3. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
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Director: Frank Darabont
Genre: Drama
Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman
Box Office: Made $28 mil in the U.S. -- though a modest hit it became the highest rental gross movie of all time.
Random fact: Stephen King sold the rights to the movie very cheaply out of his friendship with Frank Darabont. They had originally become friends when Darabont adapted a short story of King's called "The Woman in the Room" (King has a policy stating that any aspiring filmmaker can adapt his short stories for a buck) and King was thoroughly impressed. They maintained a pen pal relationship and didn't actually meet until Darabont optioned Shawshank.
Cool quotes:-
*[Red places his bet on Andy]
Red: That tall drink of water with the silver spoon up his ass.
[on Red's harmonica playing]
Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget. Forget that there are places in the world that aren't made out of stone. That there's a - there's a - there's something inside that's yours, that they can't touch.
Captain Hadley: What the Christ is this happy horsesh*t?
Prisoner: Hey, he took the Lord's name in vain! I'm tellin' the warden!
Captain Hadley: You'll be tellin' the warden about my baton up your ass!
[Playing checkers]
Red: King me.
Andy Dufresne: Chess. Now there's a game of kings.
Red: What?
Andy Dufresne: Civilized. Strategic...
Red: ...and a total ****in' mystery. I hate it.
[watching Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946)]
Red: I love when she does that sh*t with her hair.
Andy Dufresne: Get busy living, or get busy dying*
A Timeless Classic!
Most people forget that the book was written by Stephen King under the name of Richard Bachman. Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins are brilliant in this - it won 7 Academy Award nominations - The story is touching, clever and compact, and if you haven't yet seen it I'm not sure what you're waiting for. No matter how many times i have seen it -- every time it's on television its like I have to watch it. This should have won best picture, but alas it was up against another great film "Forrest Gump" which won instead.
Frank Darabont's masterpiece is a quiet, unassuming drama that is so understated, you have to see it a few times to truly appreciate how great it is -- and just when you think this is just a simple character study, the story takes an unexpected turn that provides a wonderful payoff for all the time you've invested in these characters -- the ending is magical, it always makes me teary eyed, and it is one of the top five movie endings of all time.