alt Hacker NewsAndy has to be innocent for his escape (and bringing down of the warden) to be a redemption. It's a redemption of his life against the injustice he was subjected to, not a redemption of his soul for some evil that he committed.
If he was a double murderer, plotting to and successfully escaping isn't a redemption, it's just a murderer getting away with it.
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RunSet • yesterday at 5:01 PM
Cool Hand Luke, which I prefer, has its protagonist sentenced to a work camp for an absurd crime.
A more recent prison movie which made me feel similarly to Cool Hand Luke and Shawshank Redemption while watching it is "I Love You Phillip Morris" (starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor).
I rewatched the movie now, and I think you're right. There were a lot of details I'd forgotten.
The way I remember thinking about it was that he was jailed for revenge murder, then spent his life in jail doing his best to atone by being helpful (building a library, teaching, helping with taxes, etc.). When the prison system refuses to set him free despite him proving through his actions in prison that he's not a threat to society anymore (I hallucinated this part -- this happened to Red, not Andy), he escapes, and his freedom is his redemption.
I'm not a native English speaker, and I think I may have conflated redemption and atonement. Looking at some definitions, it looks like you can receive redemption without atonement -- it doesn't necessarily have to come from within.