Best Stephen King Movie and TV Adaptations

The author's words translate well to the screen. We have years of proof.

Best Stephen King Movie and TV Adaptations

Carrie

Stephen King is a writing machine. Since the release of his debut novel "Carrie" in 1974, King has written over 60 novels and 200 short stories, and Hollywood comes calling almost every time he puts pen to paper.

Whether it's feature films, television films, miniseries or streaming series, we've been treated to adaptations that have thrilled us just like the original works themselves. Some have been good enough to bring home Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmy Awards along the way.

These are the best movie and television adaptations of Stephen King's novels, novellas and collected short stories with just one rule — one adaptation, one spot. Meaning if one of King's works has been adapted multiple times, which has happened, we picked the best one.

30. Castle Rock

Castle Rock

Release date: July 25, 2018 (2 seasons, 20 episodes)

Starring: Andre Holland, Melanie Lynskey, Bill Skargard, Sissy Spacek, Jane Levy, LIzzy Caplan, Tim Robbins

Creators: Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason

Bottom line: Hulu's hit streaming series "Castle Rock" wasn't based on any one of Stephen King's works, but instead took the creative approach of an amalgamation of characters and stories.

Most notably that was done with actress Lizzy Caplan in Season 2 as Annie Wilkes, the nurse made famous in "Misery" and portrayed in an Oscar-winning role by Kathy Bates.

The real star, however, is the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, which has been the setting for some of King's greatest works.

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29. The Dark Half

The Dark Half

Release date: April 23, 1993

Starring: Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Julie Harris, Michael Rooker

Director: George A. Romero

Bottom line: Timothy Hutton was one of the more underrated actors in the 1980s and 1990s, and his talent was never more on display than in "The Dark Half" directed by horror legend George A. Romero.

It wasn't hard to see the parallels between King's story of successful literary novelist Thad Beaumont. The fictional writer has been writing massive mystery/thriller hits under the name George Stark and decides to figuratively kill off Stark.

But Stark somehow becomes an actual physical person and goes on a killing spree.

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28. The Green Mile

The Green Mile

Release date: Dec. 10, 1999

Starring: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, James Cromwell, Graham Greene, Doug Hutchison, Sam Rockwell, Barry Pepper, Patricia Clarkson, Harry Dean Stanton

Director: Frank Darabont

Bottom line: This movie was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and made $268 million at the box office against a $60 million budget. But it's about an hour longer than it needs to be.

Only Rob Reiner has shown to be more adept at adapting King's works, but director Frank Darabont wasn't far behind. He used the success of "The Shawshank Redemption" to make "The Green Mile" and got the biggest star in the world at the time onboard with Tom Hanks.

It's just too long.

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27. 1408

1408

Release date: June 22, 2007

Starring: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack, Tony Shalhoub

Director: Mikael Hafstrom

Bottom line: John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson are a perfect fit together in this story about an author, Cusack, who tries to disprove a haunted room at a famous hotel and finds himself falling into a nightmare.

This movie was a surprise box-office hit for both stars. It made $133 million at the box office on just a $25 million budget. It also famously had to change endings several times after a few disastrous test screenings. If you consider disastrous meaning the audience walked away disturbed.

Director Mikael Hafstrom had another huge box-office hit in 2013 with "Escape Plan" starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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26. Cat's Eye

Cat's Eye

Release date: April 12, 1985

Starring: Drew Barrymore, James Woods, Alan King, Kenneth McMillan, Robert Hays, Candy Clark

Director: Lewis Teague

Bottom line: Based on two short stories from Stephen King and featuring an original story written by King just for the film, "Cat's Eye" features a young Drew Barrymore and was one of the earlier starring roles for James Woods, who went on to be one of the bigger stars in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

This is one of the underrated King adaptations of all time and the first vignette, "Quitters Inc." has an especially horrendous twist.

