A joint team of Washington County sheriff’s deputies and state forest rangers head up a forest path near Fayette Road in Malone on June 25, 2015, during the search for escaped kilers David Sweat and Richard Matt. (Provided photo — Frank DiFiore/Johnson Newspapers)

DANNEMORA — From the beginning, the escape from Clinton Correctional Facility by David Sweat and Richard Matt has been described “like something out of a movie.”

The story was ripe for moviemakers and their documentaries as well as for fictional versions of the story. The escape, discovered the morning of June 6, 2015, also inspired books and podcasts. The situation had high drama: two killers on the loose, aided by a female prison employee who had romantic entanglements with the pair. The way in which Sweat and Matt escaped was also intriguing. They cut holes, “Shawshank”-like, in their cell walls, used pipes as hand- and foot-holds, descended into the bowels of the prison and navigated their way in dimly lit tunnels on a route planned over three months. At midnight, they emerged to freedom when they popped open a manhole cover in the village of Dannemora a block away from the prison on Bouck Street.

Three weeks of extreme fear followed in the community. Sweat, 35 at the time, was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff’s deputy near Binghamton on July 4, 2002.

Matt, 49, of the Buffalo area, was doing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnapping, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.

Matt was shot and killed June 26, 2015, near the town of Malone. Sweat was shot and captured in the town of Constable two days later.

It was the first escape from the high-security section of Clinton Correctional Facility, which has been in operation since 1865.

The most well-received fictional film version inspired by the case is the seven-episode “Escape at Dannemora,” released by Showtime in 2018. A review of the series by Mike Hale of the New York Times noted, “A lot of conscientious effort has gone into reconstructing events and rendering the small-town settings, and ‘Dannemora’ works sufficiently well as a ticktock account of the story.” But, he added: “It doesn’t have the energy or excitement of a B picture, though it does, despite its general somberness, manage to feel exploitative.”

“Escape at Dannemora” became available on Netflix in October, quickly entering the streamer’s Top 10 list for a period. It’s also now available on Paramount Plus.

Shortly before the miniseries was released, Brett Johnson, one of the executive producers and co-writers of the series, told the Watertown Daily Times that the escape had an element that especially intrigued him. “The one thing that makes it completely worth doing more than anything else, is the character of Joyce Mitchell,” he said.

Mitchell, a supervisor in a prison tailor shop, was charged with helping Matt (played by Benicio Del Toro) and Sweat (Paul Dano) escape by bringing them tools. She was supposed to be their getaway driver, but backed out at the last minute.

In September 2015, Mitchell was sentenced to up to seven years behind bars as part of a plea deal. Granted parole in 2020, she served her time at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Westchester County.

In the Showtime series, Mitchell is played by Patricia Arquette. “The character of Joyce Mitchell made the escape universal,” Johnson said. “Here was a woman who was not in prison against her will, but she was unhappy with where she was in life. She was unhappy with her marriage, her dog, the town where she grew up. I thought that was more universal than just a bunch of guys trying to figure out when the laundry shift is,” he said, referring to the clich of prisoners escaping with the laundry service.

Indeed, the Mitchell connection inspired other films: The TV movie, “New York Prison Break: The Seduction of Joyce Mitchell,” was released on Lifetime in April of 2017. Joyce was played by Golden Globe and SAG nominee Penelope Ann Miller.

A one-hour documentary, “Biography Presents: Joyce Mitchell and the New York Prison Break,” produced by Cineflix Media of Montreal, was also released in 2017, and aired on Lifetime following the TV movie. Cineflix executive producer Jacqueline Bynon told the Watertown Daily Times in April of 2017 that her film crew found a “tight-knit” prison community at Dannemora. “When you go into that world, it was new for us. ‘We tried really hard to find out what people were actually thinking, two years in reflection. You go in as strangers. The people were leery, but really wanting to open up to us.”

The documentary “We Stand Corrected: Dannemora,” was released in 2018.

Its official description: It “examines the causes and effects of the 2015 escape from Clinton Correctional Facility. Told from those on the inside, it’s an alternate narrative to that which was told by the media.” The film is available on streaming services.

In 2018, Oxygen True Crime network released, the documentary “Dannemora Prison Break,” a “riveting two-hour special that delves into the shocking story of an audacious mind game that empowered two homicidal prisoners enough to charm their way out of a maximum-security facility in the sleepy prison town of Dannemora.” The film is available on streaming services.

Among books based on the Dannemora escape: “Wild Escape: The Prison Break from Dannemora and the Manhunt that Captured America,” by Chelsia Rose Marcius, published by Diversion Books in 2018. Rose Marcius is now a criminal justice reporter for the New York Times. The book has been praised for its details and narrative skills.

In February of 2019, “Dannemora: Two Escaped Killers, Three Weeks of Terror, and the Largest Manhunt Ever in New York State” was released. Its author is Charles A. Garnder, Malone, worked in prisons all over New York state, including on-the-job training as a rookie corrections officer at Clinton Correctional Facility. His book also examines the struggles and sacrifices of more than 1,000 police and prison guards who hunted for the escapees and offers a critical view of how “corrections bureaucrats and politicians managed to dodge the blame for problems they largely created themselves.”

Publisher’s Weekly called the book, “Gripping … Gardner’s own background as a former corrections officer in the New York state prison system enables him to focus on root causes that made the escape possible. True crime fans will be more than satisfied.”

In 2020, Historia Books released “The Invisible Walls of Dannemora” by Michael H. Blaine. He spent a career at the Clinton Correctional Facility, having been an officer, sergeant and lieutenant. His story reveals the changes he observed and what he experienced at each rank he earned.

Among podcasts:

Showtime created a nine-episode companion podcast series for its “Escape at Dannemora.” The “Escape at Dannemora: Real Crime Profile Podcast Series”

The 73-minute, one episode “Escape From Dannemora,” by True Murder Podcast, was released in 2017. It’s available on major podcast platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

More recently, 119-minute “Escape From Dannemora: A Murderers’ Love Triangle” by the Love Murder podcast, was released last year. It’s among several one-episode true crime podcasts that focus on the escape and aftermath.