Plot Synopsis

Hosted by Morgan Freeman, this one-hour documentary series chronicles history's greatest escapes from some of the most notorious prisons in the world. Famous jailbreaks are the stuff of legend as their true stories are often untold. Now, with dramatic re-creations, dynamic storytelling, and cutting-edge visual effects, escapes from infamous prisons like Alcatraz come to life in graphic detail. Each episode unearths every step of an inmate's meticulous plan, the escape route and the intense manhunt that immediately followed. In GREAT ESCAPES WITH MORGAN FREEMAN, the title for the first season, episodes feature escapes from prisons ranging from Alcatraz, Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY, the HM Maze Prison in Northern Ireland, to the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Tennessee and more. Episodes include:

"Alcatraz" (Tuesday, November 9, 2021 at 10pm): Four men conspire to break out of one of the most notorious prisons in American history. Three make it to the water's edge... but what happened to them when they left the island remains a mystery to this day.

"North Country Breakout" (Tuesday, November 16, 2021 at 10pm): Stuck in prison on life sentences, two men used engineering smarts and psychological manipulation of several prison employees to escape Dannemora Prison.

"El Chapo" (Tuesday, November 23, 2021 at 10pm): El Chapo became one of the most notorious and murderous drug cartel kingpins in modern history. His audacious escapes from maximum-security prisons in Mexico became the stuff of legends. He is now in a US supermax prison in Colorado where he is remanded to this day.

"Conquering the Wall" (Tuesday, November 30, 2021 at 10pm): Six men, led by the mastermind, Nuno Pontes, escaped Pittsburgh State Penitentiary by tunneling to freedom under the massive wall of the prison. They made it as far as Texas before being caught and returned to prison.

"Escaping Hitler" (Tuesday, December 7, 2021 at 10pm): Allied prisoners used all kinds of forgery and engineering tactics to tunnel out of a German Prisoner of War camp. Almost all were caught, fifty were executed and three made their way to freedom.

"Belfast Breakout" (Tuesday, December 14, 2021 at 10pm): Almost forty prisoners locked up in HM Maze prison for actions undertaken as members of the IRA, escaped in a food truck. Many were caught right away, some years later, and some were never seen again.

"Fleeing Hellmira" (Tuesday, December 21, 2021 at 10pm): Two desperate murderers made an audacious rooftop escape from the forty foot high Elmira State Prison.

"Assassin's Flight" (Tuesday, December 28, 2021 at 10pm): James Earl Ray, confessed killer of RFK, was a notorious escape artist. His most audacious escape involved manufacturing a ladder made of plumbing pipe and going over the wall of the Brushy Mountain State Prison.



The series returned for its second season, now titled HISTORY'S GREATEST ESCAPES WITH MORGAN FREEMAN, on Monday, July 22, 2024 on History Channel. Season 2 episodes include:

"Fleeing Parchman" (Monday, July 22, 2024 at 9pm): A lone wolf prisoner, with aspirations to writing crime novels, ends up the star of his own break out story when he figures out to escape from one of Mississippi's oldest and most notorious prison farms, Parchman Penitentiary.

"Vietnam POW Escape" (Monday, July 29, 2024 at 9pm): A German American pilot, Dieter Dengler, uses survival skills honed as a child to escape a secret prison in Laos in the early years of the Vietnam war.

"San Quentin Breakout" (Monday, August 5, 2024 at 9pm): A lifelong escape artist, Forrest Tucker, ends up in San Quentin prison. But despite his advanced age, he manages to engineer one of the most audacious prison breaks of all time.

"The Sobibor Revolt" (Monday, August 19, 2024 at 9pm): During World War II, the Nazi war machine created specialized camps that were only used for one purpose, killing prisoners. Mainly Jews. They were called Death Camps. At Sobibor, in Poland, a small group of Jews that were forced to keep the camp operational for killing, engineered a daring mass escape that saved many of their lives. And helped bring the story of the holocaust to the rest of the world.

"Escaping Devil's Island" (Monday, August 26, 2024 at 9pm): Rene Belbenoit, a petty thief is captured and sentenced to hard time at France's notorious penal colony in French Guiana. He determines to escape or die trying. After many years and numerous harrowing escapes -- he finally gets free. His story becomes the basis of several popular movies in Hollywood.

"Alton City Escape" (Monday, September 2, 2024 at 9pm): Quawntay Adams, a young African American man from a South-Central Los Angeles gets caught up in a large-scale marijuana bust and is sentenced to a long prison term. When he finds out he is going to be a father, he determines to break out of his maximum-security cell -- which he does.

"Tunneling to Freedom" (Monday, September 9, 2024 at 9pm): During the Civil War, a daring prison break frees hundreds of captured Union soldiers. Colonel Thomas Rose was a schoolteacher before the Civil War. When he was captured and sent to Libby Prison in Richmond Virginia he engineered one of the greatest mass escapes in history.

"Breakout in Plain Sight" (Monday, September 16, 2024 at 9pm): An Iranian American psychopath is thrown into the men's city jail in Orange County Jail in Southern California. Before he gets sent to a higher security prison, he escapes by crawling up the plumbing chase and rappelling down the side of the five-story prison. It's a group effort but Hossein Nayeri, the mastermind, does not play well with others and the escapees turn on each other -- and get caught.