(1994) The Shawshank Redemption

The film version doesn't alter much of the original plot. The most obvious change is that Red is an Irish redhead in the book, while the film has Morgan Freeman in the role. Either way, it works.

There are standard ways to stage a prison film and standard ways to tell a story by Stephen King. But "The Shawshank Redemption," based on a King novella and set in the correctional institution of the title, succeeds in avoiding the familiar. Without a single riot scene or horrific effect, it tells a slow, gentle story of camaraderie and growth, with an ending that abruptly finds poetic justice in what has come before. The writer and director, Frank Darabont, tells this tale with a surprising degree of loving care.

Stephen King didn't think much of it when a young filmmaker named Frank Darabont asked to make King's short story, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redem...

In celebration of The Shawshank Redemption's 20th anniversary, Stephen King

It regularly tops lists of the best films of all-time but actor Morgan Freeman still holds a grudge against The Shawshank Redemption.

A dud at the box office when it opened 20 years ago this week, The Shawshank Redemption now perenially tops IMDb’s favorite-movies list-the ultimate in "guy cry" cinema.

The film is based on Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, which was published in a short story collection called Different Seasons.

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Author Stephen King has spoken out about the comparisons being drawn between the recent escape of two prisoners from an upstate New York prison and his famous novella-turned-movie The Shawshank Redemption.