Stephen King has had countless film and television adaptations of his stories created since Carrie came to life in 1976. His most recent release is the Firestarter remake, starring Ryan Keira Armstrong and Zac Efron as Charlie and Andy McGee.
King adaptations can sometimes be hit or miss, and the reasons for that can vary from directing/writing discrepancies, budget, special effects or CGI capabilities, and sometimes just a matter of timing.
When it comes to Stephen King movies, there will always be differing opinions, but there are a few irrefutably great adaptations. This list will break them down and tell you where you can stream them today.
The Shining (1980)
Produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, The Shining is one of the first major adaptations of a Stephen King novel. Despite the ongoing popularity of the movie, the film was not without criticism from fans of the novel over some changes to the plot and characters.
If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the plot of the movie, it follows Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) and his wife, Wendy (Shelly Duvall), and their young son, Danny (Danny Lloyd) as they embark on a harrowing experience in The Overlook Hotel. Jack takes on a job as winter caretaker of the popular ski-resort hotel during the off-season.
The Overlook shuts down between October 30 and May 15 each year, due to becoming inaccessible to reach after the winter snow begins to accumulate. Head cook, Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers), recognizes Danny’s ability to see and sense certain things and offers him some words of wisdom before departing for the winter season.
If cabin fever wasn’t enough of a deterrent for troubled Jack Torrence, the hotel is also inhabited by vengeful spirits who will stop at nothing to create more terror.
The Green Mile (1999)
This is one of Stephen King’s occasional “un-scary” stories but is still an instant and timeless classic. Directed by Frank Darabont, this movie is based on King’s novel of the same name.
Tom Hanks (Cast Away) is a death-row prison guard during the depression era named Paul Edgecomb. He and the other officers refer to this particular cell block section as “The Green Mile.” One of the newest inmates, John Coffey (the late Michael Clarke Duncan), displays a supernatural healing ability when he heals Paul’s persistent bladder infection.
After Coffey performs other similar healing miracles, such as reviving the dead pet mouse of another inmate, Paul begins to doubt whether Coffey committed the crime he was sentenced to death for.
Misery (1990)
As scary as the supernatural creatures that King created are, nothing is as scary as a real person. Kathy Bates stars as Annie Wilkes, the unhinged and deranged superfan of novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan).
When Paul’s car slides off of a snowy embankment, she discovers the wreck and brings him back to her isolated farmhouse to tend to his injuries. She begs him to get a sneak preview of his latest manuscript but then turns violent when she doesn’t like the ending. He soon begins to fear for his life but has no way to contact anyone for help.
When he tries to make an escape she catches him and in one of the film’s most iconic scenes… she makes sure he can’t run away from her again. Wheelchair-bound and forced to re-write his manuscript, his only hope for survival is to play along until he can escape or contact the outside world for help.
The Mist (2007)
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Another great Darabont-King collaboration, this movie stars Thomas Jane as David Drayton, a man whose life becomes upended after a brutal thunderstorm sends him to the local grocery store for supplies with his young son, Billy (Nathan Gamble).
While he’s at the store, a thick mist rolls into town. A bloodied man (Jeffrey DeMunn) comes running into the store, warning of creatures that come from The Mist. The people in the store take shelter there, fortifying the windows and doors to protect themselves from the dangerous monsters from the mist.
In true Stephen King fashion, the real threat is not always as it seems. Yes, the creatures outside are vicious and have many people, but the real threat is from within. The people cooped up inside the grocery store soon become to turn on each other and form separate groups. One of which resorts to human sacrifice, as they see The Mist as a form of religious punishment.
IT (2017)
This remake of the 1990 miniseries reimagined the Stephen King novel and transformed it into a slightly more contemporary time period. The miniseries took place in the 60s when the “Losers Club” were children, and then in the 80s as it flashes back and forth between timelines.
The new IT movie splits the two timelines into separate movies. The first movie focuses solely on the events that took place during the main characters’ childhoods during the late 80s. A group of 6 kids, who call themselves the Losers Club, encounter a creature called “Pennywise” (Bill Skarsgård) who torments the children of the town while growing up in the infamous fictional town of Derry, Maine.
He takes on multiple forms, mostly the visage of a clown, and feeds off of their fear before ultimately killing them. When the Losers figure out how to defeat him, they make a blood oath and swear to come back and kill him if he should ever return.
IT: Chapter 2 (2019)
The second part of the IT story opens up in the present day, with the dreaded return of Pennywise (Skarsgård). Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa), the only member of the Losers Club who remains in Derry, calls upon the other members to remind them of the oath they made 27 years prior.
Bill (James McAvoy), Beverly (Jessica Chastain), Richie (Bill Hader), Eddie (James Ransone), and Ben (Jay Ryan) are the only ones to return. Stanley (Andy Bean) decides to take his life when he hears about Pennywise’s return.
As adults, the Losers Club members are forced to face their forgotten childhood nightmares when they return to kill Pennywise once and for all.
1408 (2007)
This movie is based on a Stephen King short story that has less than 50 pages. The themes within the story surpass the brevity of the words in ways that only the big screen can provide.
John Cusack stars as Mike Enslin, a troubled writer who chases the “most haunted places” in America, making money off of debunking many of the myths surrounding them. He gets a message one day warning him to stay away from room 1408 in The Dolphin hotel, which he takes as a challenge.
After he receives a stern warning from hotel manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson), he checks into the room. He quickly learns that some supernatural events cannot be explained away and the room continuously pushes him to take his own life as his only way to escape.
