Roger Ebert Reviews "The Shawshank Redemption" (1999)
rogerebert.com60 points by monero-xmr 11 hours ago
60 points by monero-xmr 11 hours ago
> There’s a feeling in Hollywood that audiences have short attention spans and must be assaulted with fresh novelties. I think such movies are slower to sit through than a film like “Shawshank,” which absorbs us and takes away the awareness that we are watching a film.
This resonates with me and is a really concise way to explain why, to me, a 2 to 2.5 hour long Marvel or Transformers movie feels like an eternity, while a movie like Shawshank never has me checking my watch.
Ghibli movies are a different class of movies, but the exact thing that you describe "absorbs us and takes away the awareness that we are watching a film" is what happends to me. The story is so intriguing that I even "forget" that I'm watching a painted movie.
Kurosawa did this better than anyone. He could make you sit through 2.5 hours of grinding drama and make it feel like barely 5 minutes have passed. Ran (1985) was like that.
This is one of my favorite movies, yet it won 0 Oscars (nominated for 7) and was a box office flop (cost $25M to make and box office proceeds were $28M). It only gained popularity after the theatres from the VHS rental market.
I firmly believe part of the initial commercial failure was because of the title. With something more descriptive like, "Escape from Shawshank" or just "Prison Break" people would have been more interested to see it.
For the academy awards, to its defense, it was competing against Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral, or the Madness of King George. I can barely name one good movie a year these days, and certainly none that makes it to the oscars. The contrast with the 90s is brutal.
> can barely name one good movie a year these days
Not really.
Of the recent movies, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a storytelling masterpiece. Since you mentioned it, I personally rate it alongside Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
> Everything Everywhere All at Once is a storytelling masterpiece
I thought it was so awful I gave up half way through. Maybe it gets better after that. But I agree on Pulp Fiction.
Me too. And love pulp fiction. Just used Mr. Wolf to reference a situation at work.
This was a good movie, but what was it up against. Were there 4 or 5 other movies of comparable goodness that any of could have won the oscar? So 'can barely name one good movie' is apt here. There are some, but way fewer and farther between.
Everything Everywhere... is a much better movie than the incredible Pulp Fiction. Some of the visual effects are actually psychedelic (I've "seent" them), and the storytelling is exceptional.
The scene where the antagonist is walking down a hallway while the background keeps changing — is among the best fight scenes / visuals in any film, ever.
The Finnish importer tried this. They decided to call the movie “Rita Hayworth – avain pakoon”. It means “Key to the escape”…
These people would have presumably called Planet of the Apes “Distant future in Eastern United States”…
The translations of the title (Finnish, Greek, others?) referencing Rita Hayworth make more sense if you know the title of Stephen King's novella the movie was based on (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption).
On a tangent the movie Cold Mountain (2003) was translated to "Åter till Cold Mountain" in Swedish.
Now you may ask, where is the actual translation? They just added Swedish words to the original title (which just means back to Cold Mountain".
Who are these people and how do I apply for a job? It seems like a perfect workplace.
Reminds me of the Luc Besson film "Leon", which also went by the names "The Professional" and also "Leon: The Professional". A great film but there was definitely something going on in regards to getting crowds interested purely by messing with the title of the film.
Confound: I think one of that film's themes made people deeply uncomfortable, and it was not hidden from the marketing as far as I know. I was a bit put off by its execution myself, even though there's really nothing untoward about it on a factual level.
You can just say it: It was weird how they made 12 year old Natalie Portman act sexy and come on to Jean Reno.
the italian dubbing was named "le ali della libertà" (the wings of freedom), which is one of the rare cases where I agree with using a different name than the original, since nobody would have clue what "Shawshank" means.
No one in the US knows, either. It’s a fictional prison and its name means nothing except to people already familiar with the story.
In Greece it was released as "Τελευταία έξοδος: Ρίτα Χέιγουορθ" literally "Last Exit: Rita Hayworth". People were saying, jokingly, that the title was a spoiler.
In Brazil it was released as A Dream of Freedom. Gotta say it took me years to learn the original title.
In hungarian it's translated into "prisoners of hope" (A remény rabjai) which I think is pretty good even though I despise dubbing
In the US, my experience correlates with the rise of TNT and cable television - Ted Turner bought the rights to show certain films on his new cable channels and “Shawshank” got heavy rotation. It was akin to “background noise” sometimes. Others can probably recall the frequency.
Based on a Stephen King short story, I’m a fan. Never did catch “The Majestic” and no interest. Ebert was a national treasure, great share.
