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[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/shawshank_redemption_tim_robbins_standing_in_the_rain.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Fear can hold you prisoner, Hope can set you free."]]
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-> ''In 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank Prison...''

* There's also the rooftop scene, with awesomeness coming from Andy and Captain Hadley with every line. "Sir, do you trust your wife?"
** Which gets a pretty awesome BrickJoke from the beginning of the movie when Andy arranges for the convicts to have beer.
-->'''Heywood:''' You want a cold one, Andy?\\
'''Andy:''' No thanks. I gave up drinking.
* When Andy talks the guys who are beating him up out of raping him using his knowledge of medical trivia.
** Especially since he has the utter nerve to ''sass'' them, even while facing a potentially excruciating death:
--->'''Bogs:''' Where'd you get this shit?\\
'''Andy:''' I read it. You know how to read, you ignorant fuck?
* Hadley may be an unpleasant asshole, but when [[LaserGuidedKarma he beats seven shades of blue out of Bogs]], you can't help but cheer for him.
** The fact that [[PetTheDog he did it for a guy who helped him out earlier in the film]] just gives another awesome moment to Andy.
* Not to mention the scene where Andy plays "The Marriage of Figaro" over the prison's loudspeakers, and he's sitting back in the locked office when the Warden comes up to the door and orders him to turn it off. Andy reaches over to the record player -- then smiles slowly and turns the volume up, making eye contact the entire time. The fact that Tim Robbins ad-libbed it makes it even more awesome.
** The echoes from the speaker system lent the already beautiful aria an ethereal air, making it completely believable that (nearly) the entire prison would stand utterly still, enraptured.
* The music is just fantastic. That set over Norton's threat to cast Andy "down with the sodomites" makes it all the more chilling, and is used to perfect effect to convince the audience that Andy's been pushed over the edge, making the ending the crowning moment it is.
* The reveal of Andy Dufresne's escape, one of the most heartwarming stories on film despite its subject matter, provoked unfettered joy at his triumph.
** Seconded, especially if you include Norton getting busted as part of the same moment. (And it's fairly reasonable, as they result from the same thing.)
** In particular was that moment when, mid-tantrum, Warden Norton threw a rock through the Raquel Welch poster and inadvertently discovered the tunnel. The slow realization of every guard there of just how thoroughly they'd all been played was '''''EPIC'''''.
** The way the discovery of Andy's escape blows away the hierarchy of the people standing in that cell. In that moment as Red, Norton, and Hadley stare down the tunnel they cease to be prisoner, warden, and guard, becoming merely three men left utterly speechless by what they're seeing.
* The shot of Andy emerging from the sewer, running through the rain and standing with his arms in the air. Pure Brilliance. It is also the first time in the entire movie that Andy shows unbridled joy as he laughs in the rain. The audience most definitely shares this sentiment. It certainly helps the heavy amount of symbolism in that scene. It is Andy's personal {{redemption in the rain}}.
-->''Andy Dufresne, who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.''
* The little extra when the Warden is caught. He rushes to his safe, and finds that Andy put his copy of the Bible in there the night before instead of the logbooks. Even better, he left a note in the front that said, 'Dear Warden, you were right. Salvation lay within. Andy Dufresne', an IronicEcho to something the warden had told him, ''and,'' as if there needed to be any more, the rock hammer was hidden in a certain way within the Bible so that when Norton opened it, it opened to ''The Book of Exodus''. Bad. Ass.
** Given that the Bible opens to that page, and by all accounts is the same Bible Andy was given near the start of the film, that magnificent moment of subtle trolling was set up nearly twenty years prior.
** Even better? When Norton hears the sirens, we are treated to a shot of the picture hanging on the wall covering the safe that says: "His judgment cometh and that right soon...." His judgment has come, indeed.
--->'''Red:''' I like to think the last thing that went through Warden Norton's head, apart from that bullet, was to wonder how Andy Dufresne got the better of him.
* Andy doesn't have a monopoly on awesome. Red has one when he lectured the board who would determine his parole. The board in turn decide to be awesome by releasing him because of this.
** That, or they just figured he sounded more sincere this time around.
** It was a different (and probably less biased) group of people than the previous parole hearings, although presumably they did think he sounded sincere.
** What makes it awesome is that, in a sense, Red demonstrates an understanding of the seriousness of his crimes, that you can't take back what you've done, and that a single bad decision as a young man can put you in prison until you're old. In doing so, he shows what he's learned better than by simply talking about how he's changed.
** He also shows a much greater level of confidence in his turn-around during his third and final parole hearing. In the first hearing, he awkwardly (and somewhat insincerely) says he's "changed" and is "no longer a menace to society." He says the exact same thing in his second hearing, but with a bit more sureness in his tone. The third parole meeting, where he lectures the parole officers about not only what he's learned but also what he believes is wrong with the whole idea of "parole" (not once is he self-congratulating or unrealistically optimistic in this meeting) is where it becomes clear that he is indeed an older and wiser man who is now ready to retire from his former life of crime.
** What most likely plays at least somewhat of a role in all this is the fact that it is now the late sixties out there (at least in the book). Between his last hearing and this one, the society moved forwards a bit in terms of equality. The UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement happened for example. Now today, when equality is the norm though there is still prejudice out in the world, in this case, he was for sure seen as a bit less of a black criminal and more of himself by the people on the other side of the table.

* With a score of 9.3/10, it's currently the highest-ranked movie on Website/IMDb. Talk about a huge honor.
* There are four examples from the novel that got cut from the film.
** Red offhandedly mentioning that a journalist went undercover as a prisoner for a year to expose Norton's corrupted (even more under-handed and cold-blooded) predecessor, and succeeding in that endeavor, undetected.
** A prisoner named Sid Nedeau escaped [[RefugeInAudacity by walking right out of the prison behind some guards doing a shift change, while in his uniform, standing at 6'2" and still hanging onto the line painting machine that he'd been assigned to use]]. And on top of that, he was never recaptured afterwards.
** A guard named Rory Tremont actually trying to crawl through that tunnel after Andy, although it doesn't amount to much.
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