20世纪40年代末，小有成就的青年银行家安迪（蒂姆·罗宾斯 Tim Robbins 饰）因涉嫌杀害妻子及她的情人而锒铛入狱。在这座名为肖申克的监狱内，希望似乎虚无缥缈，终身监禁的惩罚无疑注定了安迪接下来灰暗绝望的人生。未过多久，安迪尝试接近囚犯中颇有声望的瑞德（摩根·弗里曼 Morgan Freeman 饰），请求对方帮自己搞来小锤子。以此为契机，二人逐渐熟稔，安迪也仿佛在鱼龙混杂、罪恶横生、黑白混淆的牢狱中找到属于自己的求生之道。他利用自身的专业知识，帮助监狱管理层逃税、洗黑钱，同时凭借与瑞德的交往在犯人中间也渐渐受到礼遇。表面看来，他已如瑞德那样对那堵高墙从憎恨转变为处之泰然，但是对自由的渴望仍促使他朝着心中的希望和目标前进。而关于其罪行的真相，似乎更使这一切朝前推进了一步……
本片根据著名作家斯蒂芬·金（Stephen Edwin King）的原著改编
肖申克的救赎的经典台词（对白）
Read this it may help you back to the film:
Red: Let me tell you something my friend: Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.
瑞德：听我说，朋友，希望是件危险的事。希望能叫人发疯。
Red narrating: These walls are kind of funny like that. First you hate’em, th
en you get used to’em. Enough time passes, gets so you depend on them.
Red narrating: I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were s inging about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are better left uns
aid.I’d like to think they were singing about somethings so beautiful,it can"
t expressed in words,and it makes your heart ache because of it.I tell you, th ose voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a great place dares to dr eam. It was as if some beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage an d made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man is Shawshank felt free.
（On playing opera records in the prison） www.lizhidaren.com
Andy Dufresne: Here’s where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don"t foget. Foget that there are palce 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.
Andy Dufresne: That’s the beauty of music. They can’t take that away from yo u.
安迪.杜德兰：这就是音乐的美丽。他们无法把这种美丽从你那里夺去。
Red reading a note left by Andy: Remember, Red, hope is good thing, mabye the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.
瑞德读安迪留下的条子：记住，瑞德，希望是件美丽的东西，也许是最好的东西。美好的东西是永远不会死的。
Red narrating: We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like freemen. h\*ll, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We
were the lords of all creation. As for Andy—-hespent that break hunkered in
the shade, a strangelittle smile on his face.watching us drink his beer.
Red narrating: You could argue he’d done it to curry favor with the guards. Or, mabye make a few friends among us cons. Me, I think he did it just to feel normanl again, if only for a short while.
Red narrating: I have to remind myself that some birds don’t mean to be caged . Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up. DOES rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone. I guess I just miss my friend.
Red narraing: I hope I can make it across the border, I hope the Pacific is as blue as I dreamed it is; I hope to see my friend again, and shake his hand; I hope.
