Prolific horror author Stephen King has unveiled his top 10 favorite movies of all time — and, naturally, he’s excluding his own adaptations from the list.
The multi-hyphenate, whose novels The Long Walk, The Running Man and It are all receiving forthcoming Hollywood projects, tweeted his list earlier today, “in no particular order.”
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Unsurprisingly, his chosen projects include seminal directors — William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Billy Wilder and Steven Spielberg (the latter, twice) — and two entries each featuring legendary performers Humphrey Bogart, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert De Niro. The list is also largely dominated by ’70s classics (unsurprising, given King was coming of age at this time in his 20s).
King begins with Sorcerer, which was critically panned and a box office disaster — perhaps due to Star Wars becoming a runaway success just a month earlier in 1977. Since then, it has received a critical reappraisal, and been cited by some as an underrated masterpiece — including by Friedkin (The Exorcist) himself, who said it was his most personal and difficult project.
He also lists the six-time Academy Award winning The Godfather Part II and 1972’s The Getaway, which stars Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in a Bonnie & Clyde-esque caper. Perhaps a surprising entry for a writer known for his hair-raising works is the Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell time-loop rom-com Groundhog Day, a universally beloved staple in the genre that has inspired a wide range of subsequent repeating-day movies from Palm Springs (2020) to Happy Death Day (2017).
As any respectable cinephile, King also includes Casablanca on his list, the ever-quotable and devastatingly moving Bogart and Ingrid Bergman romantic drama set against the backdrop of World War II.
Additionally on the list are John Huston’s neo-Western The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Billy Wilder’s classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944). Also listed are the first-ever summer blockbuster Jaws, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary and will soon feature in an Academy Museum exhibition, and sci-fi UFO drama Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Scorsese’s Mean Streets, his first of several collaborations with De Niro, also makes the cut.
Interestingly, more than half the list features pics that have been adapted from novels (Sorcerer, Godfather, The Getaway, Sierra Madre, Jaws and Double Indemnity), with Close Encounters receiving a novelization released in conjunction with the film’s debut.
Noted in his list is the exclusion of his own top four adaptations: Misery and Stand By Me (both directed by Rob Reiner), as well as The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption (both helmed by Frank Darabont, who also adapted The Mist). (You’ll notice the widely lauded The Shining does not make the cut, as King infamously despised Stanley Kubrick’s take on his source material. Also, potentially surprising is Carrie‘s omission, a horror juggernaut I’d argue should be included.)
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