I’m sounding the news alarm — this is a big one. Horror master Stephen King has released a list of his top 10 favorite movies, and as you’d expect, it’s one hell of a lineup.
“My 10 favorite movies (excluding MISERY, SHAWSHANK, GREEN MILE, STAND BY ME),” the beloved horror novelist wrote on X Twitter before listing his favorites “in no particular order.”
That list contained the following films: Sorcerer, The Godfather 2, The Getaway, Groundhog Day, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Jaws, Mean Streets, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Double Indemnity.
Stephen King Top 10 favorite movies:
- SORCERER
- GODFATHER 2
- THE GETAWAY
- GROUNDHOG DAY
- CASABLANCA
- TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE
- JAWS
- MEAN STREETS
- CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3rd KIND
- DOUBLE INDEMNITY
Interestingly enough, King’s list — which totally rocks, by the way — doesn’t push past 1993 in terms of release dates, as that’s the year Groundhog Day was released. So it stands to reason that nothing in the modern era has swayed him enough to take over one of the coveted favorite spots from older releases that made an impression on him in his younger years. That said, the list is top-to-bottom heaters, so it doesn’t necessarily need anything newer.
King made it a point to keep his own film adaptations out of the ranking process, but it would be interesting to see how he would rank the adaptations of his work based on which he personally enjoys most. Clearly, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and Stand By Me would end up pretty high on that list, considering King made it a point to single them out in his Twitter post — but as for where the rest of his films would land, it’s anybody’s guess.
When it comes to film adaptations, it seems as though there’s more and more coming from King’s work every year. But it looks like there may be an unmissable one on our hands now with The Long Walk. IGN’s review calls the film “a timely and powerful condemnation of normalized violence” that makes “the value of friendship and kindness feel all the more powerful.”
The Long Walk arrives in theaters on September 12.
Photo by Manny Hernandez/Getty Images.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
