Metacritic provides a score of 80 out of 100 from 19 critics, which indicates "generally favorable" reviews.In 1947, banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover at his house, and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank State Penitentiary. It has been #1 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250 since 2008, when it surpassed The Godfather. Entertainment Weekly reviewer Owen Gleiberman praised the choice of scenery, writing that the "moss-dark, saturated images have a redolent sensuality" that makes the film very realistic. I have read that Citizen Kane or The Godfather or this or that movie is the best movie ever made. It received a wide release on October 14, 1994, expanding to a theaters to earn $2.4 million—an average of $2,545 per theater—finishing as the number 9 film of the weekend. The film's home viewing success was considered to be based on positive recommendations and repeat customers. In total the film made approximately $28.3 million in North American theaters, making it the number 51 highest grossing film of 1994 and the number 21 highest grossing R-rated film of 1994.In 1998, Shawshank was not listed in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, but nine years later (2007), it was #72 on the revised list, outranking both Forrest Gump (#76) and Pulp Fiction (#94), the two most critically acclaimed movies from the year of Shawshank's release. Though a large portion of the prison was torn down after filming, the main administration building and two cell blocks remained; the site would be revisited later for filming parts of the film Air Force One. While Red shrugs it off as being unrealistic, Andy instructs him, should he ever be freed, to visit a specific hayfield near Buxton to retrieve a package.The next day at roll call, upon finding Andy's cell empty, an irate Norton throws one of Andy's rocks at the poster of Raquel Welch hanging on the wall.
The Shawshank Redemption movie poster. The film left theaters in late November 1994, after 10 weeks with an approximate total gross of $16 million. Andy approaches Norton with this information, but the warden refuses to listen. The Shawshank Redemption and To Kill a Mockingbird are the best movies I have ever seen. Norton places Andy in solitary confinement and has Hadley murder Tommy, under the guise of an escape attempt. Finally, he sends the ledger and evidence of the corruption and murders at Shawshank to a local newspaper. He planned to cast Tom Cruise in the part of Andy and Harrison Ford as Red. Downtown scenes were also filmed in Mansfield, as well as neighboring Ashland, Ohio. During its opening weekend, the film earned $727,000 from 33 theaters—an average of $22,040 per theater.