[The Shawshank Redemption] is the cinematic equivalent of therapy, showcasing the power of vulnerability.

| Sep 27, 2024

The Shawshank Redemption is as beautiful and genuine now as it was in its initial overlooked run.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 25, 2024

Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption is not only still one of the best Stephen King adaptations, but also a wonderful exploration of hope.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 23, 2024

Deakins’s work here began his run of 16 Oscar nominations... it’s a crucial part of Shawshank’s enduring legacy.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 20, 2024

... a faith-based movie without any faith.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 16, 2024

Darabont cut right to the heart of a flock of human birds trapped in a giant cage, under the watch of a corrupt warden and terrifyingly sinister guard. It was serious, certain, and made you laugh. Freeman's legend has never shined brighter.

| Original Score: A+ | May 7, 2024

If this is a feel-good movie -- and by the end it certainly is -- then at least it challenges us to dig deep for those good feelings when everything inside those mausoleum walls is unrelievedly harsh and grey.

| Mar 4, 2024

The Shawshank Redemption is both resigned and inspirational, grittily realistic and vaguely surreal, matter-of-fact and operatic. Somehow, these opposites are combined into a remarkably smooth and lyrical composition.

| Mar 4, 2024

The sad thing is that The Shawshank Redemption, a so-so film, would have made a terrific little movie. A pacier project would have given us less time to notice sentimentalities.

| Mar 4, 2024

Next to Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption ranks as the strongest, purest film ever made from a novel or novella by Stephen King, a monster film where the horrors are frighteningly human.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 4, 2024

It's Robbins and Freeman who carry the film, working around the most predictable moments with simple understatement.

| Mar 4, 2024

There's nothing going on in The Shawshank Redemption from shot to shot -- no expressive life, no spontaneity or feeling. It's a stunted movie.

| Mar 4, 2024

The acting is so strong, so seductive in The Shawshank Redemption that you almost don't notice this epic prison drama isn't all that good.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 4, 2024

Darabont, making his debut as a director, is swamped by ambition. There is just too much here -- too much plot, too many particulars, too many prisoners vying for attention.

| Mar 4, 2024

A hackneyed prison movie with acting so strong that it often seems more substantive than it is.

| Mar 4, 2024

The Shawshank Redemption may be working with stuff we've seen before, but it's surprisingly strong and engrossing. Even elitists in the audience who dismiss King as a shock schlockmeister may be amazed at this picture's narrative grip.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 4, 2024

Its message of hope and friendship comes premixed with a sizable dollop of unappetizing violence, intended to convince audiences that what they're watching isn't a big glob of cotton candy after all.

| Mar 4, 2024

Darabont gets Robbins' most subtle and multi-layered performance to date. But the Oscar nomination will go to Freeman, who shows the majesty of sadness and how sweet redemption can be -- even when all hope is lost.

| Mar 4, 2024

It's a movie with dignity and surprises and before it has finished, it has acquired a good deal of power.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 4, 2024

The towering Tim Robbins has a solidity and gentle interiority that occasionally reminds one here of Burt Lancaster. Of equal excellence is Morgan Freeman as Red, who holds the film together with his poetic, often quipping narration.

| Mar 4, 2024