10 Movie Scenes That Should Have Happened Off-Screen

It's time to get a little controversial now.

The Shawshank Redemption is unquestionably one of the most crowd-pleasing, heart-warming movies of all time, hinged on an extremely cathartic ending in which a paroled Red (Morgan Freeman) is reunited with escapee Andy (Tim Robbins) on a beach in Zihuatanejo, Mexico.

As wonderful an ending as this is, it does also feel a tad excessive in giving the audience too much of a hard resolution to the story.

Originally, writer-director Frank Darabont ended the movie with Red riding the bus to the Mexican border, but the studio insisted that he at least shoot the happier ending, despite the filmmaker having final cut privilege.

Darabont humoured them, and after a test screening of the "studio ending" was rapturously received, he agreed to include it.

Even so, there's such a thing as giving audiences too much of what they want.

Great art is often born from the anguish of restraint, and having Shawshank roll credits as Red takes a hopeful ride to Mexico, with that poetic monologue about the Pacific Ocean's blue sea, would've been a flawless heart-stopper of an ending.

Instead, it overstepped on the crowd-pleasing front by a measure, even if it's still tough to rail against the ending too much, given the arduous journey these two men have been on.

End the movie a minute earlier, though, and it's practically perfect.