À l'ombre de Shawshank

Andy and Red's opening chat in the prison yard, in which Red is throwing a baseball, took nine hours to shoot because director Frank Darabont insisted on many takes of the scene before he was satisfied. Morgan Freeman threw the baseball for the entire nine hours without a word of complaint. He showed up for work the next day with his left arm in a sling.

Circa 1963, Heywood is shown listening to the record "24 of Hank Williams' Greatest Hits", released in 1970.

The man who cried and was beaten when Andy first arrived is listed and credited as "Fat Ass" -- the other inmates' nickname for him.

This film was produced independently by Castle Rock Entertainment, but distributed by Columbia Pictures, which placed their logo at the beginning of the film. After the first video release, Castle Rock began to use Warner Bros. as their distributor. This film was then later re-issued on video and DVD by Warner Bros., which replaced the Columbia Pictures logo with their own. (The 1999 WB DVD uses no studio logo before Castle Rock [A Turner Company], and has no Columbia line-art logo at the end, just 10 seconds of blank screen as the music finishes. The post-2004 prints start with the 2003 WB logo and an updated Castle Rock logo [A TimeWarner Company], and have the Columbia line-art logo in the crawl at the end followed by a quick, still, 2003 WB logo. See also The American President.)

Featured in Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: Why Gump? Why Now? (1994)