The Shawshank Redemption · written by Frank Darabont · 1994

Andy polishes the nearly completed chess set as Red reflects on prison time.

Scene 152 of 249 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:16 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 152

After a banker is wrongly imprisoned for murder, he uses patience, expertise, and friendship to survive Shawshank and build a path to freedom.

Scenes 1–8
Andy’s former life and conviction frame a banker whose apparent control has vanished.
Scenes 9–10
Inside prison, Andy needs a way to survive without surrendering the inner self he is trying to protect.
Scenes 11–30
Andy enters Shawshank and confronts its violence, hierarchy, and rules.
Scene 31
Andy and Red begin the friendship that will carry the film’s argument about hope and connection.
Scene 51
Andy tells Red that prisoners retain an inner life and hope, though Red warns hope can be dangerous.
Scene 112
Andy broadcasts Mozart; the whole prison experiences a brief freedom of mind, revealing what hope can still do.
Just before
Scene 149
Tommy reads aloud, laboring through the words.
Scene 150
Tommy reads at the wood-shop line until work pulls him away from the book.
Scene 151
Andy teaches Tommy to write a sentence and begins his coursework.
Scene 152
This scene

152INT -- ANDY'S CELL -- NIGHT (1966)

TIGHT ANGLE on chessboard. Most of the pieces complete. PAN TO Andy lying in his bunk, carefully polishing...

RED (V.O.)

Prison time is slow time. Sometimes

it feels like stop-time. So you do

what you can to keep going...

...and we keep going past Andy in a SLOW PAN of the cell.

Sink. Toilet. Books. Outside the window bars, we hear another TRAIN passing in the night...

RED (V.O.) (CONT'D)

Some fellas collect stamps. Others

build matchstick houses. Andy built

a library. Now he needed a new

project. Tommy was it. It was the

same reason he spent years shaping

and polishing those rocks. The same

reason he hung his fantasy girlies

on the wall...

...STILL PANNING, past a chair, a sweater on a hook...and finally to the place of honor on the wall...

RED (V.O.) (CONT'D)

In prison, a man'll do most

anything to keep his mind occupied.

...where the latest poster turns out to be Racquel Welch in A fur bikini. Gorgeous. "One Million Years, B. C. " SLOW PUSH IN,

RED (V.O.) (CONT'D)

By 1966...right about the time

Tommy was getting ready to take his

exams...it was lovely Racquel.