With Carrie hitting theaters everywhere this week, weve banded together with critic friends to rank the best movies based on Stephen Kings ghoulish work.
For more than 35 years, filmmakers have been dipping into Stephen King's endless well of fiction -- both within the horror genre and without. Some have certainly been better than others, but ultimately, how would they all rank. We put a panel of experts to the task, asking them to rank 27 feature-film adaptations of King's work. Our panelists submitted their ranked lists and the results have been tallied to arrive at these ultimate rankings. Your panelists: from the AV Club, Todd VanDerWerff; from the UKs Daily Telegraph, Tim Robey; from FlavorWire, Tyler Coates; from TDF Stages, Mark Blankenship from My New Plaid Pants, Jason Adams; from VH1.com, Mark Graham, and from right here at Tribeca, Karen Kemmerle and yours truly.
Honorable Mentions: #27: Hearts in Atlantis; #26: Graveyard Shift; #25: Thinner; #24: Maximum Overdrive; #23: Secret Window; #22: Sleepwalkers; #21: Needful Things
#20: Dreamcatcher (2003) : Alien poop-weasels terrify a group of friends in a snowy cabin. Not one of Kings more delicate works, and a fairly maligned one, but it managed to attract a cast of actors like Morgan Freeman and Damien Lewis.
"Have you even seen this thing? Its compulsively watchable, yet so, so bad. Infuriating, yet hard to stop looking at." -- Todd VanDerWerff
"Okay, Dreamcatcher is bloated, overly complex and the alien parts are down right stupid (let's not even get into Morgan Freeman's eyebrows), but I can't help it. I like this movie. Every time I re-watch it (and I do regularly), I find myself moved by unexpected moments of humor and friendship and by the eerie beauty of the Maine wilderness." -- Karen Kemmerle
#19: Christine (1983) : Kings tale of a boy who loved his car almost as much as he loved his girl and the car that set out to make him pay for it.
"Even second-tier John Carpenter is great horror filmmaking." -- Todd VanDerWerff
#18: The Dark Half (1989) : Timothy Hutton starred as a writer of horror fiction (a classic autobiographical tactic of Kings), whose pseudonymous alter ego takes on a murderous life of its own. Also good if you have a particular fear of crows.
#17: Silver Bullet (1985): Kings Cycle of the Werewolf was adapted into a film with King himself writing the screenplay adaptation.
"Gary Busey and Corey Haim fighting a werewolf together. Enough said about why Silver Bullet is so awesome." -- Karen Kemmerle
#16: Firestarter (1984): Young Drew Barrymore stars as a little girl with an incendiary power.
"This is basically a TV movie, but I will defend it for days. Drew Barrymore is just so eerily blank, which I always thought was perfect for a character who barely understands her power. Plus, telekinetic Heather Locklear!" -- Mark Blankenship
#15: The Running Man (1987): Based on one of the short novels King wrote under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Running Man stars Arnold Schwarzenegger in a futuristic vision in which criminals must fight in televised gladiator fights/game shows. Come for the proto-Hunger Games action, stay for Richard Dawson's finest screen performance.
" I was obsessed with this movie when I was a kid. It would make an amazing video game. I want it!" -- Jason Adams
"FOOD RIOT IN PROGRESS! A gloriously delicious slice of mid-80s cheese, this is a legitimately terrible piece of schlock that I still somehow love very dearly to this very day. The whole film is just an excuse for Ahhhhhnold to spout off one-liners, and for that reason, it works." -- Mark Graham
#14: Children of the Corn (1984): The unspoken threat of fundamentalist religion. The desolation of the American Midwest. The creepiness of children. All are put to great effect in this adaptation of a King short story.
#13: The Green Mile (1999): Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Tom Hanks starred as a prison guard overseeing some pretty serious Jesus imagery in a 1930s Southern prison. Based on King's serially-published novel.
#12: 1408 (2007): The age-old tale of the haunted hotel room, ginned-up with the story of a cynical writer looking to debunk haunting myths. As you might imagine, this time, it's real.
"An underrated film that would hold up much better had King never penned that other, far superior, set-in-a-hotel work, The Shining. I remember being sufficiently creeped out when I saw it in the theater, but then again, I have never felt even the slightest inkling of desire to ever rematch it. " -- Mark Graham
#11: Cujo (1981): Scary Killer Rabid Saint Bernard Is Scary.
"I may be overrating this one for the effect it had on me when I first saw it when younger, but I do think the ability to make a movie this solid when its largely confined to the inside of a car is impressive." -- Todd VanDerWerff
"I got sick from anxiety watching this once. I had to leave the room and put my head between my hands." -- Jason Adams
#10: Apt Pupil (1998) : Adapted from the King novella, the horror in this one is all too real, focusing on a high-school kid who becomes fascinated with Nazism, seeks out an isolated old man who turns out to be an old SS commander, and then starts killing people.
"Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro make such a strange and terrifying duet. The scene with the cat! The scene with the homeless Elias Koteas! The sexy teenage to Holocaust shower scene!" -- Jason Adams
#9: Pet Sematary (1989): So much to love in this one, from Fred Gwynne's ultimate Maine accent ( Dead is BETTAH ) to the reanimated cat and child.
"I lost sleep for a good three nights after seeing this film in the theater. To this day, I still have nightmares about Zelda and always guard my Achilles tendon while walking next to a strange bed." -- Mark Graham
"The kid who played Gage (which, duh, no wonder your
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With Carrie hitting theaters everywhere this week, weve banded together with critic friends to rank the best movies based on Stephen Kings ghoulish work. 
