An “emotionally powerful” film that was nominated for four Oscars is now available on Netflix. The Green Mile is a 1999 American fantasy drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont and based on the 1996 novel by  Stephen King. It stars Tom Hanks as a death-row prison guard during the Great Depression who witnesses supernatural events after an enigmatic convict, John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan), arrives at his facility. Frank Darabont said that John Coffey, who is wrongly convicted of raping and killing two girls after being found cradling their bodies, “represents those extraordinary, visionary souls that come along in human history from time to time, that the rest of us feel compelled to exterminate.

I’ve always found it extraordinary that we just can’t seem to accept the message of peace and love. It’s not such a crackpot notion. But whenever somebody comes along who embodies that notion, we have to nail him to a cross, we have to shoot him, we have to kill him.” The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Duncan, Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

On Rotten Tomatoes, The Green Mile holds an approval rating of 79% based on 136 reviews with an average rating of 6.80/10. The website’s critics’ consensus states, “Though The Green Mile is long, critics say it’s an absorbing, emotionally powerful experience.”

At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating “generally favourable reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A” on an A+ to F scale.

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half out of four stars, writing, “The film is a shade over three hours long. I appreciated the extra time, which allows us to feel the passage of prison months and years … it tells a story with beginning, middle, end, vivid characters, humour, outrage and emotional release”.

Writing for Entertainment Weekly, Lisa Schwarzbaum also took note of the film’s length, but praised Tom Hanks’ “superior” performance and Darabont’s direction.

“Darabont’s style of picture making is well matched to King-size yarn spinning. The director isn’t afraid to let big emotions and grand gestures linger”, she said.

Stephen King praised the film adaptation, although he felt the film was a little “soft” in some ways. He added, “I like to joke with Frank that his movie was really the first R-rated Hallmark Hall of Fame production.

“For a story that is set on death row, it has a really feel-good, praise-the-human condition sentiment to it. I certainly don’t have a problem with that because I am a sentimentalist at heart.”