Best Ex-con Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of ex-con cinema — measured across 1,343 indexed frames from 21 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Ex-con films over-index on rearview mirror, handgun and windshield — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Killing Them Softly (2012)
Andrew DominikDP Greig FraserIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Three amateurs stickup a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse. Brad Pitt plays the hitman hired to track them down and restore order.
- 2
Thief (1981)
Michael MannDP Donald E. ThorinIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Frank is an expert professional safecracker, specializing in high-profile diamond jobs. After having spent many years in prison, he has a very concrete picture of what he wants out of life--including a nice home, a wife, and kids. As soon as he is able to assemble the pieces of this collage, by means of his chosen profession, he intends to retire and become a model citizen. In an effort to accelerate this process, he signs on to take down a huge score for a big-time gangster. Unfortunately, Frank's obsession for his version of the American Dream allows him to overlook his natural wariness and mistrust, when making the deal for his final job. He is thus ensnared and robbed of his freedom, his independence, and, ultimately, his dream.
- 3
Buffalo ’66 (1998)
Vincent GalloDP Lance AcordIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry (and forcing her to say the same).
- 4
Quentin TarantinoDP Guillermo NavarroIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →
The middle-aged stewardess Jackie Brown smuggles money from Mexico to Los Angeles for the arms dealer Ordell Robbie. When she gets caught by the agents Ray Nicolet and Mark Dargus with ten thousand dollars and cocaine in her purse, they propose a deal to her to help them to arrest Ordell in exchange of her freedom. Meanwhile Ordell asks the 56-year-old Max Cherry, who runs a bail bond business, to release Jackie Brown with the intention of eliminating her. Jackie suspects of Ordell's intention and plots a complicated confidence game with Max to steal half a million dollars from Ordell.
- 5
Blood Father (2016)
Jean-François RichetDP Robert GantzIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Self-exiled somewhere in the dusty landscapes on the outskirts of Los Angeles, John Link--a rugged former convict, and now, a tattoo artist struggling to stay sober--sees his quasi-orderly life turn upside down, when he receives a desperate phone call from his estranged daughter, Lydia. On the run from a ruthless Mexican drug cartel, John and Lydia must navigate through a dangerous world of frail allegiances and merciless cut-throats, as they seek shelter in an inhospitable city. Can the grizzled father save his teenage daughter from this nightmare?
- 6
Heat (1995)
Michael MannDP Dante SpinottiIMDb 8.3TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →
Hunters and their prey--Neil and his professional criminal crew hunt to score big money targets (banks, vaults, armored cars) and are, in turn, hunted by Lt. Vincent Hanna and his team of cops in the Robbery/Homicide police division. A botched job puts Hanna onto their trail while they regroup and try to put together one last big 'retirement' score. Neil and Vincent are similar in many ways, including their troubled personal lives. At a crucial moment in his life, Neil disobeys the dictum taught to him long ago by his criminal mentor--'Never have anything in your life that you can't walk out on in thirty seconds flat, if you spot the heat coming around the corner'--as he falls in love. Thus the stage is set for the suspenseful ending....
- 7
Tangerine (2015)
Sean BakerDP Sean BakerIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
After twenty-eight long days of absence, Sin-Dee is back on the block. It's Christmastime, and everyone wants to get into the festive spirit; however, Sin-Dee is in for a shock when she accidentally discovers that Chester, the love of her life, has been cheating on her. And to think that poor Sin-Dee has been making plans for the future. To save what's left of her dignity, heartbroken Sin-Dee embarks on a desperate mission to locate two-timing Chester, and no one can stop her--not even her best friend Alexandra, who vainly tries to be the voice of reason. Now, nothing can stand in the way of justice. After all, who wants to live a lie?
- 8
The Yards (2000)
James GrayDP Harris SavidesIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →
In the rail yards of Queens, contractors repair and rebuild the city's subway cars. These contracts are lucrative, so graft and corruption are rife. When Leo Handler gets out of prison, he finds his aunt married to Frank Olchin, one of the big contractors; he's battling with a minority-owned firm for contracts. Willie Gutierrez, Leo's best friend, is Frank's bag man and heads a crew of midnight saboteurs who ruin the work of the Puerto Rican-owned firm. Leo needs a job, so Willie pays him to be his back-up. Then things go badly wrong one night, a cop IDs Leo, and everyone now wants him out of the picture. Besides his ailing mom and his cousin Erica, to whom can Leo turn?
- 9
Bound (1996)
Lilly Wachowski, Lana WachowskiDP Bill PopeIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Corky, a lesbian ex con hired to work in an apartment as a plumber, meets neighbors Caesar, who launders money for the Mafia, and his girlfriend Violet. The two women have a love affair and decide to steal $2,000,000 that Caesar has in custody before he gives them back to Mafia boss Gino Marzone. Caesar is set up by the two scheming women as a scapegoat but things start to go wrong when he reacts in an unexpected way...
- 10
The Night Of The Hunter (1955)
Charles LaughtonDP Stanley CortezIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →
It's the Great Depression. In the process of robbing a bank of $10,000, Ben Harper kills two people. Before he is captured, he is able to convince his adolescent son John and his daughter Pearl not to tell anyone, including their mother Willa, where he hid the money, namely in Pearl's favorite toy, a doll that she carries everywhere with her. Ben, who is captured, tried and convicted, is sentenced to death. But before he is executed, Ben is in the state penitentiary with a cell mate, a man by the name of Harry Powell, a self-professed man of the cloth, who is really a con man and murderer, swindling lonely women, primarily rich widows, of their money before he kills them. Harry does whatever he can, unsuccessfully, to find out the location of the $10,000 from Ben. After Ben's execution, Harry decides that Willa will be his next mark, figuring that someone in the family knows where the money is hidden. Despite vowing not to remarry, Willa ends up being easy prey for Harry's outward evangelicalism; she is a pious woman who feels she needs to atone for her sins which led to Ben doing what he did, especially as Harry presents himself as the preacher who worked at the prison and provided salvation to Ben before his death. Harry quickly figures out that John and Pearl know where the money is. Conversely, John doesn't trust Harry, John who first tries not to show to Harry that he indeed does know where the money is, and then second constantly reminds a more-trusting Pearl of their promise to their now-deceased father. With Willa devoted to her new husband, John and Pearl need some other adult assistance in evading Harry's veiled threats, an adult who not only can see the honesty and goodness in children but who can also see a true wolf in sheep's clothing like Harry.
What ex-con films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a ex-con frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — rearview mirror is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- rearview mirror5.2×
- handgun4.1×
- windshield3.7×
- sedan3.5×
- leather jacket2.9×
- tank top2.6×
- steering wheel2.4×
- car2.3×
How ex-con films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate ex-con from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 87%eye levelvs 69% baseline
- 47%low keyvs 39% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Side Effects (2013) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,343 frames from 21 films carrying the ex-con label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/ex-con
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