It's a fantastic film.

9.6/10 A

Absolute Brilliance!!!

The only film where everyone ive spoken to say they love it!

A+

Same here, I've never found someone who disliked it.

Stunning Movie

A+

I finally rented The Shawshank Redemption.

Anything less then a glowing review and I'm coming to Canada with a machete

A+

Ok, this movie is just a little amazing, heh.

I don't know if I can say much more than what has by all the praise it's gotten, all I can say is that it not only met my expectations, but possibly surpassed them. As much as I like Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, it is Shawshank that deserved the 1994 Oscar without question. While I would like to see it again to cement its status, with more watching it would probably make my top 20.

Full review:

As a certified movie obsessor, I can admit that it's practically a movie crime that I waited this long to see the infamous Shawshank Redemption. As one of the most hyped and beloved movies of the 90s, Shawshank has no shortage of fans and support, so much that on IMDB.com it has swapped between the #1 or #2 place on the top 250 list for a while now. With all the expectations, it would seem impossible to be blown away. Key word: Seem.

As much praise as I had heard coming in, The Shawshank Redemption surprised me by the fact that it is that good, and more. The storyline, as most movie buffs would know, revolves around both Andy Dufresne(Tim Robbins), a man wrongly convicted for murder of his wife and her lover and charged with a double life sentence, and one Red Redding(Morgan Freeman), the man who befriends him in the prison. The film centers around the Shawshank prison, from the day Andy is sent to the jail, over the decades the two spend together inside it, along with a fine supporting cast of inmates, and a nasty warden(played by Bob Gunton) watching over the place

Shawshank follows a fairly straight-forward storyline of the characters in jail watching the years pass by, and the complications and events involving the warden they run into, however underneath that it is more. It is a story of hope, of determination, of friendship everlasting. It tells of how these men change while in they're in the prison, their old lives wither away, to the point where they spend so much time in the prison that when some are released, they can't handle going back to the real world. Taking place over 2 decades, the characters grow throughout the movie, the world outside changes, and it is noticeable on the characters.

The acting in the film is top notch, from Robbins, to Freeman, to Gunton, to smaller roles played by an older James Whitmore, or Gil Bellows. Made independantley, Darabont proves to be a very very apt director, shooting the prison its insides perfectly, and using his cinematography to the fullest advantage. Every scene in The Shawshank Redemption means something, Darabont without on first watch letting you into his game, is setting all his pieces up for an iconic conclusion, just like how Andy has a certain something on his mind the entire time, so does the director. Despite a long running length, it is always entertaining and very watchable, it goes by quickly. There are so many emotions in this film, moments of the screenplay displaying interacting messages about freedom and never letting yourself go, the characters and what they are going through is involving, you grow to these people incredibly so.

If there is one fault in the film, it is that in real life, inside a prison you would not find such a warm group of inmates. Rather, most of them as murderers and thieves, would not be pleasant acquaintances. However, that is a minor detail that can be surpassed fairly easily.

The Shawshank Redemption is an brilliant epic of a prison film, creating something that is so much more than merely a story of escaping from jail. Ultimately, as good as Forrest Gump or Pulp Fiction are, it is Shawshank that absolutely deserved the Best Picture award at the 1994 Oscars, and it is thoroughly deserving of it's place of being considered one of the very best and defining films of the 1990s. It is a film that proves cinema's worth in every way as an art form, a masterpiece of narrative and the enlightening morals it can teach us, about our lives and what it can mean.

A+

good technically and technically stupid.

one of the few movies that made me almost cry. The ending was so heartwarming, never felts so happy for a character ever in any other film.
A+

From time to time, I read a thread and see a post that I wrote several years ago and scratch my head. What was I thinking?

This is one of the finest films to grace the silver screen. Time has proven this to be the best of 94's very solid lineup. Nearly flawless in every respect.

... though I would have preferred a shorter ending, in which we see the bus with Red on it drive by, and then switch to an aerial of the Pacific. I thought the last scene seemed out of place - but that's just personal preference. Otherwise, this is fine film-making. Oh-so-good.

i heard this is like one of the most rented films ever.


Thats how it built its "godlike" wom....


The ending made me cry a lot in tears of joy, the first time i actually did.

This film, Goodfellas, Lotr, Schindler's List, have become our modern classics.

One of the best films of all time. I sue to dog it for being so high on the imdb list before I saw it, and now I can see why it is so high.

A+

One of my absolute favorites. A

what is the othe situation.....?

A- for this movie. kecks !!! ie all !!!

My 2nd favorite film of all time, and is the film used countless times on how to write a screenplay and how to make a movie.

Seriously, much like the Godfather. Even if you don't like this movie, its hard not to respect its brilliance. It's a near flawless example of cinema.

A+

Fuck Forrest Gump and Tom Hanks, this fiLm was much much better. 7th in my aLL-time List

A+

A moving, beautiful film that is simply perfect in every way. It is a meaningful work of art, and definitely deserves the "masterpiece" status that it has acheived. Both Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman give brilliant performances, easily the best work of their careers so far. Robbins does well at keeping his character shrouded in mystery, but is also charming enough to make him sympathetic in this riveting performance. Freeman gives his character so much depth and emotion, and is really relatable as well, allowing the audience to fall in love with his character . The direction by Frank Darabont is excellent. He brings out the terror and confinement of prison life and manages to inflict every shot of his film with some meaning or relevance to the central plot. There are sequences here that are terrifying, but also so many that are full of emotion as well - ranging from heartbreaking (Brooks leaving the prison and venturing out into the city) to the triumphant (the now iconic rain sequence). By the end you feel as if you have known these characters forever and have truly taken the journey with them. Overall, I liked The Green Mile a bit more, but both are utterly phenomenal films and all-time favorites of mine for sure.


A+

I can rewatch this again and again without it getting old. Everything about it stands out as pure brilliance. This, without a doubt, deserved the Best Picture Oscar that year. The Shawshank Redemption is the defining reason that I love movies so much.

Still an A+. And that is probably the only A+ I've ever given a film.

A-, very good film but it wouldn't even be in my top 20 favorite films from 1994.

Earnest and well-produced (too well...where's the grime?), but also overlong and derivative of every single prison movie ever made, from Brute Force to Escape From Alcatraz and all the rest.

The cult is mystifying.

It easily has the most heart warming ending in Cinematic history.

IMO only the ending of A wonder Life with James Stewart compares.




Sure you can hate the Godfather and other great films, but to say it is a bad film is just being blind and biased. If you can't respect the caliber of the acting, directing, music, cinematography, writing then you are blind, deaf and an a idiot.

I don't think that bit about The Godfather applies to this movie at all. Shawshank is a terribly efficient heart-string tugger, with all the soaring music and noble characters and tidiness that implies. And it's not a bad film. But come on.

Yeah, the film looks great. Too great. It's like Disneyland prison out there. Darabont's taste is too middlebrow and "respectable" for something like this. In fact, his conservative approach here borders on bad taste. Morgan Freeman is a black ex-con in the 1940s South. And his race is never a factor! What?

And as I said the movie is amazingly derivative, consisting almost fully of the spare parts of other prison flicks, both better and worse than this.

Shawshank? Blahshank.

Yes but it has the heart tugging factor more so then any film in recent memory and only A wonderful compares in my opinion.


It is number 9 on my list between Lawrence of Arabia and 12 angry Men.

I never commented on this?

It's terrifically compelling, of course. Frank Darabont never came close to these heights again.