What are your thoughts on The Shawshank Redemption?

Just finished watching it today. Man, now I see why it's considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest movies ever made. It was wonderful all throughout in every term. My only small nitpick with it, is through the years, the characters don't visually age aside from some subtle changes from time to time. But that's such a small nitpick, that I didn't find it a that big of deal at all. I love it, and I plan to re-watch it again soon.

What your thoughts on this? Consider it a masterpiece or do you think it's overrated?

One of the all time greats, with one of the best endings I've seen in any movie.

I'm not big on prison movies but this is one of the better ones, this and Green Mile were great, Shawshank is the better of the two. Anyhow, like the others said, a classic.

If I had a complaint, and it's a fairly common one, it's a bit on the long the side. Very minor complaint though, not like Christopher Nolan movies that meanders about and becomes needlessly convoluted. The story and everything that is going on is still easy to follow.

I'm actually not a fan of positive movies, but it's good if you're into that sort of thing.

Hell...it's good if you're not into that sort of thing. It's just a very well made movie.

Anyway, as far as positive movies go, there's one thing I like about this. Andy Dufresne earned his "happy" ending. When he triumphed, it didn't feel cheap or hokey in the least because holy shit, he earned it. He got wrongly fucked over, but he didn't let that break him. He worked his goddamn ass off trying to succeed. It took him decases to do it, but he did it. But not before being beaten and abused.He didn't come out clean until after he crawled through a river of shit, and it took him decades to even get to that point.

So, as far as positive movies go, I think that's a good freaking message. I see way too many stories where the hero's success seems to be artificially handed down by the writer. As if he was just lucky. The triumph doesn't mean anything because every event in the movie seems to go in his favor. But not in this movie. Sure there's the sappy happy Hollywood ending, but I'll be damned if he didn't suffer like hell before getting there. He had to freaking work for it. And it didn't come fast and it didn't come easy.

damn good movie

One of my all time favorites.

It's without a doubt one of the greatest movies ever made. A must watch for pretty much everyone.

Timeless classic and proves why Stephen King is a brilliant author and one of my all time favorites.

The movie is just epic and Freeman and Tim Robbins both deserve an oscar for their performance. And i am still surprised that it went home without a single Oscar. But Forest Gump was a hard cat. to fight.

But 95 was also such a big year for movies, Forest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank

A fine film.

It's alright. It's placement on IMBb's top 250 is hilarious to me.

It's a great movie but not THAT great to be number one!

The best Stephen King movie ever made and one of the best of all-time. It's no wonder why TNT plays it every day and why I always find myself sitting through the whole movie as if watching it for the first time. Love it.

Just looking at the list, it's probably a safe bet to say it's full of Nolan fanboys.

http://www.imdb.com/search/title?groups=top_250&sort=user_rating

Pretty good. Not even near my top 100 favorite films. Well made and contains some good performances; but it is ultimately just a fairly predictable prison melodrama. It ends on a pretty high note, emotionally, which is why I think it sticks with people the way it does.

One of the most overrated films ever made.

Hard to watch it without falling asleep.

No. Boring and serious movies are different , these one can be enjoyed by anyone , of all ages. Its a movie about optimism , misfortune in ones life which we all can relate too.

Well, I'll watch some of it every now and then when it's on TV. It knows the right emotional buttons to push so it winds up being rewarding in that way.

Still, I think the reason why I never really adored the movie like a lot of other people do is that it's so transparent in that it is pushing those emotional buttons. The protagonists aren't really going up against other humans who simply have competing interests; they're going up against pure evil. Then the main character triumphs, but the film kind of glosses over exactly how he does so it doesn't feel true to his experience. Like it wasn't just him putting up with all the crap people were throwing at him; it was also a crazy amount of tedium and hard work.

But again, it does have that emotional hook and I understand why a lot of people like it.

It's decent, but in the context of this particular film it felt a little too overt and aggressive with its emotional linchpins for my tastes and so it's nothing I would heartily recommend or bother to own.

Been a long time since I've watched it....but I did pick it up on DVD recently.....$5...how could I not? But I wouldn't say it's the best movie ever. It was good though...just gets over praised.

Been a while since I seen this but, wasn't he working for and getting special treatment for helping the governor fellow do his books? And when he was getting gang raped, didn't the warden fellow have his guards sort out the thugs?

That give and take mentality seems pretty human to me. Likewise as well, prisons at the time, where corrupted I wouldn't exactly call it an unrealistic depiction.

In the top 5 movies of all time easily. One of the most successfully executed stories that just nails its climax. Great acting, great music and pleasing to the eye (no shaky cam, can actually see what's happening)

The warden keeps him living a good prison life (much different than a good life) to motivate him to cook his books. However, he'll do anything to keep him there making him money and at one point he has a man murdered to stop him from clearing the protagonist's name. Not only that, the warden also wants him to know that he is his servant. He could have a lot of people shine his shoes but he takes special care to make the protagonist do it and the warden also throws him in solitary when the main character mentions not wanting to commit crimes for him anymore.

He was decidedly evil. It definitely works but it felt transparent to me.

I was satisfied watching it but I think it was ruined for me long ago by the unbelievable hype and amount of references to the film I endured before I actually saw it. That and I don't like Red's narration much.

I have yet to see it and don't feel any huge urge to do so. It seems to me to be one of those movies that people over blow because of the time period. I could damn well be wrong, though.

Transparent in what way? You saw through it......? Transparent is a word used when someone is pretending but you can see through the act, the warden was a selfish evil man and exploited the fact that he had an incredibly intelligent accountant as a prisoner. Just don't see how the word can apply.

Great Flick. Seen it tons of times, and I will still watch it pretty much every time I see it on TV.

2nd best movie adapted from a Stephen King book if you ask me (Green Mile being just a tad bit better IMO).

Green Mile was good, but nowhere near the struggle and transformation the protagonist goes through in Shawshank.

I'm using the meaning "easy to see or detect" (link, the first group that came up in google).

It feels like an easy emotional button to push. Of course we want to see the good guy prevail and the super evil guy get what's coming to him. Obviously there are no rules in art, but such a black and white contrast wasn't fully satisfying to me in this case.

The thing is, there are real wardens that are evil bastards and there are real people in prison that are innocent. It's not an unrealistic story or a struggle that is trivial, it wasn't supposed to be a contrast either between a protagonist and an antagonist. It was Andy's story, it wasn't good guy bad guy, it was Andy Dufraine gets screwed over as badly as possible because his wife was also murdered. He didn't get ultimate revenge, his wife was still not alive and he never confronted the murderer. The point of the warden in the story was that Andy was falsely convicted and on top of that he is exploited by the warden and abused by the prisoners.

For such a long movie I seem to re-watch quite a lot. I luh dat s***.

Favourite movie of all time
The score when Andy's bus is rolling up to Shawshank
Chills

I agree

There are also real wardens who are great people and real prisoners who are as guilty as it gets. Either could have been realistic if that was the aim, but the writers chose to make an amiable prisoner and a despicable warden because it's an easy hook. People want to root for a good guy and jeer a bad guy. If the filmmakers didn't want such a relationship between Andy and the warden, they wouldn't have played up how evil the warden was.

Again, I'm not saying I hate the movie or anything. I'm just saying it's not one of my favorites.

One of my favorite movies of all time, and one of a handful of movies that have made me tear up. The others being Glory and Hotel Rawanda.

I only recently watched it, too. I pretty much already knew much of its plots and some of its more well-known scenes because of that Family Guy parody, but it was a great movie, sure. Greatest of all time? Eh.

Great movie, but hardly one of the greatest.