12 of the Greatest Movies Based on the Works of Stephen King (Ranked)!

Source Material: "Children of the Corn," a short story found in the 1978 collection Night Shift




Starring: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong, John Franklin, Courtney Gains (Dir. Fritz Kiersch)




While not one of the most beloved films based on King's work, Children of the Corn left an undeniable mark on pop culture and forever made people wary of both rural corn fields and quiet blond children. Plus, the film led to eight sequels (each with a more ridiculous name than the last). It's the only film on the list that can make that kind of boast.

Source Material: The 1979 novel The Dead Zone




Starring: Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt (Dir. David Cronenberg)




This story about a man who awakens from a coma to discover he has psychic powers is a tense thriller whose themes of nuclear tensions with Russian ring true even today. The Dead Zone was also adapted into a surprisingly enjoyable TV series starring Anthony Michael Hall.

Source Material: The novella "The Mist," published in the 1985 collection Skeleton Crew




Starring: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, William Sadler, Laurie Holden (Dir. Frank Darabont)




Despite its many faults -- almost all of which were the result of a limited budget and an overdependence on lackluster CGI -- Frank Darabont's adaptation of The Mist remains a nail-biting look at societal collapse, fanaticism, hopelessness and desperation. While its unimaginably bleak conclusion makes it impossible to walk away feeling good about the world, its taut pacing and brilliant performances make for a memorable horror thriller (albeit one you might not have the emotional fortitude to rewatch right away).

Source Material: "Apt Pupil," a novella from the 1982 collection Different Seasons




Starring: Ian McKellen, Brad Renfro, David Schwimmer, Bruce Davison (Dir. Bryan Singer)



Apt Pupil is one of the darkest movies made in the 1990s, and it tells a brutal story with basically no one to support or root for. The film follows a high school student named Todd (Renfro) who discovered his elderly neighbor (McKellen) is actually a fugitive Nazi war criminal who has avoided prosecution for decades. Todd, who is obsessed with the Holocaust, blackmails his neighbor into teaching him about what it was like to be a Nazi, and the two inspire each other to become violent monsters. It's a bleak foray into the mind of irredeemable evil.

Source Material: The Running Man, the 1982 novel published under the King pseudonym Richard Bachman




Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Jesse Ventura (Dir. Paul Michael Glaser)




This story of a fascist future where criminals are forced to play a deadly game as part of a reality show (hosted by the incomparable Dawson) remains one of Schwarzenegger's best action set pieces and has some true moments of clever satire and violent insanity on par with Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 masterpiece RoboCop. It's infinitely replayable and its themes of voyeurism and violence as entertainment turned out to be surprisingly prescient.

Source Material: Carrie, King’s debut 1974 novel




Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta, Nancy Allen (Dir. Brian De Palma)




Based on the first book King ever published, Carrie is also the first film adaptation of his works. De Palma delivered a frightening, uncomfortable tale of revenge and super-questionable parenting. While the bloody prom became one of the movie's most iconic scenes, Carrie's (Spacek) face-off against her overbearing, demented mother (Laurie) is easily the highlight. In fact, Spacek and Laurie were both nominated for Oscars for their performances. One unfortunate low point in is the laughable dream sequence ending that was absolutely not a part of King's novel.

Source Material: The 1987 novel Misery




Starring: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Richard Farnsworth, Lauren Bacall (Dir. Rob Reiner)




If you've never seen the infamous "hobbling" scene in Misery, you've never felt the true impact a movie can have on your psyche. The story follows a writer who gets into a crash and is rescued (and then imprisoned) by a crazed fan. But really, all you need to know is there's an infamous "hobbling" scene. Also, Bates won an Oscar for her powerhouse performance (but it was probably mostly due to the "hobbling" scene).

Source Material: The novella "The Body," from the 1982 collection Different Seasons




Starring: Wil Wheaton, Richard Dreyfuss, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, John Cusack (Dir. Rob Reiner)




This coming-of-age story is about four friends who go on a journey through Oregon looking for the dead body of a missing boy. Along the way, they cross paths with murderous bullies and almost get hit by a train. Reiner (who also directed Misery, and knows his way around adapting King's non-supernatural dramas) does a masterful job of capturing childhood friendship and the honesty of what it's like to be a kid who's in over his head. The film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and has become one of the most iconic bildungsroman tales in cinematic history.

Source Material: The short story "1408," published in the 2002 collection Everything's Eventual




Starring: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack (Dir. Mikael Håfström)




While stretching a short story into a full-length feature can sometimes lead to a mess of a film, in the case of 1408, it created a vibrant, terrifying ghost story packed with legitimate fears, mind-bending twists and deeply unsettling scares. Cusack stars as a professional skeptic who writes books about haunted locales and comes to the Dolphin hotel to spend the night in its spooky, ghost-filled unit -- the eponymous room 1408. The hotel's manager tries to warn him, and soon the writer realizes that this is one ghost story that's incredibly true and impossible to escape.

Source Material: The 1996 novel The Green Mile




Starring: Tom Hanks, David Morse, Michael Clarke Duncan, James Cromwell, Doug Hutchison, Sam Rockwell, Barry Pepper, Bonnie Hunt, Gary Sinise (Dir. Frank Darabont)




This prison drama, set on death row in 1935, features some of the most dynamic performances you could imagine and a story of regret, disillusionment and sorrow that leaves you haunted. While primarily set in reality, the film features some of King's well-known paranormal aspects -- like a prison inmate with magical healing gifts -- but the thrust of the drama comes from the interpersonal human relationships that guide the events that occur in the titular green mile. The film ended up earning four Oscar noms, including Best Picture, Best Sound Mixing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Duncan.

Source Material: "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," a novella from Different Seasons



Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, Clancy Brown (Dir. Frank Darabont)




Darabont makes his third appearance on the list in this deeply moving and critically beloved prison drama, which tells the story of an accountant who is wrongfully convicted of murder and is forced to cook the books for a corrupt prison warden. The powerful friendship between Andy (Robbins) and Red (Freeman) is one of the most heartfelt on-screen relationships of the last 40 years, and Andy's famous prison escape is one of the most iconic scenes in history. There's a reason the film was nominated for seven Oscars and is considered by many to be one of the best movies ever made.

Source Material: The 1977 novel The Shining




Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Joe Turkel (Dir. Stanley Kubrick)



While many films on this list were glowing stand-outs in their genres, The Shining completely redefined what a horror movie was. Kubrick's celebrated masterwork of insanity and claustrophobia tells the story of a troubled father (Nicholson) who gets a job as the caretaker of an isolated hotel while it's closed for the winter and brings his family along to catastrophic results. No adaptation of King's work has inspired the legacy, the fan base and the downright obsession that The Shining has. It's been parodied by The Simpsons, it’s been remade in a TV miniseries and there's even a brilliant (if totally bonkers) documentary dedicated to deciphering the film’s many hidden codes and clandestine layers. Pound for pound, you'll never see another performance as frightening as Nicholson's, and you'll never see an actress as legitimately terrified for her life as Duvall. And you'll never feel comfortable about little kids with imaginary friends ever again.