Backdrop fallback

Birdman of Alcatraz

Birdman of Alcatraz

Share

Birdman of Alcatraz

"Inside the rock called Alcatraz they tried to chain a volcano they called 'The Bird Man'!"

1962

2h 27m

7.5(344 votes)

Drama

Crime

History

Overview

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.

Where to Watch

Stream

MGM Plus Amazon Channel

Buy

Apple TV Store

Rent

Apple TV Store

Amazon Video

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

United Artists

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster

Robert Stroud

Karl Malden

Karl Malden

Harvey Shoemaker

Thelma Ritter

Thelma Ritter

Elizabeth Stroud

Neville Brand

Bull Ransom

Betty Field

Betty Field

Stella Johnson

Telly Savalas

Telly Savalas

Feto Gomez

Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien

Tom Gaddis

Hugh Marlowe

Hugh Marlowe

Roy Comstock

Whit Bissell

Whit Bissell

Dr. Ellis

Crahan Denton

Crahan Denton

Kramer

Creative team

Directed by: John Frankenheimer
Written by: Guy Trosper
Produced by: Stuart Millar
Guy Trosper

Similar Movies

Where I am and where are you?

Where I am and where are you?

Ayoub Gad al-Haq, "Fouad El Mohandes," a simple employee, is struck by the great resemblance between him and the husband of the deceased employer in a big trouble where the small employer's daughter is concerned, thinking that he is her father who died in an accident. The employer asks him to hire a secretary at home so that her daughter, who is not aware of the death of her father, will not be shocked. He falls in love with her, but he does not forget the fact that she is Hanim and he is just a poor employee

Miramar

Miramar

Zuhra has nothing to do but to runaway after her family forced her to marry an old rich man. She goes to Alexandria where she works in a motel and there she meets people with different ideologies and thoughts about life.

The Postman

The Postman

Abbas, a resident of Cairo, is appointed by the government to hold the office of supervisor in a post office in a small village in Upper Egypt.

Shangrao Concentration Camp

Shangrao Concentration Camp

Shangrao Concentration Camp is set in the hellish confines of a Guomindang prison, where the brutal officials try to force two female Communist prisoners to reveal their leader's identity and location.

Walk the Line

Walk the Line

A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

American History X

American History X

Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.

Chapter & Verse

Chapter & Verse

Upon his return from serving a ten-year sentence in prison, reformed gang leader, S. Lance Ingram, struggles to adapt to a changed Harlem. Unable to use the technological skills he acquired in jail, Lance is forced to accept a position delivering meals for a local food bank. It is here that he befriends Ms. Maddy, 75, a past beauty with a irreverent and hardened shell to whom he delivers dinners. Through her, Lance finds hope, relearning the joys of life and living despite the outwardly bedeviled society in which they find themselves.

Lane 1974

Lane 1974

At 13 years old and the eldest of three kids, Lane struggles to keep her family together as her iconoclast mother moves without warning through the communes and dusty back woods of Northern California.

Sunset and Sunrise

Sunset and Sunrise

In the wake of the Cairo Fire, Essam feels guilty for betraying his friend Samir by messing around with his wife Madiha. Essam decides to take revenge on Madiha's father who pressured him to marry her to avoid a scandal.

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane

Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.

Metropolis

Metropolis

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Ariel

Ariel

A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.

The Thief and the Dogs

The Thief and the Dogs

This film, inspired by Naguib Mahfouz' The thief and the dogs, tells the story of Mahran, a thief who quickly ascends to be the head of his gang. However, his second in command conspires against Mahran to take his position and his wife. After his prison term, Mahran is thirsty for revenge. But being chased by the police and by his new enemies destines him to a tragic life in hiding.

The Girl and the Echo

The Girl and the Echo

The movie, based on a story by Yuri Nagibin, depicts a young girl named Vika enjoying the last days of summer vacations in a sea resort somewhere in the south.