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25. 11.22.63

11.22.63

Release date: Feb. 15, 2016 (8 episodes)

Starring: James Franco, Chris Cooper, Sarah Gadon, Cherry Jones, Lucy Fry, George MacKay, Daniel Webber, T.R. Knight, Kevin J. O'Connor, Josh Duhamel

Creator: Bridget Carpenter

Bottom line: We tried to talk ourselves into pushing "11.22.63" up the list but can't get past the downright apathetic performance of James Franco in the lead role. You almost wonder if he even wants to be there.

What keeps this thriller on the list is getting to watch Stephen King play in the time-travel sandbox that so many great writers and directors have taken their shots at. And he's just as good as any of them.

Everybody else seems into it. Why isn't Franco? Either way, it's still pretty good.

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24. Sometimes They Come Back

Sometimes They Come Back

Release date: May 7, 1991

Starring: Tim Matheson, Brooke Adams, Robert Rusler, William Sanderson

Director: Tom McLoughlin

Bottom line: Television events in the early 1990s belonged to Stephen King adaptations, although most were miniseries based on full-length novels.

"Sometimes They Come Back" was the rare television movie based on a short story by King and starred the underrated Tim Matheson, who was best known for his starring role in "Animal House" as Eric "Otter" Stratton.

Don't get it twisted, however, because the stars of this TV movie are the ghostly gang of teenagers that come back to haunt Matheson after they murdered his brother in front of him as a child.

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23. Secret Window

Secret Window

Release date: March 12, 2004

Starring: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello, Timothy Hutton, Charles S. Dutton

Director: David Koepp

Bottom line: David Koepp is one of the most successful screenwriters of all time, but he has found success behind the camera as a director much harder to come by. He got a rare hit with "Secret Window" in 2004, which can be mainly credited to landing star Johnny Depp at the peak of his powers.

Depp and Koepp led a surprise box-office hit — it made $92.9 million against a $40 million budget — with a tale of a novelist slowly losing his mind.

Or is he?

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22. The Running Man

The Running Man

Release date: Nov. 13, 1987

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Conchita Alonso, Yaphet Kotto, Richard Dawson, Jesse "The Body" Ventura

Director: Paul Michael Glaser

Bottom line: Stephen King wrote "The Running Man" under his pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982 and released it as a paperback. Five years later, it was a big-budget action movie with the biggest action star in the world in Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Here's the thing about some of King's adaptations. They don't always stay faithful to the source material, and "The Running Man" retained very little of what was in King's original work besides the basic premise.

Want a faithful version? Critical darling director Edgar Wright is reportedly working on his take.

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21. Creepshow

Creepshow

Release date: Nov. 10, 1982

Starring: Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen, Carrie Nye, E.G. Marshall, Viveca Lindfors

Director: George A. Romero

Bottom line: This was Stephen King's first screenplay and was a horror/comedy anthology that included a pair of his short stories.

A great cult hit from the 1980s gives us a lot of bang for our buck — five separate stories along with a prologue and epilogue that tie things together.

Our favorite of the group is "Something to Tide You Over" starring the late Leslie Nielsen and Ted Danson.

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20. Lisey's Story

Lisey's Story

Release date: June 4, 2021 (8 episodes)

Starring: Julianne Moore, Clive Owen, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Dane DeHaan, Joan Allen

Director: Pablo Larrain

Bottom line: Stephen King knew he wanted "Lisey's Story" adapted into a television series and not a feature film when studios came calling and Apple TV+ stepped up to the plate, bringing in Academy Award winner Julianne Moore to take on the lead role.

Produced by Hollywood heavyweight J.J. Abrams and helmed by director Pablo Larrain ("Jackie"), this was a big hit in the summer of 2021.

On that note, can we get Moore in a few more King adaptations? She's wonderful.

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19. The Dead Zone (1983)

The Dead Zone

Release date: Oct. 21, 1983

Starring: Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerrit, Anthony Zerbe, Herbert Lom, Colleen Dewhurst

Director: David Cronenberg

Bottom line: This was a toss-up of picking adaptations. The USA Network also had an excellent television series based on "The Dead Zone" starring Anthony Michael Hall that ran for six seasons in the early 2000s.

