escapists - misfits with a mutual dislike for one other but united by their desire to escape their hell hole of an existence.

Similar in 89%

The Last Rampage (2017)

Plot Summary:

The true story of the infamous prison break of Gary Tison and Randy Greenwalt from the Arizona State prison in Florence, in the summer of 1978.

Similar in 75%

A Twelve-Year Night (2018)

Plot Summary:

Uruguay, 1973. Having been crushed by the military dictatorship, surviving members of the Tupamaro guerillas are imprisoned and tortured. They must find a way to endure the coming 12 years.

Similar in 75%

The Highwaymen (2019)

Plot Summary:

In 1934, Frank Hamer and Manny Gault, two former Texas Rangers, are commissioned to put an end to the wave of vicious crimes perpetrated by Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, a notorious duo of infamous robbers and cold-blooded killers who nevertheless are worshiped by the public.

Similar in 79%

Balibo (2009)

Plot Summary:

As Indonesia prepares to invade the tiny nation of East Timor, five Australian based journalists go missing. Four weeks later, veteran foreign correspondent Roger East is lured to East Timor by the young and charismatic José Ramos-Horta to tell the story of his country and investigate the fate of the missing men. As East's determination to uncover the truth grows, the threat of invasion intensifie.

Similar in 84%

Kill the Messenger (2014)

Plot Summary:

A reporter becomes the target of a vicious smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide after he exposes the CIA's role in arming Contra rebels in Nicaragua and importing cocaine into California. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb.

Similar in 82%

Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 (2008)

Plot Summary:

The story of Jacques Mesrine, France's public enemy No. 1 during the 1970s. After nearly two decades of legendary criminal feats -- from multiple bank robberies and to prison breaks -- Mesrine was gunned down by the French police in Paris.

Similar in 75%

Felon (2008)

Plot Summary:

A family man convicted of killing an intruder must cope with life afterward in the violent penal system.

Similar in 85%

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008)

Plot Summary:

Jacques Mesrine, a loyal son and dedicated soldier, is back home and living with his parents after serving in the Algerian War. Soon he is seduced by the neon glamour of sixties Paris and the easy money it presents. Mentored by Guido, Mesrine turns his back on middle class law-abiding and soon moves swiftly up the criminal ladder.

Similar in 87%

Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)

Plot Summary:

After killing a prison guard, convict Robert Stroud faces life imprisonment in solitary confinement. Driven nearly mad by loneliness and despair, Stroud's life gains new meaning when he happens upon a helpless baby sparrow in the exercise yard and nurses it back to health. Despite having only a third grade education, Stroud goes on to become a renowned ornithologist and achieves a greater sense of freedom and purpose behind bars than most people find in the outside world.

Similar in 90%

Imperium (2016)

Plot Summary:

Nate Foster, a young, idealistic FBI agent, goes undercover to take down a radical white supremacy terrorist group. The bright up-and-coming analyst must confront the challenge of sticking to a new identity while maintaining his real principles as he navigates the dangerous underworld of white supremacy. Inspired by real events.

Similar in 85%

True Story (2015)

Plot Summary:

A drama centered around the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

Similar in 82%

Escape at Dannemora (2018)

Plot Summary:

The stranger-than-fiction account of a prison break in upstate New York in the summer of 2015, which spawned a massive manhunt for two convicted murderers who were aided in their escape by a married female prison employee with whom they both became sexually entangled.

Similar in 88%

Escape Plan (2013)

Plot Summary:

Ray Breslin is the world's foremost authority on structural security. After analyzing every high security prison and learning a vast array of survival skills so he can design escape-proof prisons, his skills are put to the test. He's framed and incarcerated in a master prison he designed himself. He needs to escape and find the person who put him behind bars.

Similar in 80%

Changeling (2008)

Plot Summary:

Christine Collins is overjoyed when her kidnapped son is brought back home. But when Christine suspects that the boy returned to her isn't her child, the police captain has her committed to an asylum.

Similar in 88%

Midnight Express (1978)

Plot Summary:

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of Turkey. The Turkish courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express".

Similar in 88%

The Mauritanian (2021)

Plot Summary:

A detainee at the U.S military's Guantanamo Bay detention center is held without charges for over a decade and seeks help from a defense attorney for his release.

Similar in 77%

Brubaker (1980)

Plot Summary:

The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.

Similar in 85%

The Hurricane (1999)

Plot Summary:

The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence.

Similar in 75%

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013)

Plot Summary:

A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

Similar in 82%

Cry Freedom (1987)

Plot Summary:

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

Similar in 86%

The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)

Plot Summary:

This film is based on the actual events that took place in 1971 when Stanford professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo created what became one of the most shocking and famous social experiments of all time.

Similar in 90%

Mississippi Burning (1988)

Plot Summary:

Two FBI agents investigating the murder of civil rights workers during the 60s seek to breach the conspiracy of silence in a small Southern town where segregation divides black and white. The younger agent trained in FBI school runs up against the small town ways of his, former Sheriff, partner.

Similar in 87%

The Life of David Gale (2003)

Plot Summary:

A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.

Similar in 81%

Papillon (1973)

Plot Summary:

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

Similar in 87%

Goodbye Bafana (2007)

Plot Summary:

The true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.

Similar in 82%

In the Name of the Father (1993)

Plot Summary:

A small time thief from Belfast, Gerry Conlon, is falsely implicated in the IRA bombing of a pub that kills several people while he is in London. He and his four friends are coerced by British police into confessing their guilt. Gerry's father and other relatives in London are also implicated in the crime. He spends fifteen years in prison with his father trying to prove his innocence.