11.22.63 (2016)
This science-fiction thriller limited series is based on King’s novel 11/22/63 and was produced by King himself, J.J. Abrams, and James Franco, who starred as the main character, Jake Epping.
Epping is a recently divorced man who is given the opportunity to travel back in time by his long-time friend Al Templeton (Chris Cooper). Al discovered a wormhole that brings him back to the exact same date and time in 1960 and has taken it upon himself to prevent the assassination of Kennedy. Frequent trips back in time have taken a toll on his health, so he tasks Jake with carrying out his mission.
Al also warns Jake that the past has a way of “pushing back,” however, so any major changes to history will actively trigger this pushback.
Carrie (2013)
This remake of the 1976 movie, Carrie, stars Chloe Grace Moretz as the titular character. In line with some of King’s other works that feature children developing supernatural powers, this movie shows what can happen if those powers are left unchecked.
Carrie is a quiet girl who is bullied constantly at high school. Her religious zealot mother, Margaret White (Julianne Moore), offers no support, other than locking her in a closet to “pray upon her sins.” When Carrie begins to develop telekinetic powers, she uses them to free herself from her overbearing mother to attend prom with a boy she has a crush on.
One of her bullies devises a plan to dump a bucket of pig blood on Carrie at the prom, which triggers a release of rage from Carrie upon all those who have done her wrong.
Pet Sematary (2019)
Pet Sematary is a remake of the 1989 movie adaptation of King’s novel of the same name. It follows Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) who has just relocated his family of four from Boston, Massachusetts to rural Maine.
When his daughter Ellie’s (Jeté Laurence) cat gets hit and killed on a nearby highway, his elderly neighbor Jud Crandall (John Lithgow) offers Louis a way to fix the problem. He has to take the cat’s body and bury it in the ancient Native American burial grounds near his property.
He follows the instructions, and to his surprise, the cat returns the next day. Jud warns him, that others have tried this in the past and gives the iconic line “sometimes dead is better,” in his thick Maine accent. The real issues arise after Ellie is also struck and killed by a truck on the same road. Louis knows that the Pet Sematary revived his daughter’s cat, even though it behaved much differently after its return. Out of desperation, he decides to take his chances and buries his daughter in the Pet Sematary.
Stand By Me (1986)
Stand By Me is an adaptation of King’s 1982 novella “The Body.” It’s a classic coming-of-age movie that follows the paths of four boys growing up in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine.
When young Gordie Lachance (Wil Wheaton) and his friends venture out into the countryside to find the body of a missing man. The body is the least of their troubles, as they encounter classic “Stephen King-style bullies” and other physical obstacles along their way.
The story is told as a memoir seen through the eyes of an older Gordie, recounting the bond he had with his friends during the summer he was twelve years old.
Castle Rock (2018-2019)
This series was not based on any specific Stephen King story, but an amalgam of many of King’s works. The first season focuses mostly on the character Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn) and his history as sheriff of Castle Rock and his oversight of the local Shawshank State Penitentiary.
Bill Skarsgård, who played Pennywise in both of the IT remake movies, makes a return to the Stephen King universe as “The Kid,” who has been discovered in the mysterious catacombs beneath the prison. He also makes a guest appearance in season 2.
Season 2 of Castle Rock is a hybrid reference to both King's stories Misery (1990), and Salem’s Lot, which will be coming out in September of this year. This season provides a much-needed origin story for Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan), as she deals with a recent location to a town plagued by the undead with her daughter, Joy Wilkes (Elsie Fisher).
Gerald’s Game (2017)
This psychological thriller stars Carla Gugino (The Haunting of Hill House) and Bruce Greenwood as husband and wife on a seemingly harmless getaway vacation. Shortly after Gerald (Greenwood) handcuffs Jessie (Gugino) to the bedframe in an attempt to spice things up, he suffers from a heart attack and collapses on the floor in front of her.
In the style of Stephen King, the real threat is not always the most obvious. In The Mist, the obvious threat was the mist and the creatures that came with it, but the real threat was that of human nature in response to that danger.
In this movie, not only is Jessie faced with starvation, dehydration, or attack by a feral dog that she fed earlier in the film, but she is faced with a seemingly supernatural entity that torments her each night.
“The Moonlight Man” (Carel Struycken), a tall, disfigured, and ghastly man appears at the foot of her bed every evening, lurking in the shadows as she is still confined to the bed, unable to escape.
Doctor Sleep (2019)
King has admitted in various interviews that he has constantly been plagued with questions about “what happened to Danny Torrence after the events in The Shining.” In 2013, he finally answered those questions with his novel “Doctor Sleep.”
The movie, release six years later, stars Ewan McGregor as an adult Danny, struggling with alcoholism and the repression of what happened to him as a child in the Overlook Hotel. After years of sobriety, he senses the presence of another child who has the same abilities as him, called the “shining,” as his brief mentor, Halloran (Carl Lumbly), called it.
Danny takes it upon himself to help Abra (Kyliegh Curran) as she is hunted down by a group of “vampires” who feed on her energy, led by “Rose the Hat” (Rebecca Ferguson) and lures them to the burnt-down remains of the Overlook Hotel to finish things once and for all.
Stephen King is far from finished with his work in instilling terror in the hearts of his fans. King’s own son, Joe Hill, wrote “The Firestarter” in 2016, and it has just been picked up as a TV miniseries by Walden Media. Hill’s other works, such as NOS4A2 have already been made into successful shows that mirror the creative style of his father.
While we anticipate more news from the latest adaptation in the works, Salem’s Lot, we also look forward to the works of others who have been inspired by his unique style of storytelling.