But it's the performance of a young, up-and-coming Christopher Walken as doomed schoolteacher Johnny Smith and the skills of famed director David Cronenberg ("The Fly") that give this version the edge.

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18. Mr. Mercedes

Mr. Mercedes

Release date: Aug. 9, 2017 (3 seasons, 30 episodes)

Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Harry Treadaway, Kelly Lynch, Jharrel Jerome, Scott Lawrence, Robert Stanton, Mary Louise-Parker, Jack Huston

Creator: David E. Kelley

Bottom line: Stephen King wrote a trilogy of novels based around Detective Bill Hodges that were turned into the streaming series "Mr. Mercedes," which originally aired on the Audience network before that was shuttered and the series hopped to Peacock.

Want to know why "Mr. Mercedes" is so compelling? Look no further than star Brendan Gleeson as Hodges. It's the perfect role for the four-time Golden Globe Award nominee.

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17. Gerald's Game

Gerald's Game

Release date: Sept. 29, 2017

Starring: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Henry Thomas, Kate Siegel, Carel Struycken

Director: Mike Flanagan

Bottom line: Netflix hit gold with the combination of star Carla Gugino and director Mike Flanagan for the adaptation of "Gerald's Game" in 2017 — before the duo hit it big the next year with Netflix's "The Haunting of Hill House."

It's the criminally underrated Gugino who steals the show here, and if you can stomach one scene in particular, you're made of much tougher stuff than we are. We had to look away.

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16. The Stand (1994)

The Stand

Release date: May 8, 1994 (4 episodes)

Starring: Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Jamey Sheridan, Rob Lowe, Laura San Giacomo, Miguel Ferrer, Ruby Dee, Bill Fagerbakke, Corin Nemiec, Matt Frewer, Ossie Davis, Shawnee Smith

Director: Mick Garris

Bottom line: It would be hard to explain to someone who wasn't around back in 1994 what a big deal it was when "The Stand" came out as a four-part miniseries that spring.

The cast was led by Oscar nominee Gary Sinise, who was just a few months from his career going into the stratosphere with his role as Lieutenant Dan in Best Picture winner "Forrest Gump" alongside Tom Hanks.

If you can get past the cheesy special effects, "The Stand" is a pretty fun watch, and if you want the more tricked-out version of the novel, Paramount Plus made a 10-part series that came out in 2021.

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15. Children of the Corn

Children of the Corn

Release date: March 9, 1984

Starring: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong, Courtney Gains, Anne Marie McEvoy, John Franklin

Director: Fritz Kiersch

Bottom line: Based on a short story by Stephen King, he famously beefed with the people behind the scenes when he realized his screenplay had been scrapped almost completely.

Here's the thing. While the people who made this movie probably should have listened to King a little more, it doesn't make the movie any less terrifying, and if you know a kid who grew up in the 1980s, this was a late-night staple.

And there's Malachi. Malachi still gives us nightmares.

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14. Doctor Sleep

Doctor Sleep

Release date: Nov. 8, 2019

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Cliff Curtis

Director: Mike Flanagan

Bottom line: We were excited when Stephen King decided to write a sequel to "The Shining," and we were even more excited when Mike Flanagan decided he wanted to turn it into a movie following the success of "The Haunting of Hill House" on Netflix.

This movie is awesome. Ewan McGregor is awesome as a grown-up Danny Torrance. Rebecca Ferguson is awesome as the antagonist.

Why this movie wasn't a bigger box-office hit is an answer left to smarter minds than us.

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13. The Mist

The Mist

Release date: Nov. 21, 2007

Starring: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, William Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn, Sam Witwer, Nathan Gamble

Director: Frank Darabont

Bottom line: This was director Fred Darabont's third attempt at adapting a Stephen King work following massive critical and commercial hits with "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile" — arguably King's two most well-known works outside of the horror genre.

