Good but not as good as IMDb users make it out to be

Rating: 8/10 (26 January 2012)

As I'm writing this, the Shawshank Redemption is at #1 on the IMDb Top 250. That means that IMDb users have given this movie a higher rating than the Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) movies, Forrest Gump (1994), Titanic (1997), etc. Is the Shawshank Redemption that good? Of course not, the IMDb Top 250 also puts Pulp Fiction (1994) and The Dark Knight (2008) above those movies. So personally I can't take the IMDb Top 250 very seriously. It differs greatly from the All-Time Box Office lists as well. So why is the voting behavior of IMDb users so different from the movies people in general like to watch in the cinema? The Shawshank Redemption, for example, didn't do so well in the cinemas. At the Academy Awards of 1995 the Shawshank Redemption was beaten by Forrest Gump and Forrest Gump has also done well at the Box Office. Yet in the IMDb Top 250 Forrest Gump is at #28 (as I'm writing this). So why are the differences so vast? In my opinion it has everything to do with hype, what people understand (for example, for non-Americans Forrest Gump is not as easy to understand as it is for Americans) and what people want to be popular. What's really surprising is that the Shawshank Redemption is not a movie about gays/pedophiles/anything sexual (like I Love You Phillip Morris (2009) or Mysterious Skin (2004)), drugs or mafia (like The Godfather (1972)), trashing Christianity (like Paul (2011)) or anything along those lines, which is what IMDb users are in general very fond of (as evident by the IMDb ratings of such movies). Although the Shawshank Redemption is a prison movie. So I guess it's "cool" to say that you like a prison movie, as opposed to a movie that is about an unintelligent man (Forrest Gump), romance (Titanic) or elves/dwarfs/hobbits (Lord of the Rings). Yet, I guess, it's not very "cool" to go see it in the cinema with your friends, due to the exposure of the friendship between two men (who are not gay).
Nonetheless, the Shawshank Redemption is an excellent movie. It's in my opinion the best prison movie so far. One of the best movies ever? Nah, but still very good. The casting of the movie is also excellent. It's hard to imagine that anyone other than Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman could portray Andy Dufresne or Ellis Boyd Redding as perfectly as they have done. Everybody else in the movie has done an excellent job. The performances are awesome. The story is enjoyable. Definitely a recommended movie. Just don't expect it to be the best movie ever, as the IMDb Top 250 may make you believe. It's, after all, based on a Stephen King novel. Not that Stephen King is bad at what he is doing, but he is certainly no J.R.R. Tolkien. Combined with the director of the Shawshank Redepmtion, Frank Darabont, they are both certainly not James Cameron. The Shawshank Redemption is just an excellent movie and probably the best prison movie. That's it.