10 Movies You Can't Stop Watching When They Come On TV

10. The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption is often cited as a film that went by totally unnoticed on initial release, which isn't entirely true. Its box office takings were pretty meagre, but in terms of quality it was immediately beloved; there were hardly any bad reviews and it was nominated for seven Oscars. Still, it wouldn't have become the film that now sits proudly atop the IMDb Top 250 without a little post-release help. It was the most rented film on VHS in 1995 and in the years following was aired repeatedly on TV, meaning there's few people actually haven't seen the movie. That alone makes it an easy one to view through to the end - if you've seen the film it's incredibly easy to simply drop in and out. But why it's so impossible to stop watching is more inherent to the film itself. Set over a period of twenty years, the film is made up of several episodic stories - Brooks' library, Tommy's education, the Warden's corruption - that flow perfectly into each other, making finding a point to leave incredibly hard. Point Of No Return: Once Andy's innocence is brought to light then you're locked in.