Stephen King isn’t just an author by this point: He’s an institution, a legacy of classic horror stories that capture our imaginations, fuel our nightmares, and speak — when he’s at his best — to our shared experiences as flawed, emotional beings. The best King stories scare so many of us that we all feel connected, and even the worst are usually pretty fun.
King’s books and short stories quickly became hit movies, many of them celebrated in their time, and some flopped so hard that hardly anybody remembers them. Cataloguing every adaptation might be a fool’s errand, so we made some tough choices and decided to focus only on his theatrical releases.