"It's a simple story elegantly, cleverly told, not to mention expertly acted."
— Tom Russo, Boston Globe
"A throwback to the kind of serious, literate drama Hollywood used to make."
— Derek Adams, Time Out
"Thanks to fine performances and beautiful photography, you get that inspirational jump-start frame after frame."
— Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle
"Freeman, in particular, is exceptional. His performance is so unshowy it can easily go unnoticed, but it's the soul of Shawshank."
— Nev Pierce, BBC.com
"Marc Savlov
Austin Chronicle
TOP CRITIC
Fresh score.
At times poignant, joyful, and terrifying, Shawshank Redemption is an altogether brilliant movie and the debut of an equally brilliant director."
— Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
"With his gift for rapt pauses, for caressing just the right syllable, Freeman can make a speech like that sound like one of the philosophical nuggets of the ages."
— Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"It's a devoutly old-fashioned, spiritually uplifting prison drama about two lifers who must break their emotional shackles before they can finally become free men."
— Rita Kempley, Washington Post
"You've never seen a prison movie quite like it, and I found its eccentric rhythms and the performances of co-stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman nearly irresistible."
— Jack Mathews, Newsday
"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."
— Janet Maslin, New York Times
"The Shawshank Redemption is both resigned and inspirational, grittily realistic and vaguely surreal, matter-of-fact and operatic. Somehow, these opposites are combined into a remarkably smooth and lyrical composition."
— Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel
"The towering Tim Robbins has a solidity and gentle interiority that occasionally reminds one here of Burt Lancaster. Of equal excellence is Morgan Freeman as Red, who holds the film together with his poetic, often quipping narration."
— Lizzie Francke, Sight & Sound