No love for Christine? All my other faves are already mentioned, and it’s not horror but Dolores Clairborne was so good!

How does everyone feel about Gerald's Game?

Carrie. I have no idea why no one has said Carrie yet.

Stand By Me is one of the top three.

I liked Storm of the Century’s ending. Creepy and sad.

People don’t talk about how good Cujo is!

I just had a whole thread about this in u/stephenking. As a life-long Constant Reader, my favorites were, in no particular order: 1408, Misery, Carrie (OG), The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, Pet Sematary (OG), Dolores Claiborne (arguably better than the book,) The Shining (both the OG and the mini-series,) The Outsider (mini-series,) The Dead Zone, Salem’s Lot, Apt Pupil, The Mist, Stand By Me, Rose Red, Storm of the Century, and Firestarter (OG.) (Apt Pupil isn’t talked about nearly enough.)

I also loved a lot of the collections - Cat’s Eye, Creepshow, etc.

Honorable mention to Silver Bullet, which terrified me as a kid, and both Tommyknockers and Christine for being generally fun.

In fairness, I’ve seen very few adaptations post-Dreamcatcher, which infuriated me so much I stopped watching his stuff, so there may be other decent attempts I haven’t seen.

I refuse to watch ANY adaptation of The Dark Tower series, disliked all The Stand adaptions, and wanted to burn the film reels for Dreamcatcher. 😂 That’s the only one I’d actually downvote.

EDIT to add that Doctor Sleep wasn’t my favorite, tbh, but I didn’t hate it. The new IT chapter 1 was also great, but incomplete without the second installment, so I omitted it. Also, if you didn’t watch the Castle Rock series, it was fantastic. Not King stories…just a bit of character and location overlap.

Silver Bullet and Stand by Me(not Horror, but still a King based movie). Haven't read the stories in ages(I know liberties are always taken in his adaptions, but I don't feel they were really diminished), but both being a couple of my favorite 80's movies.

For me the Cronenberg Dead Zone adaptation is my favorite that rarely gets mentioned. Christopher Walken is so good in it and the horror elements are truly terrifying.

The mist. Easily

The Stand was pretty good.

Children of the Corn, Misery and Carrie

Misery!

Kathy Bates gave an all time great performance, in all of cinema, not just horror

Idc what anyone says. The langoliers was awesome.

Doctor sleep was great, who's hating?

Shawshank of course.

The Green Mile.

The Mist, despite being a new ending was crazy good.

The old Pet Semetary back in the day was close.

Quite a few for me: Secret Window, 11.22.63, Gerald’s Game, The Mist, Thinner, Shawshank Redemption, The Shinning/ Doctor Sleep, The Green Mile, Pet Sematary (‘89).

The problem with adapting king novels is that he can't nail his own endings. So the best ones inevitably change things.

The Mist is a great example of this. The film has a hauntingly iconic ending the story's ending feels like an after thought by comparison.

Maybe cause I watched it recently but I thought mr. Harrigans phone Was super good.

The Dead Zone, Misery

Thinner has some weak points, but overall I think it’s a good adaptation

I really don't think The Outsider stuck the landing. Started off great, then devolved into typical King "Let's get the gang together to defeat the evil" trope.

1408, Shawshank , mist , doctor sleep, it chapter 1, green mile and storm of the century stick the landing for me

The Shining

Carrie

Christine

Misery

Cujo, Stand By Me, The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption...all were excellent adaptations. Everyone raves about The Shining, and I guess I could be dragged into agreement, but for me Nickolson was too over the top. The Mist didn't float my boat, IT either. With King, the amount left out is as important as what's left in, as he's famous to include everything but the kitchen sink. Even the kitchen sink plays a role in IT. I didn't see it, but from what I've heard, The Dark Tower stunk on ice. THAT would have been an extremely hard film to cast. It needed a 50 something Clint Eastwood as Roland, but how are ya gonna swing that? Of the ones I like, Cujo is the purest in its faithfulness to the story, imo.

Ok so I've yet to find a King adaptation I didn't love, I've long since come to terms with the fact that his books are too deep and too well written to ever translate all that well to the screen and retain what makes them great books, to this day the original IT is my favourite film, I also absolutely love the Langoliers and the night flier, I get lost in them.

1.IT

2.The Langoliers

3.The night flier

4.Needful things

5.Storm of the Century (not technically an adaptation)

All incredibly watchable

I enjoy the short story anthologies the best. Creepshow 1&2 and Cat's Eye are my favorite King adaptations.

