PARIS — A jailbreak of the kind usually dreamed up for Hollywood screenplays unfolded in real life on Sunday in France when a helicopter landed in a prison courtyard and masked men leaped out and spirited away a well-known criminal.

A manhunt was still underway on Sunday evening for the inmate, Rédoine Faïd, 46, who was serving 25 years for his part in a 2010 robbery that resulted in the death of a young police officer.

Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet said the commando team that rescued Mr. Faïd from the Réau Prison on the outskirts of Paris had been “very well prepared and without a doubt had scoped out the place using drones.” She added, in comments broadcast by the French television station BFMTV, that the staff had spotted drones over the prison several months ago.

It was not the first time Mr. Faïd had escaped from prison.

In 2013, he took four prison guards hostage while using plastic explosives to blast his way through five sets of prison doors, then meeting an accomplice who was waiting in a car. Mr. Faïd was recaptured several weeks later.