I feel that anyone that has ever suffered an injustice (and who hasn’t at some time or another) can relate to this film. And survivors of all kinds can understand what it means to “crawl through a river of shit” to earn their reprieve.
> [...]and the redemption, when it comes, is Red’s.
(spoilers)
It never sat right with me that Andy is shown to be innocent, and some viciously evil irrelevant character did it instead. This, I thought, takes away the whole redemption aspect of the movie, turning Andy into an innocent Mary Sue. I'd never considered that it may be more about Red's character instead. Though I didn't catch a satisfying explanation for that idea in the review, and it's been a long time since I watched the move.
I think I'll rewatch it today.
Andy is by no means innocent, he’s just not guilty of any crime he should have been imprisoned in Shawshank for.
The guy who sits drunk in his car eyeing a revolver is not a Mary Sue. And his demeanor of resignation at Shawshank suggests he doesn’t consider himself just an unlucky victim of blind fate & a golf pro.
Andy has to be innocent for his escape (and bringing down of the warden) to be a redemption. It's a redemption of his life against the injustice he was subjected to, not a redemption of his soul for some evil that he committed.
If he was a double murderer, plotting to and successfully escaping isn't a redemption, it's just a murderer getting away with it.
It was my first movie about prison life in the US and the failures of the American justice and correctional system. I since learned it was realistic in every aspect apart from the escape, and that not much has changed since.
Everything about it is depressing and somehow it’s the best movie ever.
This generation will never experience the joy of flipping on network tv on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, seeing Shawshank on, sitting down and just watching it, even though you’ve seen it countless times and it’s the tv-edited commercial filled version.
I lived in Germany, and movies are dubbed there, so the TV stayed mostly off. I did turn on the TV once. There was a movie that looked half interesting, so I focused on it. The scene was two guys at the airport to pick up a girl who they had a crush on in highschool. They're waiting for her at the arrivals. "There she is!", cut to... not the girl walking in looking all glorius, but a beer ad. I turned it off and looked for the movie on Torrent.
Quite a few classics like this and "Office Space" were box office flops that were resurrected by the magic of VHS/DVD. Yet those are gone too. Is there any room left for the "sleeper hit" in 2026?
There's no space left for actual hits. Movies aren't even given proper theatrical releases. One week at the theater then straight to streaming, or even simultaneous theater and streaming releases.
K-pop demon hunters.
That's not a sleeper hit, it became the most watched animation ever on Netflix 1 month after the release and then the most watched film ever after 2 months.
Yeah, but it's a good example of a modern day 'indy' cult classic. It's a regional production that happens to do really well with global viewers.
"Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" is one of my favourite Stephen King short stories (From "Different Seasons"). I actually read it after watching the film (which is just amazing) and still ended up liking the short story more than the film. I would highly recommend it to just about anyone.
"Stand by Me" was based on "The Body" from that same book. Great collection.
"Apt Pupil" was also adapted as a movie tho not as good as the other two, imvho.
Fun fact Apt pupil has a reference to Shawshank where the main character says he lives off stocks that a banker setup named Dufresne who went to prison for murdering his wife.
King does this all the time in his stories having character connections across different novels, making them set in the same universe. Fun, adds some depth to all of it. Like Randal Flagg being the same villain in the Stand and the Dark tower and Eyes of the Dragon.
Are there any new Eberts? The review landscape feels like it still hasn't exited his shadow but needs to evolve.
(1999) (The movie is from 1994, the review is from 1999.)
I recently saw it as a play in a theater, and although I had my reservations regarding this, the result was an interesting experience. The minimalist staging shifted the focus to the performances and the emotional weight of the story, highlighting the quiet persistence of hope.
The title of the play also differed from the movie, Rita Hayworth: Last Exit, which feels somewhat like a spoiler. I believe this was the title used by the Greek distributor.
The title of the Stephen King story that the movie is based on is "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption."
In my opinion, the costs to make movies have gone down so much that you will find sincerity not only in high production value releases but also in YouTube and vlogs.
It’s not the cost of movies going down as budgets keep going up. It is the cost of consumer video equipment that has lowered the bar to entry for production. Video equipment never looked as good a film until digital sensors and high speed storage. Not having a delay of getting film exposed and being able to see playback immediately after stopping the camera also lowers expenses.
Very strange that the cast list on this web page doesn't include Morgan Freeman.