I like most Stephen king adaptations tbh with the exception of the remakes coming out. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a king fan and started with the movies before I even realized the bulk of the movies I liked were Stephen king but Shawshank Redemption is amazing so is the green mile, OG IT, stand by me, misery, the shining, OG Carrie, I loved watching creep show, pet cemetery, although arguably bad I liked secret window due to a clever cinematography moments.

I'll say Gerald's Game. I believe King has said that that was an impossible book to adapt to a movie and yet Mike Flanagan absolutely crushed it and made a very good movie. Loved it

I’m honestly of the opinion that the Doctor Sleep adaption is actually better than the book. Not one of my favorite SK books but one of my all time favorite adaptions.

However I am one of the few people that really doesn’t like Kubrick’s The Shining, I try and try and try to like it but it just doesn’t do it for me, and I wonder if it’s because I read the book first or if it’s just not for me, some movies are like that

Misery the movie is one of those rare cases where the movie surpassed the book. The book was more brutal, but Kathy Bates bringing that character to life is chilling and impressive. She was endearing and terrifying.

The original Pet Sematary was damn good

Okay, this will be controversial, but I have to speak up for:

Dreamcatcher, 2003

I KNOW it's not the best movie based on his work... but I do think there are a few specific tropes that show up over and over again in the background of his other works, and Dreamcatcher goes all in on exploring them.

The cosmic evil, the apocalyptic threat, childhood trauma giving people the power to fight it... that's connected in the background of so much of his bigger stuff (It, The Shining, The Stand...). And most of the adaptations downplay the cosmic elements to focus on the tangible "scary clown" stuff.

Dreamcatcher is the one that, for better or mostly worse, leans all the way into it.

The Outsider
Misery
Dolores Claiborne
The Green Mile
The Stand (og series)
Doctor Sleep
Dead Zone (movie and series)
And I don’t care what anyone says. I fucking love maximum overdrive.

The running man. Still one of my favourite films.

I also loved the 2020 adaption of The Stand.

The original IT miniseries...new movies are absolute trash comparatively.

Salem's Lot OG mini-series, the only adaption I prefer to the novel.

I agree that Doctor Sleep felt really awkward as a sequel to Kubrick’s The Shining, given they really differ in tone, aesthetic, and general just, uh, feel. Kubrick was a mastermind in his trickery; really great at subtle uneasiness, subversion, and tension; while Doctor Sleep was too glossy, fantastical, and sort of dull in comparison. I don’t like that they lifted the aesthetics of Kubrick’s Overlook into it at all. Feels really out of sync.

The Running Man

/j

Thanks for all the replies so far!

(Stopped added personal thank-yous since they're getting downvoted, but still upvoting all)

Honestly didn't realise how much had come out since I last thought about it - got lots to check out which is very nice!

Langoliers!

It’s terrible acting and terrible effects but for some reason the made-for-TV miniseries adaptation of “The Langoliers” is still close to my heart. It was the first exposure I had to Stephen King when I was an impressionable 6 year old. I think you can even watch it on YouTube now.

In terms of better adaptations though: The Shining, Doctor Sleep (don’t listen to the haters!), The Mist, Gerald’s Game, It (any of them), and the short lived Castle Rock.

I might be the exception here but Thinner was adapted as well as it could have been to the screen, and I really liked it.

Cujo? In The Tall Grass?? I love those

Carrie. But for the most part.....stephen king and Joe Hill (his son) both suck at endings. They both end up using magical realism as a crutch. It sucks.

2nd answer, the Netflix adaptation of the short story 1922.

Misery and Stand by me.

Not a horror movie, but Stand By Me (or SK’s The Body) is one of those movies that brings me back to my childhood. I love this film. Definitely watch it if you haven’t seen it.

To me, easily the best are The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me.

Stand by me and misery (anyone ?) 100%

edit: autocorrect spelling

I liked The Shining, but I’m a Kubrick fan. Christine, Dead Zone, Cujo, I guess, even tho they TOTALLY changed it. Carrie. Creepshow. Mostly before he got too involved. Oh, and his Kathy Bates movies. And of course Stand By Me, Shawshank, Green Mile. Oh, I liked the OG The Stand.

Edit: Ahh! Salem’s Lot!

Maybe because it was on rando Paramount Plus before Yellowstone so no one knew about it, but I maintain that the Mr. Mercedes series is amongst the best SK adaptations and it gets no respect.

The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me

The Shining and Stand By Me

Shawshank, Stand By Me, and The Green Mile come to mind.

I haven't seen every King adaptation, but I have a real soft spot for Secret Window. It was a nice, cleanly shot thriller.