Even the bad ones float

July 29, 2016 7:46 PM

All 58 Stephen King Movie and TV Series Adaptations, Ranked
posted by Artw (53 comments total)

The order isn't too off, but this is way too lenient in the descriptions. Calling The Langoliers "A decent thriller/mystery, with the added bonus of monsters" is, well, some parts are technically true, but when the monsters look like this (skip ahead a little if you like), it's hard to consider them a "bonus" of any kind. (Also, that acting)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 8:06 PM on July 29, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm going to get angry after I click on this, aren't I.
posted by middleclasstool at 8:11 PM on July 29, 2016 [14 favorites]

There was a time in the eighties when I probably had seen every King adaptation made. Looking at this list, I see a lot of things that I did not know had been filmed (Cell) or had just never heard of (Desperation). I can't much ague with the rankings – I think the lowest-ranked thing I have seen is Silver Bullet at #36, which made such a slight impression on me that I can tell you only that I saw it on pay TV in the late eighties (Ah, the First Choice vs Superchannel standoff).
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:12 PM on July 29, 2016

Needful Things at 49, okay yeah, angry
posted by middleclasstool at 8:13 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm angry at Needful Things. About the thing with the dog. That's unfair of me, but I was fourteen and in the theater and I was just miserable all day.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:19 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Cell hasn't come out in theaters yet. It was filmed a couple years ago and the distribution got held up for some reason. (I'm a Cusack fan and I've been waiting for this.)

I'm surprised how highly Dreamcatchers was ranked - wasn't that supposed to suck? It's the one with the monster everyone described as "shit weasels"?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:21 PM on July 29, 2016

Random notes:

* I haven't seen Quicksilver Highway, but I can't accept that a film with Christopher Lloyd is dead last. That just can't be right.

* Max von Sydow is in Needful Things? Guess I gotta see that now.

* I...must know what would have happened on the Carrie TV show. Does she solve crimes? Is it basically The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt?

* Anton Yelchin was the kid in Hearts in Atlantis. I feel very old and very sad.

* I want to see the Mist TV show, against my own better judgment. It'll probably be some dumb Walking Dead with big bugs thing, but it could be terrifying if it stuck closer to the Lovecraftian, alien elements of the original story.

* Holy shit, Secret Window was so bad.

* Are you fucking crazy with this original 'Salem's Lot way down at 22 shit?

* Dreamcatcher should be #58.

* ...Unless Children of the Corn is #58.

* I love John Carpenter, too, but Christine is ranked way too high on this list.

* Man, you have to be SO HIGH to rank Cujo over most of these films, but especially Stand by Me. Just what are you even doing.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:22 PM on July 29, 2016 [12 favorites]

Calling The Langoliers "A decent thriller/mystery, with the added bonus of monsters" is, well, some parts are technically true, but when the monsters look like this yt (skip ahead a little if you like), it's hard to consider them a "bonus" of any kind. (Also, that acting)

Yeah, the CGI hasn't aged well, but I remember being freaked out by those things when it first aired.

As for the acting, I remember a coworker loving Pinchot's performance, particularly the listening-to-slowly-tearing-paper quirk he had.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:32 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am not always one to hate on listicle type articles about movies/books/tv shows, but I get faintly annoyed when the criteria for the ranking isn't laid out. Ranked by what? Faithfulness to source material? Quality of adaptation? Its merits as a film/tv show regardless of source material?

Like, I think The Stand miniseries isn't too bad as a relatively faithful adaptation to the source material, but its merits as a miniseries in terms of acting, cinematography, and screenplay adaptation are questionable. A good adaptation of The Stand would have done something much, much better with the showdown in Las Vegas than Stephen King did in the original. I think It has similar problems. For instance, from a narrative standpoint defeating The Evil using the weapons of childhood is a cool idea, but is borderline unfilmable.

By contrast, The Shining, Stand By Me, Misery, The Green Mile, The Mist, and Shawshank Redemption are all pretty good movies that happen to be based on fiction penned by Stephen King. But they are all more or less successful if the yardstick measures faithfulness to source material. For example, Kubrick's adaptation had almost nothing to do with the source material but I would strongly argue that Kubrick's Jack is more frightening and monstrous than anything King put on the page because King externalized Jack's breakdown while Kubrick did more of a character study.

I guess what I'm saying here is that I disagree with this list. It's a nice list of things based on Stephen King stuff, but a meaningful "ranking" it is not.
posted by xyzzy at 8:32 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

In conclusion, Stephen King is a Man of Contrasts.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 8:35 PM on July 29, 2016 [16 favorites]

So many of these are so, SO, SO incredibly off that I'm scratching my head at nearly half of the list that I actually recognize. I could rip apart half of this list apart (Night Flyer that low? WTF? Secret Window that high?????? Lawnmower Man in the top half?????????)

