Stephen King Movies, Ranked from Worst to Best
and Joal Ryan, for Metacritic – August 2, 2017
Last updated May 2023 to add The Boogeyman
Recent releases It and The Dark Tower have been erected on the most fertile, if haunted, of Hollywood grounds: Stephen King territory.
While conventional wisdom says King's horror tales "don't translate well to film," a Metacritic look at his theatrical releases shows that the vast majority of them received, at worst, mixed-to-average critical notices. Nine films, or about one-quarter of the titles, are in the green.
This 2019 Netflix film from Splice director Vincenzo Natali adapts the 2012 novella written by King with his son, Joe Hill. As in the book, the film follows siblings who venture out into a field when they hear cries for help. That turns out to be a poor decision. As for the film itself: Critics think there's not quite enough there to make it a worthwhile watch.
“The strong atmospherics and performances aren’t quite enough to keep In the Tall Grass from feeling like, well, wandering through a bunch of tall grass.” —Dann Caffrey, Consequence of Sound