When you look back over many years watching the occasional movie, there are a few that stand out, or that seemed well worth the making. ‘The Shawshank Redemption‘ (1994) is almost a perfect ‘human’ story, so well-crafted and well-paced.

Tagline: ‘Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.’

It was a short story written by Stephen King, but with, for once, nothing supernatural about it, and is worth reading separately. But it got taken up by a master storyteller director Frank Darabont, and fused with a cast of great actors/characters that all rolled into one perfect fusion. One that really highlights the power of traditional narrative storytelling when – correctly – married to the medium of film. It involves and carries the viewer through many a hardship. If a movie was ever something to survive upon, then this one would keep you going, in a similar way to the characters and scenario of the film.

‘Geology is the study of pressure and time. That’s all it takes, really. Pressure and time.’

‘It all comes down to a simple choice: Get busy living, or get busy dying.’

‘Salvation lies within.’

‘Remember Red… Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.’

Red finds the tree in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’

‘You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That’s where I want to live the rest of my life. A warm place with no memory.’