Just wondering. The IMDB top 3 is currently The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather and The Godfather 2.
I’m not trying to discuss any single opinion, its succes in the chart just surprises me. Almost 60 % of its voters give it a 10. There doesn’t seem to be a difference US-rest of the world. I can see that the movie “works”, it is an engaging story and all. But I just don’t understand why it rates so high. Your thoughts please.
I’d say this is it. That sort of poll is not about one or two datapoints of quality etc. but about the greatest number of points that are liked by the most people. And I can’t think of another movie that ticks so many boxes for so many people: it’s a great and unusual story, containing violence, suspense, humor, pathos, irony, dramatic satisfaction, and a great ending. It’s reasonably well scripted and directed, and has an excellent cast. The only thing it lacks is romance, but the friendship element could be seen as a substitute for that.
For many people, the lack of a romance could also be seen as a positive- it’s something a bit different from the usual Hollywood formula. Otherwise, I think jjimm has nailed the reasons why The Shawshank Redemption is such a great and highly rated film.
But my point is, so are many other movies. Therefore I wouldn’t call it unusual. But I agree that of all the movies in the top 10, this one is probably the most overall balanced (whereas the other movies seem to be more “specifically excellent” if you know what I mean).
I wonder what the results would be if IMDB voters were asked to name just one film as their favourite. I bet The Shawshank Redemption would be nowhere near the top of the list. It’s a very good, low-key film that hardly anyone dislikes, rather than being a towering masterpiece.
This here is the most cromulent statement to ever skate the line between copacetic and Fahrvergnügen. Kinda like when my kid asked me why chocolate ice cream tastes so much better than strawberry.
What does that mean? Do you expect me to fetch a dictionary to understand what you are saying? Anyway, I’m not arguing about taste. I’m merely trying to analyse it. Where does this popularity come from?
I suppose that’s the basis of it. And perhaps that once it’s up, it will get a momentum of its own because people will go see it because it is number 1 and will probably not be disappointed.
I think this is a big factor. While The Shawshank Redemption is popular it has never been perceived as overwhelmingly popular so there’s no backlash against it. Movies like Star Wars or Titanic or Forrest Gump can become so big that some people begin to hate them for their popularity.
Well kid Andy Dufresne didn’t argue about taste either. Rumor has it that all 198,991 guys who gave it a 10 were voting after Andy gave them a blow job.
To add a little meat to this… I think that Shawshank was one of the first VHS tapes a lot of people owned, as it came out right as the medium was becoming affordable and readily available everywhere (you didn’t have to go to the rental place or an electronics store to buy it).
Additionally, it received a huge groundswell of support come Oscar time - a lot of people hadn’t seen it in the theaters, and it was the home movie market that really pushed it forward (of course saying that, someone is bound to show me its box office receipts… ).
And finally, it’s on cable right now. You can point to any one moment since 1997 and there has been a major cable network airing The Shawshank Redemption. You have to have had deliberately avoided seeing this movie while flipping through the channels for the past 12 years.
Please allow me to introduce you to an old concept: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s not always subject to ready analysis. Have you tried reading the comments section on IMDb to see what the people who love the movie so much have to say about it?
You need a dictionary to parse nonsense? Of course you are arguing taste, how else is anyone supposed to explain the fact that The Shawshank Redemption is so popular? Do you think something besides taste is a factor here? Like they put LSD on the tickets when people purchased them? Or that the imdb voters were bribed?
VHS tapes, except for kids’ movie and blockbusters, were never really affordable until almost the very end of the format’s run. If you look through video catalogs from the 1990s, most of the movies are still hovering around $100.
But you nailed all the other points. IIRC this movie was actually a box flop. I remember a lot of critics saying people were turned off the name. But then it got great word of mouth once it hit video.
I tried. I learned that two people were FIRST, one person thought that the pin up posters were so frickin hawt and that not liking this moving makes me a gay homo. Or at least that’s what I assume I’d learn.
Actually, some of the “good but overrated” comments on the IMDB are quite thoughtful and well-stated.
Even the director of Shawshank thinks its performance in these types of polls is ridiculous:
).