It's a fine movie, agreed. The movie's focus isn't on revenge, but on the interaction between the protagonists. Anyways, the story outline heavily reminds me of the classic "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Dumas.
Disclaimer: I never read Stephen King's original short story, on which the movie is based, so I cannot say how this compares to Dumas' classic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo
There’s a scene in the movie directly acknowledging this when they are sorting the books for the expanded library. Heywood calls it the Count of Monte Crisco by Alexandree Dumbass and Andy says it’s about a prison break. Heywood then suggests it should go in the educational section.
What’s an equivalent movie in contemporary times? Not pretentious, sincere and relies on dialogue and story telling?
I kind of hated movies like Manchester By The Sea, American Sniper, Banshees of Insherin.
They all feel not so sincere to me. There’s something about them - a technique where audience exposition is deliberately toned down to such an extent that it’s just scene after scene with no soul.
Parasite was excellent, and even has some of the same themes if you squint hard enough.
I rave about "The Secret Agent" (2025) to everyone. It's a slice of life movie about people living under a dictatorship. It's got a lot of heart.
“Sincere” and “authentic” are very much taste factors calibrated by whatever was the media environment when you were growing up.
Most people think the best year in pop music history was the one when they were 12. There’s a similar effect about the good old movies.
It is an objective fact though that the lack of DVD sales on the backend has completely changed the economics of movies and what gets made.
You also can't really compare the 90s to now when music and the movies were the dominate art form and there was no way to get rich and famous from just the internet.
I watched an interview with Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains and he said in the late 80s Seatle, he worked at a giant 50 room rehearsal space, almost apartment complex, that was opened 24/7. Music can't be the same as a time when being in a band was so popular that the economics could support a 50 band room rehearsal space that never closes. It is night and day different to now. Same with movies.
I was afraid I was committing the same mistake. Am I just used to the older type of movies? It could be possible.
Banshees of Insherin is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. The understatedness is critical to the humor and story; it’s a juxtaposition of boring people in a boring town and the batshit plots that develop.
Other recent greats are maybe Poor Things, Challengers, and Conclave.
You wouldn’t mistake any for Shawshank, but that’s ok, it’s 30 years later. Shawshank is also qualitatively different from great movies in the mid 1960’s, like Dr. Strangelove or The Graduate.
A good, meditative film with a long arc of time and a bit of prison is Ash is the Purest White (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7298400/)
Watch japanese films. Or just generally don't watch american films
Kore-eda Hirokazu: Still Walking (2008), Monster (2023), Shoplifters (2018)
Hamaguchi Ryusuke: Drive My Car (2021), Evil Does Not Exist (2023)
A Story of Yonosuke (2013) from Okita Shuichi
Memories of Matsuko (2006) from Nakashima Tetsuya
Departures (2008) from Takita Yojiro
Perfect Days (2023) from Wim Wenders. Even though he is not japanese it's a very japanese film
but there are lot more
You can't mention Kore-eda without mentioning After Life (1998), surely? (Confusingly called Wonderful Life in Japanese, and also I don't mean the Gervais series.)
There's a recent US "remake"/homage which I haven't dared to watch.
Yess! So good too. We could probably just recommend all his films
I’d say he is my favorite contemporary director.
The only american director I’d consider right now is Terrence Malick. I just hope his Jesus film gets released…
Yes I have watched it and it’s a good match
Then maybe Boîte Noire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Box_(2021_film)
or
Das Leben der Anderen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others
I can't think of many contemporary American films that exactly fit the bill (which I interpret as: enthralling, everyday dialogue, without a pop singer's voice on the soundtrack competing for attention, or production like a music video).
Maybe Gone Girl, or Marriage Story, or something.
Who is the new Stephen King? I suppose answering my question will automatically also give an answer to yours.
I think this opens a huge can of further questions: what is a Stephen King? Is it a best selling author who's a house name, a very successful genre author, one who spans genres and is successful in all of them, one whose' books get regularly translated to TV, a very good craftman of books that people actually read...
My feeling is that there isn't and _won't be_ a new Stephen King that checks all the boxes, due to declining readership and reduced barriers to independent publishing.
I wouldn’t exclude TV shows: Halt and Catch Fire, Dark Matter, Ted Lasso.
Ted Lasso comes off as so smarmy that it's insincere to me, like a cynical attempt to ride a wave of New Sincerity.
About Dry Grasses by Nuri Ceylan. Probably the best film I’ve seen in the past 10 years, which isn’t saying that much because the past 10 years have been among the worst in the history of film, but it’s still a very good movie.