The Shawshank Redemption: Filming Locations in Ohio

The film opens in a courtroom, where banker Andy Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and handed two consecutive life sentences. That opening court scene was shot at the Wyandot County Courthouse in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, during the three months of filming in the summer of 1993. The courthouse, a historic building listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 together with the neighboring jail, stands in the same Ohio town as another film location, the woodshop.

Before the prison, the film shows Andy sitting outside a cabin while his wife has an affair inside. That cabin is the Pugh Cabin in Malabar Farm State Park, near Lucas in Richland County. It was built in the 1940s by Jim Pugh, a neighbor of the author Louis Bromfield, and the park lists it among its points of interest as the place where a few of the film's opening scenes were shot.

Precisión del lugar: The pin marks Malabar Farm State Park, not the exact spot of the cabin.

In 1947 Andy arrives at Shawshank State Prison. The producers spent five months scouting prisons and chose the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield for its Gothic-style stone and brick buildings; it had closed in 1990. The admittance rooms and the warden's office were shot inside. Today the reformatory is run as a historic attraction with tours, and it hosted a 30th anniversary celebration of the film in August 2024.

Para el visitante: Run as a historic attraction offering tours by the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society.

In the woodshop scene, Red and his fellow inmates hear The Marriage of Figaro, the recording Andy plays over the prison public address system before being sent to solitary confinement. The scene was shot in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and the building is now called the Shawshank Woodshop.

Precisión del lugar: The sources name the woodshop only as being in Upper Sandusky; no exact address is confirmed.

Brooks is paroled in 1954 after serving 50 years, but cannot adjust to the outside world and eventually hangs himself. The Bissman Building in Mansfield served as the halfway house where Brooks stayed after his release.

Precisión del lugar: The building is named in the sources but no pin could be confirmed, so it is not placed on the map.

The film ends on a beach where Red finds Andy and the reunited friends embrace. The scene is set in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, but was actually shot on the Caribbean island of Saint Croix, in the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, which protects nesting leatherback sea turtles. The refuge is open to the public for limited hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

Precisión del lugar: The story's beach is in Zihuatanejo, Mexico; the pin marks the Sandy Point refuge on Saint Croix where it was filmed, not the exact spot.

Para el visitante: Open to the public for limited hours on Saturdays and Sundays.