Shining examples: The 15 best Stephen King movies and miniseries, ranked

is far from perfect. A loose adaptation of the 1982 King novel (written under his occasional pseudonym Richard Bachman), it forces Arnold Schwarzenegger into ridiculous dress-up as he plays a framed policeman running a gauntlet of televised life-or-death challenges for his freedom. It also looks flat thanks to Paul Michael Glaser, an actor still finding his feet as a movie director. However, as a think-piece on the brutal and embarrassing nature of reality television, The Running Man feels prescient. It’s also full of some of the most entertainingly trash one-liners of the Governator’s career. “Here’s Subzero, now plain zero!” anyone?

Tim Curry “Wa-ha! Wa-ha!”-ed his way into millennial children’s nightmares with his iconic performance as Pennywise in 1990’s TV adaptation of It. The transvestite-turned-killer-clown remains the greatest part of this miniseries, with the hilariously twisted joy his character gets out of killing infants making us almost root for that centuries-old baddie. The rest of the three hours are hit and miss, suffering from the It issue of the kids being more interesting than the adults. Plus, with Jonathan Brandis and a fresh-faced Seth Green among the cast, the youngsters often out-act their elders, as well.

By virtue of directing The Haunting Of Hill House, Doctor Sleep, Midnight Mass, and The Midnight Club in the space of half a decade, Mike Flanagan is now regarded as horror’s (and Netflix’s) busiest auteur. The psychological-thriller started his collaboration with the streaming service and he plucked every second of tension out of the King tale he could. Lead Carla Gugino gives a great performance, sustaining all the drama by herself as she frequently performs with no one else on-screen.

Although The Thing is hallowed as a sci-fi/horror classic, it bombed at the box office in 1982. As a result, John Carpenter’s following film was “a job” as opposed to a “personal project”: he openly admits to directing –based on the 1983 King novel about a killer car, which the director didn’t find scary–for the paycheck. Such is his talent that he was still able to create an endearing and quintessentially ’80s horror comedy. The soundtrack and the practical effects of the car rebuilding itself are especially brilliant touches.

found immortality by having the bleakest ending in blockbuster history: a conclusion so twisted that King—the master of horror, remember—said he wished he came up with it. It was the brainchild of Frank Darabont, a director on his third and final King adaptation, all of which are excellent. He was also about to become showrunner of The Walking Dead, and that series and this movie share a theme of exploring human behavior in the face of certain death. As good as it is, all you’ll think about once you’ve seen it is still that freaking ending.

Although is officially a George A. Romero joint, King’s presence feels just as powerful as he writes and stars in this anthology horror/comedy. As main character Jordy Verrill in a segment called, well … The Lonesome Death Of Jordy Verrill, the master of horror overacts his ass off in a successful bid for goofy brilliance. His workmanship feels at its best during Something To Tide You Over: a legitimately tense mini-movie where Leslie Nielsen plays against type as an unfeeling murderer and becomes the scariest part of the entire film.

This miniseries, directed by Texas Chain Saw Massacre mastermind Tobe Hooper, almost single-handedly resurrected the vampire myth in pop culture. Before Hooper brought King’s 1975 novel of the same name (except for an apostrophe before the S in Salem) to American TVs in 1979, vampires were passé, rendered impotent by decades of cheesy Universal sequels and Hammer horrors. Afterwards, well … we got Fright Night, The Lost Boys, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and so on. updated Nosferatu for your everyday 20th-century town, and moments like the floating boy at the window and the cemetery jumpscare remain terrifyingly brilliant.

King’s 1986 novel It weighs in at over 1,100 pages and time-hops between its protagonists as adults and children, so director Andy Muschietti decided it’d be ideal as a two-part film series. However, since a killer clown stalking children is inherently the scarier prospect, stands head and shoulders above the sequel. The opening scene of a kid being groomed, maimed, and murdered is legitimately uncomfortable, after which the rest of the film is carried by committed child actors, as well as Bill Skarsgård, who’s clearly relishing every second as Pennywise. Shame that Chapter Two dropped the ball(oon).

Despite being based on a more obscure King novella and directed by relative unknown Zak Hilditch, is a suspenseful tale of murder and madness. In the year of take-a-wild-freaking-guess, farmer Wilfred James murders his wife to stop her from selling their land. Even more inexcusable is that he coerces his teenage son into the plan. Cue a classic story of cover-ups, paranoia, and, because it’s Stephen King, ghosts. The Mist’s Thomas Jane shines (ironically) as the increasingly grubby and guilt-stricken Wilfred as he deteriorates through 100 minutes of hell.

Rob Reiner and Stephen King seemed like creatives with clashing visions in the early-to-mid ’80s. While Reiner’s movie directing resume at the time consisted solely of the comedies This Is Spinal Tap and The Sure Thing, King mostly lived in horror. However, revealed that both shared a sentimental heart, as the director wove King’s coming-of-age novella The Body into an earnest movie. Using a hyper-talented child cast—that included River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell—the film celebrates friendship’s power to let children escape even the most arduous and torturous of upbringings. Also, the soundtrack is underrated in its nostalgic brilliance.

is a Rob Reiner film based on the most quintessentially Stephen King of nightmares: a writer being abducted and tortured by an obsessed fan. However, the most powerful presence in this 1990 adaptation is Kathy Bates, who would win a Best Actress Oscar for her performance. As Annie Wilkes, she keeps the audience on edge for nearly two hours by flip-flopping between sadistic and loving, seemingly at random. Whether or not James Caan’s Paul Sheldon is gonna see a psychopath or the world’s best nurse as he’s injured in bed is a question that never stops being butt-clenchingly tense.

You could call a cash-in on the home video success of The Shawshank Redemption, since it reunites writer/director Frank Darabont with a Stephen King story and then throws in Tom Hanks, who was originally offered Shawshank’s lead role of Andy Dufresne. However, it’s an excellent cash-in. Although Hanks is typically great, the show-stealer here is Michael Clarke Duncan, who plays beautifully against type as gentle giant John Coffey. The innocence of this supernatural dead man walking in an unjust world is so moving that, in that scene where he says he’s afraid of the dark, we all have “something in our eye.”

is exceptional because you can see the ending coming from almost the beginning of the movie, yet it still blows your mind when it happens. That’s assuming, of course, that it’s not been spoiled for you because of how damn good it is: the stabbing soundtrack, dramatic lighting, and alien-feeling split-screens made the conclusion so horrifying that it’s been referenced in almost every corner of pop culture. The rest of the flick’s so cruel to its meek protagonist that it’s hard to watch, but you still stick around for that insane payoff.

Rightly positioned near the top of almost everybody’s “best movies of all time” list, is the ultimate tale of endurance and bittersweet triumph. Granted, there’s no redemption because Andy Dufresne was never guilty of what got him locked up in Shawshank to begin with. However, condensing his lifetime into three hours made this an emotional rollercoaster, and the peaks and bumps only grew more emotionally powerful with the deft direction and writing of Frank Darabont. It helps that every single actor, especially Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, brought their A-game to each day of shooting.