Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, Papillon stars Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman in a story about a man imprisoned in a brutal penal colony who repeatedly attempts to escape. Based on the memoir Papillon by Henri Charrière, the film follows survival, friendship and persistence within a prison drama setting. Från IMDB: A French convict in the 1930s befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence in the South American penal colony on Devils Island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.