The first movie I really remember falling in love with was The Shawshank Redemption, and I had a very interesting introduction to it.
One of the paras at my middle school was an aspiring rapper, who released his first album. One of the tracks was about doing time. It contained two samples from Shawshank: Red's speech about bars slamming home, and Norton's speech about his two beliefs.
Powerful stuff for a 13 year old to hear. Then I saw it on TBS. It was the 1st time a movie made me cry.
I think what really made me fall in love with it was Andy was in a place he really had no business being in. But he was able to use his skills, his personality, and his uniqueness to not only survive, but thrive and improve the lives of his fellow prisoners, while also striking a blow against law enforcement brutality, governmental bureaucracy, corrupt and self-serving greed.
I really want to give Ted Turner a small thank-you post-it for putting Shawshank on heavy rotation back in the 90s.
