One of the best

Rating: 9/10 (9 December 2014)

This may not be the best movie ever made in the history of cinema, but it certainly has its merits and is definitely worth a watch.
For one thing, Shawshank is a fresh take on the Prison genre and it introduces a bit of color in the 90s. Ironically, this happened to hit the Oscars the same year as Forest Gump and Pulp Fiction, which also featured black-white protagonist pairings.
Even better, this is one of the best, if not THE best film adaption of a Stephen King work. I was genuinely pleased with the cinematic liberties taken to make a story that was more than simply an adaption of a short story. In fact, this could be an example of a movie that is better than the source material.