Electric Slide

Electric Slide

A heightened homage to the City of Angels, Electric Slide riffs on the real-life story of Eddie Dodson, the notorious "Gentleman Bank Robber." With a debonair sophistication and a serious talent for flirt, Dodson managed to lure money from mesmerized female tellers at over 60 banks during an epic spree in the 1980s.

Capolavoro

Capolavoro

Directed by Emanuelle Pasorelli, this arthouse film makes little sense. A man, who may or may not be a thief, with a nagging wife hears a beautiful woman in his head, and both conspire to make him go mad as he lives in anguish over his role in his friend Luigi's death. Actor's mouths rarely move, yet the player can hear their voices, a technique the director used in several films. The ladder in the end symbolizes something, that is unknown of what.

The Creep Behind the Camera

The Creep Behind the Camera

An exploration of the making of b-movie sci-fi cult classic "The Creeping Terror" and its con-man director Art "A.J." Nelson/Vic Savage.

Black Mountain

Black Mountain

The heartrending story of the friendship of a young boy with Black Mountain, an Indian elephant.

Anatomy of a Murder

Anatomy of a Murder

Semi-retired Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler takes the case of Army Lt. Manion, who murdered a local innkeeper after his wife claimed that he raped her. Over the course of an extensive trial, Biegler parries with District Attorney Lodwick and out-of-town prosecutor Claude Dancer to set his client free, but his case rests on the victim's mysterious business partner, who's hiding a dark secret.

A Whale of a Tale

A Whale of a Tale

Young Joey wants to be an animal trainer so badly that he sneaks into off-limits areas of Marineland.

Recommended Movies

Bronson

Bronson

A young man who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for robbing a post office ends up spending 30 years in solitary confinement. During this time, his own personality is supplanted by his alter ego, Charles Bronson.

Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke

When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption

Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.

Papillon

Papillon

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.

Convict

Convict

Set in the dark and old Parramatta prison built by the original convicts our lead character Ray a war veteran finds himself serving 18 months for manslaughter after defending his fiance. He soon realizes that the prison boss has it in for him and does everything possible to break Ray even going after his fiance.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment

In 1971, Stanford's Professor Philip Zimbardo conducts a controversial psychology experiment in which college students pretend to be either prisoners or guards, but the proceedings soon get out of hand. Based on a true story.

Bad Boys

Bad Boys

Mick O'Brien is a young Chicago street thug torn between a life of petty crime and the love of his girlfriend. But when the heist of a local drug dealer goes tragically wrong Mick is sentenced to a brutal juvenile prison where violence is a rite of passage and respect is measured in vengeance.

The Green Mile

The Green Mile

A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

A chronicle of the crimes of Ted Bundy, from the perspective of his longtime girlfriend, Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.

The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs

Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

Caged

Caged

A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.

Lock Up

Lock Up

Frank Leone is nearing the end of his prison term for a relatively minor crime. Just before he is paroled, however, Warden Drumgoole takes charge. Drumgoole was assigned to a hell-hole prison after his administration was publicly humiliated by Leone, and has now arrived on the scene to ensure that Leone never sees the light of day.

The Color Purple

The Color Purple

An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.

Murder in the First

Murder in the First

A young, inexperienced public defender is assigned to defend an inmate accused of committing murder while behind bars.

Papillon

Papillon

Henri “Papillon” Charrière, a safecracker from the Parisian underworld, is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, where he forges a strong friendship with Louis Dega, a counterfeiter who needs his protection.

The United States of Leland

The United States of Leland

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

The Professor and the Madman

The Professor and the Madman

Professor James Murray begins work compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19th century, and receives over 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dr. William Minor.

The Unforgivable

The Unforgivable

A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.

McVicar

McVicar

John McVicar was a London Bad Boy. he graduated to armed bank robbery and was Britain's "Public Enemy No. 1". He was captured and put into a high security prison. Will even the highest security prison be able to hold him? This is the true story of his life, his criminal exploits and his eventual rehabilitation.

Midnight Express

Midnight Express

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of a country. The 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".