As another Stephen King thriller is set to hit theaters, the bestselling author has revealed his 10 favorite movies of all time.
King took to X to post the list, which comes as the Lionsgate film The Long Walk — which is based on King’s 1979 dystopian novel — is set to stroll into theaters this month.
The author listed his favorites, but first noted his list excludes four particular films that were based on his novels or novellas.
The four titles he left out (because, one assumes, they would otherwise likely be among his personal Top 10) are 1990’s Misery, 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption, 1986’s Stand by Me and 1999’s The Green Mile. All four are frequently cited among the best King adaptations. Misery and Stand by Me notably share the same director (Rob Reiner), as do Shawshank and Mile (Frank Darabont). Also, two of them (Stand by Me and Shawshank) were based on novellas from the same collection of four stories (Different Seasons). Only one title, Misery, would be classified as a horror story despite it being the genre most strongly associated with King.
(If you’re surprised 1980’s The Shining isn’t on his list of favorite adaptations, King famously had many objections to Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film, saying, among other things, “The character of Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie. Absolutely no arc at all. All he does is get crazier. In the book, he’s a guy who’s struggling with his sanity and finally loses it … [the film is] like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it”).
As for his list of favorite films of all time that are not based on his published works, he said the following titles were “in no particular order”: 1977’s Sorcerer, 1974’s The Godfather Part II, 1972’s The Getaway, 1993’s Groundhog Day, 1943’s Casablanca, 1948’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1975’s Jaws, 1973’s Mean Streets, 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1944’s Double Indemnity.
Several of these are rather common best-of-all-time choices, such as Spielberg’s Jaws and Close Encounters, Michael Curtiz’ Casablanca, Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather Part II and Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity. Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day, too, is considered a quasi-modern masterpiece by many.
Mean Streets is an interesting choice, however, as few would rank it among Martin Scorsese’s best films (we sure didn’t).
Another intriguing pick is The Getaway (we’re assuming King means the 1972 version and not the 1994 remake). The gritty Sam Peckinpah crime drama is based on Jim Thompson’s 1958 novel, and King is a big fan of Thompson’s work.
There definitely seems to be a time period sweet spot to the list, with six of the films from the 1970s, back when King was in 20s.
Which brings us to the most surprising pick on the list: William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. The rather confusingly titled film is a bit like Treasure of the Sierra Madre and tells the story of four fugitives from very different backgrounds taking refuge in a Central American village who agree to transport trucks loaded with unstable explosives across perilous jungle roads. The film was a box office flop upon its release, though has gained some critical favor in the years since. It’s most notable for this incredibly riveting “how did they do that?” sequence where the trucks have to cross a rickety wooden bridge over a river during a rainstorm.
