Best Stephen King Movies and TV Shows — The Ultimate List

Good STEPHEN KING MOVIES

19. Doctor Sleep (2019)

Secret Window takes a bare-bones, overly-simple premise and executes it pretty darn well. The setup is a familiar one — a writer finds the things from their book happening to them in real life. 

It’s not the most original premise and the protagonist is a stock archetype from the Stephen King stable, but there are a few interesting kinks thrown into the narrative. Johnny Depp’s performance is quite good, going so far as to elevate the surrounding material a fair bit.

John Turturro gives a memorable performance as well. The film’s one major drawback is its twist ending which is both predictable and cliché.

1408 follows John Cusack as a ghost debunker who travels to supposedly haunted locations and dispels the myths. Within the confines of Room 1408, he finally comes face-to-face with true supernatural terror. The film employs a Groundhog Day-esque framing device that resets the room from time to time as our protagonist tries desperately to escape.

It’s a bottle film for all intents and purposes and a pretty good one in that regard. The scares are creative and the film keeps up a fast pace from beginning to end. Samuel L. Jackson fans, don’t get your hopes up. His face might be huge on the poster but he’s hardly in the film; his role is little more than a cameo.

Stephen King films

15. Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Creepshow is a cult classic horror film and an exciting team-up between horror legends. With Stephen King writing, George A. Romero directing, and Tom Savini doing the special effects makeup, this one was bound for success.

Creepshow may have landed higher on this list if it weren't only a partial King adaptation. Creepshow as a whole was crafted as a tribute to the E.C. Comics of the 1950s. And while Stephen King did pen the original screenplay, only two of the film’s five anthology segments were adapted from King’s pre-existing short stories, while the other segments were comprised of entirely fresh material.

Stephen King films

9. Gerald’s Game (2017)

Gerald’s Game is a Netflix original from director Mike Flanagan. Flanagan has been making quite a name for himself amongst horror directors in recent years. And he might even be carving out a niche as the modern go-to director for Stephen King adaptations. He's got two already under his belt and a third already slated for production.

Check out the recent Doctor Sleep for another Flanagan + King project. Gerald’s Game makes the most of its contained setting and is bolstered by some excellent performances from Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, and Henry Thomas.

Somewhat infamous for its horrifically dour ending, The Mist released to a mixed reception but audiences have since come around toward more widespread acclaim. In a similar vein to other alternate cuts such as Mad Max: Fury Road - Black and Chrome and Logan: Noire, Frank Darabont’s director’s cut of The Mist is presented in glorious black and white.

The original color release was done at the insistence of the studio and against Darabont’s initial intentions of releasing the film theatrically in black and white. If you’re only going to watch one version of The Mist, make it the B&W cut, it’s an improvement all around.

By the way, don’t bother with the 2017 TV adaptation, it stinks.

From one of the more prolific Stephen King adaptation directors, Frank Darabont, came The Green Mile. This was Darabont’s second King adaptation, second King prison-set movie, and the second of his to make this list after The Mist.

The Green Mile has just a pinch of magical realism in a gripping tale of life on death row. The performances are fantastic across the board, especially that of the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan.

1976’s Carrie was actually the first film to be adapted from one of Stephen King’s novels, hitting theaters just two years after the release of the book — King's first novel. Carrie is one Stephen King story that has been remade more than once, but most everyone agrees that the best telling of this classic story is this original version from Brian De Palma.

Somewhat early on in the legendary director’s filmography, Carrie saw De Palma furthering and refining his iconic editing and use of split screens which he first played around with in 1972’s Sisters.

Here’s the other Frank Darabont + Stephen King prison movie we teased. The Shawshank Redemption is without a doubt one of Stephen King’s most grounded stories, no horror, no overt murders, no supernatural element.

Shawshank, being as stripped down as it is, also ensures that it’s one of the legendary author’s most poignant and human.

Darabont does masterful work behind the camera, and the Tim Robbins & Morgan Freeman duo is one for the ages.

From master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick came an enduring horror classic by the name of The Shining. An all-time great of the horror genre and a full-fledged masterwork of cinema. A case could surely be made for The Shining to take the #1 spot, but there’s one little hitch: Stephen King hated it.

Kubrick’s film was a very “loose” adaptation of the 1977 novel to say the least. King disliked Kubrick’s take on his material, so much so that he eventually had an alternate, more-faithful version made in the form of a three-part mini-series released in 1997.

If you’re curious, go ahead and check out the mini-series, but know that you’re safe sticking with the Kubrick film.

Rob Reiner returned to the Stephen King well four years after making the wildly successful Stand By Me. Misery just might be the best bottle film, or one-location film, ever made.

The premise is a simple, stripped down concept played to absolute perfection. Carried almost entirely by a Kathy Bates and James Caan double act, there isn’t a single wasted moment in Misery.

A remarkable sense of tension envelopes the entire film which crescendos to a wonderful finale.