Every Stephen King TV Show, Ranked Worst to Best

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – June 3, 2021

Originally a reluctant convert to television, best-selling horror author Stephen King has seen over two dozen projects bearing his name reach the small screen over the past 40+ years, from Salem's Lot to the just-launched Lisey's Story. While most of these have been adaptations of King's novels and stories, a few were wholly new projects written by the author directly for TV. Some have been deeply mediocre at best, but quite a few of King's TV shows have received a warm welcome from critics.

In the gallery on this page, we rank every Stephen King series from worst to best by Metascore, reflecting the critical consensus at the time of each show's debut. Miniseries are included alongside conventional TV shows, but made-for-TV movies are excluded.

5 of 26 photo by USA Films

48 Firestarter: Rekindled (Sci-Fi, 2002)

Based on the novel Firestarter (1980)

[tied for #21] Serving as a sequel to both King's 1980 novel about a pyrokinetic child and Mark L. Lester's subsequent film adaptation, this two-night Sci-Fi Channel miniseries (sometimes titled Firestarter 2) finds Marguerite Moreau portraying an adult version of the firestarting Charlie McGee, played in the film by a very young Drew Barrymore (in her first project following E.T.). That original film wasn't particularly well-reviewed, and neither was this sequel despite a decent cast that also included Dennis Hopper and Malcolm McDowell. But the results were certainly superior to those for director Robert Iscove's subsequent project.

“Viewers who invest two nights in this overdone sequel to the 1980 Stephen King movie undoubtedly will feel burned.” —Laura Fries, Variety

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