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10 comments
9 comments
Rank This Matchup or Comment/Reply Below
on 2/13/2012
As if there hasnt been a matchup. Well I gotta say Shawshank.
on 5/9/2012
Going with the prison drama on this one.
on 11/25/2012
Gotta go with Taxi Driver here.
Taxi Driver
on 2/13/2013
Shawshank.
on 2/25/2013
It's so obviously Taxi Driver, jesus people!
on 7/17/2013
The Shawshank Redemption, I simply don't like Taxi Driver.
I lied. Shawshank wins.
Andy and Red. Case closed.
Shawshank
on 1/15/2014
Man.... I love both but I'm going with Taxi Driver!
I lied again, Taxi Driver wins.
on 10/29/2014
Although it's hard to deny Taxi Driver's quality, The Shawshank Redemption is probably my favourite film.
on 12/17/2015
Now this is what I call a match up.I have to side with The shawshank redemption for now. yeah But both Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman has nothing on Robert Di Nero.
on 12/22/2015
Shawshank being one of the most over hyped things ever, against a masterpiece.
on 6/11/2018
Travis Bickle is so phenomenal then he let Taxi Driver destroys Shawshank Redemption
on 9/14/2018
Taxi Driver is better made and has a far more complex screenplay
Taxi Driver has better narration. Everything else Shawshank does better.
I’m not through yet. It’s interesting that both films have scenes set in a movie theater (auditorium in Shawshank), and both use the environment of a movie-show with contrasting effects on their characters’ lives. In Shawshank, Andy and Red share memorable moments of brotherly bonding in the movie auditorium, and in their case one might fix one’s attention on the binding influence of movies -- how people can develop a sense of unity and belonging while spending time together and experiencing similar emotions through the image on the screen. In Taxi Driver the effect appears less benign, with Travis and Betsy first breaking up at a porno-showing, and later on in the film, in a marvelous stroke of irony, Travis taking sanctuary in seedy porno theaters to escape the shit and filth outside, as his life goes deeper and deeper into isolation. Granted, watching a film is different from watching a porno, but my aim is merely to highlight the difference in affect manifestly evident: Travis’ loneliness, it’s safe to assume, is not unique in Taxi Driver, for there may be men like him who visit such places to take refuge from their lonely internal lives, to get some real action, so to speak, in the real world. In doing so, they are still starved of human intercourse. Watching the human experience unfold on the screen is no substitute for the real thing, and there are some lonely spaces of our existence film simply cannot fill.
on 6/30/2021
Shawshank is certainly easier to digest but Taxi Driver being a more challenging film to study makes it more appreciative.
Yesterday
Shawshank and Taxi Driver are #6 and #7 respectively. It's extremely close. But yeah, I gotta go with Shawshank here. It's just a more entertaining film. Apart from that, it's an emotionally driven yet still thought provoking film about freedom, systemic corruption and change, and fear. A film about hope. I think the reason it narrowly pull through over Taxi Driver is because of just how brilliantly it's structured to make such a resonant story.
