Rent A Prophet (2009)

The reality of prison life and crime - A Prophet review by CP Customer

Great film for those who enjoy the gritty reality of true crime. Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim)puts in an incredible performance as a adolescent on his first visit to prison who gets a baptism of fire and decides to take 'protection' (not that he gets much choice) with terrible consequences.

The Making of a Criminal. - A Prophet review by Steve

One of the great prison film. A nineteen year old Corsican Arab learns to survive and then thrive in this barbarous, destitute institution. While the film comments on the penal environment and the experience of French Moslems, it's Tahar Rahim's outstanding performance that most powerfully endures.

Gritty - A Prophet review by HM

A tough hard watch as we follow a man in a French prison being ground down and humiliated but learning the rules as he tries to thrive. Rewarding and brutal. Not a good reflection on the French prison system. Much recommended crime thriller with an educational element.

From Innocence to Instinct - A Prophet review by griggs

Few prison films feel this alive. Jacques Audiard takes the genre’s familiar beats—gang rivalries, survival codes, brutal rites of passage—and shapes them into something larger. The film feels both sprawling and intimate, epic in scope yet rooted in small, telling gestures.

At the centre is Tahar Rahim, remarkable in his restraint. Malik’s ascent isn’t played as a sudden metamorphosis but as a gradual layering of instincts and compromises. His performance preserves the trace of the boy we first meet, even as power hardens him into something unrecognisable.

What stands out is Audiard’s refusal to romanticise. Power here corrodes as much as it elevates, leaving no triumph without cost. The prison functions as a microcosm, but the resonance extends far beyond its walls: a vision of society where survival demands compromise, and innocence is the first casualty.