"The Mist" was a long-gestating project that filmmakers had tried and failed to bring to the big screen for years by the time Darabont got to it and turned it into a modest box-office hit.

And that ending. Man, that ending.

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12. Silver Bullet

Silver Bullet

Release date: Oct. 11, 1985

Starring: Corey Haim, Gary Busey, Everett McGill, Megan Follows, Terry O'Quinn,

Director: Dan Attias

Bottom line: Upon its release in 1985, "Silver Bullet" came and went with little fanfare at the box office — possibly because the name of King's original work was changed from "Cycle of the Werewolf" for its film release.

Corey Haim and Gary Busey work incredibly well together. The scenes between Busey as Uncle Red and Haim as his nephew are some of the funnest to watch. And nothing tops the werewolf transformation and brutality that this movie offers.

It's definitely one of the best werewolf movies of all time and King's only real foray into that genre.

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11. Christine

Christine

Release date: Dec. 9, 1983

Starring: Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky, Harry Dean Stanton

Director: John Carpenter

Bottom line: What happens when you mix the greatest horror director of all time and the greatest horror writer of all time? Well, we got "Christine," a story about a haunted car. Although we wish we could have got even more pairings of director John Carpenter and Stephen King.

"Christine" is a really entertaining film despite some of the things holding it back — mainly bad casting — and only falls off a little bit over the last 30 minutes.

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10. Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary

Release date: April, 21, 1989

Starring: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Grosby, Brad Greenquist, Michael Lombard, Miko Hughes, Blaze Berdahl

Director: Mary Lambert

Bottom line: We're not sure how the film version of "Pet Sematary" wasn't a bigger hit. Because it's awesome.

It did pretty well at the box office, making $52.5 million with an $11.5 million budget. But it had a few things holding it back. Mainly, King worked into his contract when selling the rights that the movie had to be filmed in Maine, which must have been tough to broach when approaching stars for the project.

This was one of King's better screenplays as well.

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9. Salem's Lot

Salem's Lot

Release date: Nov. 17, 1979 (2 episodes)

Starring: David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia, Lew Ayres

Director: Tobe Hooper

Bottom line: Television executives learned that Stephen King was bankable at the box office and in the Nielsen ratings thanks to the two-part miniseries "Salem's Lot" — a terrifying vampire tale released in 1979.

It doesn't always work when King's works have to get winnowed down, and characters get combined or parts get deleted. Thankfully they had a talented director in Tobe Hooper ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") and a talented writer in Paul Monash, who had already worked on another King adaptation with "Carrie" in 1976.

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8. Dolores Clairborne

Dolores Clairborne

Release date: March 24, 1995

Starring: Kathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Strathairn, John C. Reilly, Eric Bogosian, Christopher Plummer

Director: Taylor Hackford

Bottom line: This is probably the most underrated Stephen King adaptation of all time and arguably a better performance by Kathy Bates than her Oscar-winning role five years earlier in "Misery" co-starring James Caan.

A lot of that can be credited to having a two-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter on the team in Tony Gilroy ("Michael Clayton") and an Academy Award-nominated director behind the camera in Taylor Hackford ("Ray") along with some great supporting roles from David Trathairn, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Christopher Plummer.

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7. It/It Chapter Two

Release date: Sept. 8, 2017 (It), Sept. 6, 2019 (It Chapter Two)

Starring: Bill Skarsgard, Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransome, Andy Bean, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Olaf, Jack Dylan Grazer, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Chosen Jacobs, Jaeden Martell, Sophia Lillis

Director: Andy Muschietti

Bottom Line: It's tough to separate the two chapters of "It" from each other even though they were released two years apart, the movies were meant to be told as one story by director Andy Muschietti.

Fans of the beloved 1990 television miniseries were blown away by the first (and better) chapter of the adaptation, which gives center stage to a group of young actors.

These movies were both huge box-office hits, grossing a combined $1.19 billion at the box office against a budget of just over $100 million.

