Five jail-break films prisoners can still watch

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Prisoners can still watch The Shawshank Redemption, which tells the tale of a 1950s jail break. Credit: United Archives/IFTN/DPA/Press Association Images

Prisoners have been banned from watching 18-rated movies under new government rules, but they will still be allowed to study the finer points of jail-break films such as The Great Escape or The Shawshank Redemption.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said prisoners have for too long been "spending their days languishing in their cells watching TV", and now wants to stop them seeing violent or sexually explicit movies.

But film connoisseurs will still be able to watch Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough in the World War II break-out classic the Great Escape, or Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz.

Prisoners with a taste for more recent films could opt for The Shawshank Redemption, a 1950s prison-break yarn starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins.

Con Air gave a new twist to the genre in 1997, depicting how prisoners on a high security transit plane managed to devise a hijack to evade their US captors.

And if prisoners want a taste of football with their escape movie, they could always sit back and watch Escape to Victory, starring a young Sylvester Stallione as an unlikely goalkeeper-cum-hero.