© 2026 The Couch Critic
The Great Escape is a 1963 American epic war suspense adventure film based on Paul Brickhill's 1950 non-fiction book of the same name. The film depicts a heavily fictionalized version of the mass escape by British Commonwealth prisoners of war from German POW camp Stalag Luft III during the Second World War. A fictional, made-for-television sequel, The Great Escape II: The Untold Story, was released in 1988. The film is not a true sequel as it dramatizes the escape itself just as the original film does, although mostly using the real names of the individuals involved (whereas the original film fictionalized them and used composite characters). It depicts the search for the culprits responsible for the murder of the 50 Allied officers.
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocate them to a high-security 'escape-proof' camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
Allied prisoners tunnel out of a stalag, then return to avenge fellow escapees executed by the Nazis.