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6. Misery

Misery

Release date: Nov. 30, 1990

Starring: Kathy Bates, James Caan, Frances Sternhagen, Lauren Bacall, Richard Farnsworth

Director: Rob Reiner

Bottom Line: We all learned who Kathy Bates was with her performance as Annie Wilkes in "Misery" for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1991, making it the first and only time one of King's works won an Oscar.

The "hobbling" scene in the movie is one of the more disturbing in all of movie history. Rob Reiner's second attempt at adapting a King novel after "Stand By Me" in 1986 was just as great.

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5. The Outsider

The Outsider

Release date: Jan. 12, 2020 (10 episodes)

Starring: Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Erivo, Bill Camp, Julianne Nicholson, Mare Winningham, Paddy Considine, Jason Bateman Jeremy Bobb, March Menchaca

Creator: Richard Price

Bottom Line: The Stephen King treatment never had a better conduit when it came to a writer than Richard Price, the author of such classics as "Lush Life" and "Clockers," who adapted "The Outsider" for HBO.

Price's writing, which is nothing short of a revelation, finds some perfect vessels for acting with stars Ben Mendelsohn and two-time Academy Award nominee Cynthia Erivo as Investigator Holly Gibney.

The show gets cooking in its first two episodes thanks to the great direction of Jason Bateman, who has a supporting role in the series.

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4. Carrie

Carrie

Release date: Nov. 3, 1976

Starring: Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, William Katt, Nancy Allen, John Travolta, Piper Laurie

Director: Brian De Palma

Bottom Line: The adaptation of Stephen King's first novel managed to hit on all cylinders both in front of and behind the camera, mainly with Sissy Spacek in the title role as the outcast teenager with telekinetic powers.

While Spacek was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and Piper Laurie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for portraying her mother, it was director Brian De Palma who ended up being the real star.

De Palma went on to direct Hollywood classics like "Scarface" and "The Untouchables" along with box-office smash "Mission: Impossible" starring Tom Cruise.

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3. The Shining

The Shining

Release date: May 23, 1980

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Bottom line: The history of "The Shining" usually comes back to an unusually bad look for Stephen King, who famously beefed with director Stanley Kubrick over his adaptation. We can obviously look back and say King needed to lay back in the cut on this one.

Jack Nicholson brought one of the most famous characters in movie history to life with tortured, haunted writer Jack Torrance, but we need to give props to Shelley Duvall as his wife and, more than anything, Scatman Crothers as Dick Halloran. Because he's damn good.

King finally got to do his version of "The Shining" as a TV miniseries in 1997, although it paled in comparison to Kubrick's take.

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2. The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption

Release date: Sept. 23, 1994

Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Clancy Brown, James Whitmore, William Sadler, Gil Bellows

Director: Frank Darabont

Bottom line: Based on the Stephen King novella "Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption," this film became one of the most beloved movies of all time after epic star turns from Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

Nominated for seven Academy Awards in one of the greatest movie years of all time — "Pulp Fiction" and "Forrest Gump" were also released in 1994 — "Shawshank" has only become more popular through the years.

There's one crazy casting twist, too. The main character of wrongly accused banker Andy Dufresne was a role turned down by Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Kevin Costner before it fell in Robbins' lap.

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1. Stand By Me

Stand By Me

Release date: Aug. 22, 1986

Starring: River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, John Cusack

Director: Rob Reiner

Bottom line: The greatest coming-of-age movie of all time? Maybe. The greatest Stephen King adaptation of all time? Definitely. And that's saying something considering the competition.

This infinitely rewatchable movie from director Rob Reiner chugs along like the train our heroes have to outrun on the way to find the body of missing boy Ray Brower. It's all thanks to the stellar performances of a young cast led by River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell. Kiefer Sutherland is also wonderful as the ruthless bully out for the boys' blood.

"Stand By Me" was a box-office hit and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay along with Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture Drama and Best Director for Reiner.

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