The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 American prison drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The film tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murders of his wife and her lover, despite his claims of innocence. Over the following two decades, he befriends a fellow prisoner, contraband smuggler Ellis “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman), and becomes instrumental in a money laundering operation led by the prison warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton). William Sadler, Clancy Brown, Gil Bellows, and James Whitmore appear in supporting roles.

In 1947, Portland, Maine banker Andy Dufresne arrives at Shawshank State Prison to serve two consecutive life sentences for murdering his wife and her lover. He is befriended by Ellis “Red” Redding, a contraband smuggler serving a life sentence, who procures a rock hammer and a large poster of Rita Hayworth for Andy. Assigned to work in the prison laundry, Andy is frequently raped by “the Sisters” prison gang and their leader, Bogs Diamond.

In 1949, Andy overhears the captain of the guards, Byron Hadley, complaining about being taxed on an inheritance and offers to help him shelter the money legally. After an assault by the Sisters nearly kills Andy, Hadley beats and cripples Bogs, who is subsequently transferred to a minimum security hospital; Andy is not attacked again.

Warden Samuel Norton meets Andy and reassigns him to the decrepit prison library to assist elderly inmate Brooks Hatlen, a front to use Andy’s financial expertise to manage financial matters for other prison staff and the warden himself. Andy begins writing weekly letters to the state legislature requesting funds to improve the library.

Brooks is paroled in 1954 after serving 50 years, but cannot adjust to the outside world and eventually hangs himself. The legislature sends a library donation that includes a recording of The Marriage of Figaro; Andy plays an excerpt over the public address system and is punished with solitary confinement. After his release from solitary, Andy explains to a dismissive Red that hope is what gets him through his sentence. In 1963, Norton begins exploiting prison labor for public works, profiting by undercutting skilled labor costs and receiving bribes. Andy launders the money using the alias “Randall Stephens.”

In 1965, Andy and Red befriend Tommy Williams, a young prisoner incarcerated for burglary. A year later, Andy helps him pass his General Educational Development (GED) exam. Tommy reveals to Red and Andy that his cellmate at another prison had claimed responsibility for the murders for which Andy was convicted.

Andy brings the information to Norton, who does not want to know. When Andy mentions the money laundering, Norton sends him to solitary confinement and has Hadley fatally shoot Tommy under the guise of an escape attempt. After Andy refuses to continue the money laundering, Norton threatens to destroy the library, remove Andy’s protection by the guards, and move him to worse conditions.

Andy is released from solitary confinement after two months and tells a skeptical Red that he dreams of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican town on the Pacific coast. He asks Red to promise, once he is released, to travel to a specific hayfield near Buxton and recover a package that Andy buried there. Red worries about Andy’s mental well-being, especially when he learns he had asked a fellow inmate for a rope.

At the next day’s roll call, the guards find Andy’s cell empty. An irate Norton throws a rock at the poster hanging on the cell wall, and finds behind it a tunnel that Andy had dug with his rock hammer over nearly two decades. The previous night, he had used the rope to escape through the tunnel and prison sewage pipe, taking Norton’s suit, shoes, and ledger, containing evidence of the money laundering and corruption at Shawshank.