Stephen King is so interesting in that we can separate his works into so many separate, fully formed lists. Like. I think it's kind of amazing that films like: The Night Flyer, The Mangler, and The Night Shift can be on the exact same list as The Shining, Misery, The Dead Zone, and Christine. A great storyteller might manage that. But then we can do The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Stand By Me, and The Stand.

How many artists can manage that? That amount of range? Masterpieces of all sorts of shades.

But these rankings are such utter garbage that I can feel my blood pressure rising. Night Flyer is second to last? Seriously? Graveyard Shift is in the bottom five????? (Graveyard Shift is one of my favourite King movies, I think it captures a certain flavour of his better than any other project). The Lawnmower Man is #37? No. No. No. No. The Langoliers at #37? HAHAHAHAH. No. Tommyknockers? Hahaha. Secret Window that high and The Mist that low? No. Salem's Lot original and remake occupying neighboring spots? No. DREAMCATCHER IN THE TOP HALF? Firestarter?

I can't make out the authors taste. If this was a person who was telling me about this in real life I would seriously question if they had ever actually more than half of these. There is NO consistency, no real patterns. Also GIANT middle fingers up for not including Storm of the Century which stars Colm Feore and is better than half the garbage on this list. Also no Rose Red (which is garbage). At least they're a thousand more interesting than some of the things that actually made the list.

A few years ago I tried to watch just about every Stephen King adaption (which is very time consuming and super hard) and discovered so many neat and interesting failures. And whatever, some of my favourite King movies (Night Flyers and Graveyard Shift) are at the very bottom of this list. I don't think they're terribly. They're not a waste of time at the very least. Langoliers? The Mangler? Under the Dome? Lawnmower Man? Those waste your time.
posted by Neronomius at 8:36 PM on July 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I haven't seen Quicksilver Highway, but I can't accept that a film with Christopher Lloyd is dead last. That just can't be right.

Christopher Lloyd only appears in the frame stories, and I don't know about dead last, but yeah, bottom decile for sure.

Also, Bag of Bones is incredibly bad.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:38 PM on July 29, 2016

To be fair, Storm of the Century was an original screenplay, and so is disqualified from a list of best adaptations. But I agree with the rest of Neronomius' objections.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:40 PM on July 29, 2016

I think Cell has been and gone at the cinema, in the US anyway, and managed to hold on to its rare 0% Rotten Tomatoes rating. King worked on the script.
posted by Artw at 8:45 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

#22 1979 Salem's Lot
#26 The Mist
#46 Silver Bullet

ALL deserve to be ranked much higher on the list, especially Silver Bullet, which absolutely hit it's mark. It's a fantastic popcorn flick. The 79 version of Salem's Lot might be King's best adoption, other than The Shining, especially since it had to overcome TV censors. Lastly, The Mist at 26 is ridiculous. I thought the shocker ending was lame, but everything leading up to it was superb. All three of these movies are top 15, easy, with Salem's Lot top five.
posted by Beholder at 8:49 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've only seen four of these, all ranked in the top six. A large, rabid dog? No thank you – and (even though I never saw it) I can't believe Cujo gets rated that highly. If Pet Sematary is #15, also, there must be some really bad movies down near the bottom of the list. I don't think I watched that one all the way through, even though I'm in it (for about a tenth of a second, in the crowd in the church where the fight starts and the child's coffin gets knocked over).

On preview: I watched a small part of Storm of the Century being filmed on the other side of our island, and thought that one pretty effective.
posted by LeLiLo at 8:49 PM on July 29, 2016

I liked The Night Flier.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 9:13 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had forgotten The Lawnmower Man. Now I'm off to find GIFs to send to Oculus Rift fanboys.
posted by benzenedream at 9:34 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

* I want to see the Mist TV show, against my own better judgment. It'll probably be some dumb Walking Dead with big bugs thing, but it could be terrifying if it stuck closer to the Lovecraftian, alien elements of the original story.

I think that was the movie? Seriously like half the cast wound up on Walking Dead.

Pretty good movie though, definitely in my personal top ten King adaptations.
posted by mannequito at 9:39 PM on July 29, 2016

I want to see the Mist TV show, against my own better judgment. It'll probably be some dumb Walking Dead with big bugs thing, but it could be terrifying if it stuck closer to the Lovecraftian, alien elements of the original story.

The biggest mistake WD made was trivializing zombies. They haven't been scary since the end of season two.
posted by Beholder at 9:49 PM on July 29, 2016

This link would probably not appear on my personal "top 100 Click-Bait-Ranking-Listicles that I've ever read", but I do appreciate the ludicrousness of choosing Stephen King adaptations as a category to apply a wholistic ranking.

