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.

9 of 26 photo by Robert Falconer/CBS

56 The Stand (CBS All Access, 2020–21)

Based on the novel The Stand (1978)

[#17] Perhaps the author's greatest creation, King's epic, post-apocalyptic 1978 novel The Stand has been adapted twice for television, though neither miniseries came close to matching the acclaim for the novel. King didn't write the screenplay for this second attempt like he did for the first, though he did draft an all-new ending for the CBS All Access (now Paramount+) series, which also had the extra burden/benefit of airing its pandemic story in the middle of a real-life pandemic. Alexander Skarsgård, Whoopi Goldberg, James Marsden, Amber Heard, Heather Graham, Greg Kinnear, Odessa Young, and Nat Wolff head the cast. The nine-episode series drew mixed reviews as critics were mostly frustrated by an uneven result that only occasionally lived up to its potential.

“The character development in this adaptation, the first episode of which arrives this week via CBS’ streaming service, is a hell of a mixed bag, and that’s true of the miniseries as a whole. It’s a sometimes dazzling, often frustrating, and undeniably assured effort that swings hard and occasionally connects. When it does, it’s riveting television; when it doesn’t, well, it’s not boring.” —Allison Shoemaker, RogerEbert.com

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