10 Glaring Plot Holes You Didn't Realise The Movie Actually Solved

6. How Did Andy Reattach The Poster? - The Shawshank Redemption

The Plot Hole: In a surprise twist ending, it's revealed that a movie that has Redemption in the title is going to have a happy ending. Shocker. Turns out that Andy Dufresne, wrongly convicted of a double murder, has been slowly tunnelling his way out of Shawshank Prison for a hammer-blunting twenty years.

Using a poster of Raquel Welch to cover his escape, one night he crawls to freedom. Good thing his cell was on the end. The problem here is that it'd be nigh on impossible to put the poster back up - it's not a position people normally find themselves in. So how did Andy manage to reattach the poster at all four corners?

The Solution The Movie Gave Us: Short answer, he didn't. The framing of the reveal scene is incredibly interesting in that the poster isn't seen until the Warden throws the chess piece through it. This obviously stops the audience from preemptively thinking it's important, but has the added benefit of making it impossible to tell how exactly it's hung up - it's conceivable Andy just stuck it to the wall above the hole and let it drape naturally.

Remember that Andy didn't need his escape to go unnoticed forever - it'd inevitably be discovered soon after morning inspection. He just needed time to get round the banks and reveal the warden's corruption before the search properly got under way.