Even George Miller projects is a more homogenous category. Maybe barely, but I stand by happy feet 2 and fury road having more in common than shawshank redemption and maximum overdrive.
posted by midmarch snowman at 9:59 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure at least half of these are made up.
posted by bongo_x at 10:00 PM on July 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

Stranger Things is a pretty good Stephen King adaptation. Too bad it didn't make the cut!
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:25 PM on July 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

Another crappy SK original TV project: Golden Years.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:56 PM on July 29, 2016

One of the things that gets mentioned briefly at the start is that there is a large number of short works based on King's stories. But what they don't mention is why that is - King has had a policy for some time now that new directors who can put together a decent proposal for filming one of his works as a short film can license those works for $1, as a way of fostering new talent.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:32 PM on July 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

Mission Accomplished.

I knew that Stephen King was accomplished, but I had no idea how many of his works were adapted on film. I kinda crap on him, but he helped me make it through a couple of intercontinental flights.
posted by porpoise at 11:41 PM on July 29, 2016

Dammit! I can't find it now but somewhere along the line I read an article where Stephen King rated Stephen King films. Besides a lot of inside baseball type film making stuff (on what went right, or wrong) there were a couple where he was sort of blah on the book or story being adapted and then sing the praises of the film.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:55 PM on July 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Kid Charlemagne, that sounded interesting to me so I looked around and found this.(autoplay warning) It's actually a collection of quotes from King over the years about various adaptations. I don't know if that's it but there is some interesting stuff in there, like Needful Things was originally a 4hr mini-series that was made unintelligible after being cut down to theatrical length, and the story of Rob Reiner personally screening Stand By Me for him and King scaring him with a giant hug afterwards.

Also this hilarious reaction to the Children of the Corn movies:
"My feeling for most of these things is like a guy who sends his daughter off to college. You hope she'll do well. You hope that she won't fall in with the wrong people. You hope she won't be raped at a fraternity party, which is really close to what happened to 'Children of the Corn,' in a metaphoric sense." - May 1995 interview in USA Today

There's also apparently an entire book called Stephen King Goes to the Movies, which includes some reviews of his own films.
posted by mannequito at 12:42 AM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

King has had a policy for some time now that new directors who can put together a decent proposal for filming one of his works as a short film can license those works for $1, as a way of fostering new talent.

Yup - the Dollar Babies, he calls them. He also asks for a copy of the film so he can keep it as a souvenir.

The most successful Dollar Baby was Frank Darabomt, who went on to do "Green Mile" and "Shawshank" both, and once joked that he was starting a unique genre of "Stephen King prison adaptations."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:10 AM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

Children of the Corn is its own thing -- a semi-successful attempt to create an Anerican folk horror, and a relatively successful attempt to film it. There's a lot to like about the movie.

Dreamcatcher is genuinely preposterous, in a "what was everybody thinking?" sort of way. I like them about equally, but in very different ways.
posted by maxsparber at 5:01 AM on July 30, 2016

I'm going to get angry after I click on this, aren't I.

That's usually how the Internet works in my experience.
posted by Fizz at 7:57 AM on July 30, 2016 [11 favorites]

Too low: Carrie remake, Apt Pupil, Dolores Claiborne

Too high: Maximum Overdrive, Lawnmower Man, Secret Window, Christine, Cujo
posted by box at 8:06 AM on July 30, 2016

MetaFilter: I'm going to get angry after I click on this, aren't I.
posted by XtinaS at 8:20 AM on July 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Mist at 26 is ridiculous. I thought the shocker ending was lame, but everything leading up to it was superb.

I agree that it is ranked too lowly, but I think you have the rest wrong. I was so angry throughout the entire movie and was convinced that it was the worst film I'd ever seen until the last scene. The actual horror of the horror movie starts AFTER the movie ends. How is that not wonderful?
posted by Literaryhero at 8:21 AM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Stephen King Says Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ Is Peak Stephen King
posted by Artw at 8:46 AM on July 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

Nice compilation but agreed with xyzzy about lack of criteria.

But C.U.J.O. C.U.J.O. C!U!J!O! What a time to be alive, etc. etc. Could this be the Lawnmower Man of our era?
posted by cupcakeninja at 8:46 AM on July 30, 2016

Here's the reason why the ending of the movie "The Mist" is shit, in contrast to the story.

In the story, they have these glimpses of hell but the whole thing is a big freaking mystery. You know when they get out of the supermarket that probably a big thing is going to destroy them all, but you have hope. Also the reader is like: show me a little more of this freaky hell world please no the stories over shoot I wanted more.

