Unlock the Ultimate Stephen King Streaming Vault: Are You Ready to Binge the Darkest Thrills Tonight?

There have been attempts before to adapt The Stand, considered by many to be King’s most epic work, but what year was better to tell a story of an apocalyptic pandemic than 2020? This limited series gave an updated, big-budget look at the aftermath of a plague that kills nearly all life—and pits the survivors against one another.

Director Josh Boone was in charge, with an absolutely stacked cast, including Alexander Skarsgård, James Marsden, Jovan Adepo, and Whoopi Goldberg, among others.

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This series, based on King’s Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finder’s Keepers, and End of Watch) was highly-regarded and little-seen for a while; it debuted on DirecTV’s Audience Network. Now, though, the show has moved all three existing seasons to Peacock.

The show has a great cast, led by Brendan Gleeson (best known from In Bruges or in his Harry Potter role of Mad Eye Moody) as retired detective Bill Hodges, on the hunt for a serial killer living in plain sight. This one is creepy in what’s closer to a Silence of the Lambs kind of way than a Pet Semetary kind of way.

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Don’t bully people! I mean, you shouldn’t do that anyway. But the first adaptation of King’s very first novel has proven generations and generations why bullying is not too nice—you never know when the object of scorn can make things…really bad. This is still the best version of one of King’s most classic novels. Sissy Spacek, who plays the titular character went on to a long career, and is even still playing King roles in Castle Rock (more on that later). Plus…this was John Travolta’s very first feature film role. As if you needed any more motivation.

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This re-imagining of King’s novel and De Palma’s 1976 film wasn’t super well received upon its release in 2002, but we suggest checking it out if you’re a fan of this story and these movies. The titular role is played by Angela Bettis, who had another sensational horror flick come out in the quasi-Frankenstein story May, and she makes for a fantastic Carrie. With Mike Flanagan’s own take on Carrie (in TV series form) coming in 2026, it’s worth seeing what any re-imagining of the story might look like.

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And on that same note! There’s also a 2013 version of Carrie, this one starring Chloe Moretz in the lead role and Julianne Moore as her mother. If you’re into this story, might as well check it out.

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In one of King’s most prescient works, The Dead Zone follows a man (Christopher Walken) who gets into a terrible car accident, and wakes up with psychic powers. In this case, he finds a terrifying politician (Martin Sheen), and after seeing a future that shows what he’s capable of, plots to assassinate him. David Cronenberg is one of the all-time great horror directors, and he doesn’t disappoint here.

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Children of the Corn is one of the most iconic productions of King’s work, and while it’s a bit cheesy, it still holds up to this day. What would you do if you found a group of religious and terrifying children…living in a corn field? Based on a story from his 1978 collection Night Shift, this adaption is fairly faithful, and is a perfect movie to watch with a few beers, some pizza, and some friends.

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A Good Marriage, which is based on a novella from King’s 2010 collection Full Dark, No Stars, is definitely one of the campier entries on this list. The story is one that will sound familiar in the genre: a woman in a longtime marriage finds out that her husband miiiiight just be a serial killer. NBD.

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Based on King’s novel of the same name, Firestarter is about two college students who get experimented 0n to make a little extra money. When those two have a kid, that kid (Drew Barrymore) turns out to have extraordinary powers, namely, the ability to start fires with her mind. This was a huge inspiration for Stranger Things, if you were wondering.

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An absolute horror masterpiece by Stanley Kubrick (which King himself famously doesn’t like), The Shining (based on King’s novel of the same name, but with some changes) is the best movie on this list. Any horror fan should watch this one over and over and over again—it’s kind of the prototypical pick for the “art horror” that has continued into our modern age with movies like Midsommar or shows like Midnight Mass.

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Since King is famously not a fan of the changes Kubrick made for his 1980 version of The Shining, he decided to oversee his own limited series version of the story in 1997, with actor Steven Weber in the lead role. Full transparency: It’s nowhere near as good as Kubrick’s movie! But if you want to see what King wanted you to see, here’s your chance to check it out.

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One of our favorite modern masters of horror, Mike Flanagan, is a Stephen King superfan. Not only did he adapt Gerald’s Game into a film for Netflix (more on that in a bit), but he took the tough task of adapting Doctor Sleep, the novel that follows up on the story of The Shining. The theatrical film is a great ride, centering on Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance (the grown up version of Jack’s son from The Shining), but the Director’s Cut takes things to a whole new level. A dark, unforgettable horror experience. Flanagan directed 2025’s The Life of Chuck (based on a King short story), which starred Tom Hiddleston, and will also be releasing his own Carrie series for Prime Video next year. He also owns the rights to The Dark Tower, so there’s a good chance we’ll see that sooner or later too.

Stream the Theatrical Cut on Hulu

Stream the Director’s Cut on Prime Video

Speaking of The Dark Tower, they did put out a movie version of it in 2017 that starred Idris Elba and Matthew McConuaghey. Sounds good right? Unfortunately, despite those two fantastic actors, this attempt to boil King’s entire epic series into one single film was not successful. Still, it’s here if you’re curious.

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Maximum Overdrive is Stephen King’s only outing as a director, and it’s truly one of a kind. Loosely based on his short story “Trucks” (from 1978’s Night Shift), the film is about a supernatural happening after a comet passes that makes all machines on earth sentient. While most of King’s stories are dark, intense, and sometimes sincere and earnest, Maximum Overdrive is fairly campy and has a soundtrack entirely by AC/DC (who King has called his favorite band). While King himself has called it a “moron movie,” it’s nonetheless picked up a loving cult following through the years.

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Based on the novel of the same name and directed by Zombie master George A. Romero, The Dark Half finds King writing about what he knows best: a writer. This interesting story follows a writer (played by Timothy Hutton) who has lots of success writing dark novels under a pen name—and then that pen name becomes the primary suspect in a series of gruesome murders.

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Let’s be serious for a second. Cell is not one of Stephen King’s best books, and the adaptation of Cell, which somehow got Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack to be a part of its cast, is one of the very worst adaptations of his work. Overall bad! But it’s here if you want to watch. It’s about cell phones that kill you, for what it’s worth.

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After sitting on the shelf for a few years, Warner Bros. finally released its new adaptation of Salem’s Lot on Max in 2024. Lewis Pullman plays the lead role of Ben Mears, and the film is a solid adaptation of a truly classic vampire story.

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