| Out of the Furnace | Scott Cooper | United States |
| Miracle in Cell No. 7 | Lee Hwan-kyung | South Korea |
| Lockout | James Mather, Stephen Saint Leger | France, United States |
| Prison Girls | William H. Nutsack | United States |
| Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps | Oliver Stone | United States |
| A Prophet | Jacques Audiard | France, Italy |
| Holes | Andrew Davis | United States |
| The New Guy | Ed Decter | United States |
| Blow | Ted Demme | United States |
| He Got Game | Spike Lee | United States |
| Sleepers | Barry Levinson | United States |
| The Rock | Michael Bay | United States |
| Natural Born Killers | Oliver Stone | United States |
| In the Name of the Father | Jim Sheridan | United Kingdom, Ireland, United States |
| Fortress | Stuart Gordon | United States, Australia |
| Blood In Blood Out | Taylor Hackford | United States |
| Riki-oh: The Story of Ricky | Lam Nai-Choi | Hong Kong |
| Moon 44 | Roland Emmerich | Germany, United States |
| Escape to Victory | John Huston | Hungary, United States |
| Brubaker | Bob Rafelson, Stuart Rosenberg | United States |
| Mr. Majestyk | Richard Fleischer | United States |
| The Hill | Sidney Lumet | United Kingdom, United States |
| Birdman of Alcatraz | John Frankenheimer | United States |
| A Man Escaped | Robert Bresson | France |
| Caged | John Cromwell | United States |
| Each Dawn I Die | William Keighley | United States |
| American Heist | Sarik Andreasyan | United States |
| Wild Bill | Dexter Fletcher | United Kingdom |
| Les mains libres | Brigitte Sy | France |
| Breath | Kim Ki-duk | South Korea |
| Ruby & Quentin | Francis Veber | France, Italy |
| Jail Break | Carlo Mazzacurati | Italy |
| Brokedown Palace | Jonathan Kaplan | United States |
| Ernest Goes to Jail | John R. Cherry III | United States |
| We're No Angels | Neil Jordan | United States |
| Buy & Cell | Robert Boris | United States |
| A Clockwork Orange | Stanley Kubrick | United Kingdom, United States |
| I Want to Live! | Robert Wise | United States |
| Behind the High Wall | Abner Biberman | United States |
| City Without Men | Sidney Salkow | United States |
| Prison Farm | Louis King | United States |
| To New Shores | Douglas Sirk | Germany |
| The Prisoner of Shark Island | John Ford | United States |