Plot hole: When the warden comes into the cell the morning after the escape, the poster covering the hole is fastened down on all four corners - impossible to do after squeezing into that small hole. [On the DVD commentary, the director confirms that this was a movie "cheat".]

Factual error: When the warden offers Tommy a Marlboro, the pack has Marlboro Miles on the side. Not in 1965 or '66.

Continuity: In the part of the movie where Andy is playing the opera music, the whole prison stops what they're doing and stares at the speakers. When they show the infirmary, an African American man gets out of bed and looks out of the window. When the camera goes to the prison yard it pans around and goes right across the same African American man, who is now standing in the yard.

Factual error: Chess is played with a white square at the right end of the first row. You see the chess board with the stone figures in Andy's cell, and every time there is a black square on the right. Andy would have known better.

Factual error: At the end of the film following Andy's escape from Shawshank there is a scene of him driving along the cliff edge in a red car. This car is a red Pontiac GTO from 1969. The year in the film is 1966, 3 years before the car was made. Confirmed in commentary.

Factual error: Near the end of the movie, in the shot where the marked patrol cars are racing towards the prison to arrest the warden, you hear them using electronic sirens. Those sirens were not in law enforcement use until the mid to late seventies.

Continuity: Andy is discovered missing. While the warden is walking to Andy's cell, he tells the guard to question "him", meaning the Morgan Freeman character. He points to Freeman with his left hand but when the scene changes its point of view he is pointing with his right hand.

Continuity: When Brooks has the knife to Haywood's throat, in one shot there is blood visible on his neck, yet in the next shot the blood is gone.

Factual error: In the library, Heywood is listening to Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues." He is playing the double LP "Hank Williams 24 Greatest Hits," which was originally released by MGM in 1970. "Lovesick Blues" was recorded long before this, but it is not possible for him to have acquired that particular 1970 double LP.

Continuity: When Andy is in the bank, in the background you can see a man in a "porkpie" hat and a white shirt move forward to talk to the cashier. As Andy stands up to leave, the man can be seen again, standing towards the back of the queue.

Continuity: When Norton loads his gun the bullets are scattered over the table. When he takes aim the bullets are neatly in one place, but after has has shot himself they are scattered as before.

Continuity: Andy plays Mozart over the public address system of the prison. When Hadley finally breaks through the door after the aria is over the needle is still in the first groove.

Continuity: When Red is walking along the beach before he meets Andy his hat flies off and almost lands in the water. In the next wide shot the hat is lying a few meters inland against the direction of the wind.

Continuity: As Norton kills himself, the glass that blows out behind him is quite large and about half of the frame gets blown out. There are a few specs of blood on the window as well. A couple of shots later as the camera pulls back and shows Norton you can see the hole in the window is quite small and shaped differently and a smear of blood above the hole now.

Continuity: In the scene where the warden is tossing cells and comes to "size up" Andy, it shows all of the chess pieces on the window being knocked over while one is in the guard's hands. After a short time one of the pieces is upright again, without anyone touching them.

Continuity: The sweat disappears from Red's white shirt as he approaches the oak tree at the end.

Visible crew/equipment: When Sgt. Hadley nearly throws Andy off the plate factory roof, the reflection of a boom mike is briefly visible in the shiny brim of Hadley's hat. Andy dropped the tar mop before approaching Hadley, and there are no other objects in this shot that could have caused the reflection.

Continuity: When Norton prepares for his suicide you see on the desk a photograph and, a bit away, a lamp. After he has shot himself the photograph is leaning against the lamp (it was too far away in the previous shot to have fallen against it). There's some sort of card open on his desk on some paperwork which suddenly moves onto bare desk as well.

Continuity: When the convicts are having beer on the roof you see Red taking a sip. The camera cuts to Heyward offering Andy a beer, and when it cuts back to Red taking the next sip his bottle is much fuller than before.

Continuity: During the scene where Andy and Red meet for the first time (baseball scene) the sun is in Red's face and so, Andy shouldn't have the sun in his face.  But in fact, sometimes Andy has the sun in his face and Red doesn't anymore.  Either they move very quickly between scenes or (probably) the whole scene were filmed at least two times.