With the ending of "The Mist" 1) It is sort of unbelievable the dad does that than at least stagger around in the mist for a while; I mean it's not like the options are what he does or die a slow brutal death. Actually, most of the people who die are like killed instantly, right? 2) The ending is in no way foreshadowed in the movie, which makes a lot of bloody sense because whole passages of text are lifted as dialogue; they were faithful to the story in that way. And King didn't set up the !Horrible !Ironic !Ending in the story at all, so in the movie it feels unbelievably tacked on, which it was, the hacks.

I mean it would work better if at the beginning of the movie they were discussing the painful decision to put down a cat suffering from cancer that is still enjoying life but they want to put her down now while she is enjoying life. They could have slapped that hackneyed shit on and yeah hackneyed but it would have set up the ending a wee bit

Blech. That movie made me angry.
posted by angrycat at 8:48 AM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've read a good handful of the usual King, plus seen maybe 10 max of these, but I'm pretty well-disposed towards the guy. Hell, I even enjoyed Kingdom Hospital. The top two are hard-to-argue (I'd say inarguable, but I guess others get to have opinions too, yeah?). Everything else with which I'm familiar is roughly where it belongs. E.g. I read Bag Of Bones years ago which was King-by-numbers, but had its moments. I literally cannot remember if I watched the Pierce Brosnan version though. I remember seeing it in the TV guide and setting the time aside, otherwise... nothing.

Main takeaway from this list is that I should go read and watch Dolores Claiborne ASAP. I'd skipped it because I'm statistically-compelled to avoid films which are simply titled A Name, Michael Clayton. More fool me, by the look of it.
posted by comealongpole at 8:59 AM on July 30, 2016

Forgot to vote: "Langoliers Yes!"
posted by comealongpole at 9:00 AM on July 30, 2016

I'm a little too old to be playing Hardy Boys meet Reverend Werewolf!
posted by kirkaracha at 10:47 AM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

People tend to shit on it but I really loved the novel, "Needful Things". The movie is pretty awful though, it has to be said.
posted by h00py at 10:52 AM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I liked it, too, but it does take some cues from Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:46 AM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Random thoughts:
- Needful Things is crap, but it's watchable crap thanks to Max von Sydow. Same with Graveyard Shift. And Maximum Overdrive! Talk about straight up fun campy garbage. Who ranks these things?
- I had no idea they made a movie out of Night Flyer, which was a pretty meh short story except for the scene where the protagonist is looking in a mirror and sees bloody vampire piss hitting the urinal.
- The Lawnmower Man short story makes no fucking sense at all. Dude as grass-bag for a sentient evil lawnmower?
- Secret Window was straight garbage. #58 with a bullet.
posted by Existential Dread at 12:47 PM on July 30, 2016

Thing I liked about Lawnmower Man, the movie, was it took something computers are good at, like quickly cycling through jillions of things, and slowed them down to the speed which a human could move their body in a suit to point at things. Wait, did I say liked?

Lawnmower Man, the story, as I recall, was about a guy who discovers that the dude mowing his lawn was Pan, and that nothing is free.
posted by maxwelton at 1:42 PM on July 30, 2016

Walt Simonson drew a comic book version of King's original "Lawnmower Man" story (which King scripted himself); I haven't read it, but I imagine it's the most interesting byproduct of this strangely adaptation-friendly vignette that reads like King wrote it one lazy afternoon.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:21 PM on July 30, 2016

which was a pretty meh short story except for the scene where the protagonist is looking in a mirror and sees bloody vampire piss hitting the urinal.

I believe this is likewise the only memorable thing about the movie, but come on, that's pretty rad.
posted by Artw at 4:38 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh totally. The story feels like it's just a setup for that cool scene.

And I guess I missed the whole lawnmower as satyr/Pan thing. As a teenager I had a talent for skipping over context when I read.
posted by Existential Dread at 5:47 PM on July 30, 2016

The one King short I hope someone adapts well is Crouch End. That's an awesome homage to Lovecraft and the whole thin veil between worlds that Stranger Things is exploring.
posted by Existential Dread at 5:53 PM on July 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

Crouch End was adapted as an episode of Nightmares and Dreamscapes. It's a complete failure, not least because Melbourne does not in any way resemble Crouch End. See for yourself.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:00 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure it's one of the stories that really has much of a story to it, TBH. Sometimes an adaptation will take something sparse like that and turn it into gold, but often not.
posted by Artw at 6:03 PM on July 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hmm, I'll pass. I'd rather live with the awesome Crouch End in my brain than some terrible made for TV version. Too bad.
posted by Existential Dread at 6:45 PM on July 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

The actual horror of the horror movie starts AFTER the movie ends. How is that not wonderful?

You can say that about a lot of horror movies. That's actually a horror trope. Let The Right One In being a good example.
posted by Beholder at 11:35 AM on July 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Unforgivable Crime of Deviating: Carrie (1976)
posted by Artw at 10:55 AM on August 4, 2016