Waves 2019
Trey Edward Shults's film. Adam's Telluride writeup was persuasive enough that Sean rearranged his TIFF schedule around it.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Top Five · Roundtable
Top Five Stephen King Movies and the Most Anticipated Movies at the Toronto International Film Festival
September 6, 2019/ 59 min/ Sean Fennessy · Adam Nayman
Sean Fennessey and Adam Nayman draft dueling top fives of Stephen King movie adaptations ahead of 'It Chapter Two,' plus a preview of what Adam's watching for at TIFF.
31 films across 6 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
TIFF preview, from Telluride and Venice buzzbefore the top five
Uncut Gems 2019
The Safdies' follow-up. Word out of Telluride was that it played 'electric.'
Marriage Story 2019
Noah Baumbach's film, on Adam's must-see list.
Parasite 2019
Bong Joon Ho's Palme d'Or winner. Six hundred people got turned away from a 9 a.m. Telluride screening; it had already made about $85 million in South Korea.
Joker 2019
Discussed mostly as a punchline about festival-season hyperbole, not as a film either has seen yet.
Anne at 13,000 Ft. 2021
Kazik Radwanski's film, starring Deragh Campbell. Adam stumping for it as an under-the-radar TIFF pick. It premiered at this festival in 2019 but didn't get a wide release until 2021.
White Lie 2019
Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas's film, starring Kacey Rohl. Adam's other under-the-radar TIFF pick.
Roma 2018
Raised as the closest parallel to what Bong's doing with Parasite: a filmmaker returning to make a movie fully inside his own culture.
Snowpiercer 2013
Cited as proof Bong's English-language films already play as credible hits before Parasite.
Okja 2017
Same point as Snowpiercer, above.
Adam Nayman's top fivebest to worst; his No. 5 was a tie
No. 1
The Shining 1980
No. 1, shared with Sean. The movie Adam's watched the most times in his life; he credits 'Room 237' as the best film ever made about it.
No. 2
Carrie 1976
No. 2. His favorite De Palma movie for the performances. Sissy Spacek's work, in his words, is what makes the ending's revenge so cathartic.
No. 3
The Dead Zone 1983
No. 3. Cronenberg's, built on Christopher Walken right before he tipped into self-parody.
No. 4
Christine 1983
No. 4. The one with the least consensus behind it on his list. He likes it as an inverted 'Revenge of the Nerds,' anti-American-Graffiti movie.
No. 5
The Mist 2007
No. 5, tied with Shawshank. Praises Darabont for rewriting the ending and actually following through on the apocalyptic dread instead of pulling back.
No. 6
The Shawshank Redemption 1994
No. 5, tied with The Mist. Sees it and The Mist as the two poles of King on screen (one redemptive, one bleak) from the same director.
Sean Fennessy's top fivebest to worst; his No. 5 was also a tie
No. 1
The Shining 1980
No. 1, shared with Adam. Can't think of ten movies that mean more to him personally.
No. 2
Stand By Me 1986
No. 2. Saw it around the age of the kids in the film; admits on a rewatch it dragged a little, but the sense-memory of it as a kid stuck.
No. 4
Misery 1990
No. 4. Kathy Bates's Oscar-winning performance; still the only movie based on a King novel to win an Oscar of any kind. James Caan was reportedly about the thirtieth actor offered the role, after William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Richard Dreyfuss, Gene Hackman, and Robert Redford all passed or were passed over.
No. 5
The Mist 2007
No. 5, tied with Shawshank. Watched the black-and-white cut for the first time and thinks it plays better than the color version.
No. 6
The Shawshank Redemption 1994
No. 5, tied with The Mist. Knows the message-board backlash is coming and has made peace with it.
Honorable mentions
The Running Man 1987
Adam's honorable mention: 'a really dumb, goofy movie' that isn't faithful to the book, but he credits it with inventing 'American Gladiators' by proxy. Richard Dawson as the host, Jesse Ventura and Toru Tanaka among the hunters.
Needful Things 1993
Sean's pick, mostly for Max von Sydow's performance as the devilish shopkeeper: 'nihilistically bleak' in a way he likes.
In the Mouth of Madness 1995
Adam's stump for the best King movie that isn't a King adaptation: John Carpenter's satire of King and Lovecraft, with a Sutter Kane character (Jürgen Prochnow) who 'outsells Stephen King two to one.'
What's next: the Stephen King boomwith It Chapter Two days away
Doctor Sleep 2019
Mike Flanagan's Shining sequel, days from release. Sean had been reading the novel on a flight; both wonder whether it can satisfy Shining loyalists and King readers at once.
Gerald's Game 2017
Also Flanagan, cited as one of the better recent King adaptations.
Pet Sematary 2019
That year's remake. Adam wrote about it for the site; Sean liked the original and didn't much care for this version, though he rates the directors talented.
Salem's Lot 2024
Mentioned in passing as another King property getting a new film adaptation, prompting the question of whether the genre is entering more of a remake era than a new-adaptation one.
The worst Stephen King movie ever made one critic, one film
Picked by Adam Nayman
Maximum Overdrive 1986
The only movie King has both written and directed. 'It's just really bad.'
Picked by Sean Fennessy
Dreamcatcher 2003
Written by William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan, directed by Kasdan, shot by John Seale, and starring Morgan Freeman, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis, and Timothy Olyphant; and still, somehow, 'a piece of shit.'
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Room 237King of New YorkDressed to KillScarfaceRaising CainPsychoWar of the WorldsBlow OutForrest GumpPulp FictionTotal Recall
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV ItThe StandSalem's Lot (1979 miniseries)Castle RockThe Haunting of Hill HouseThe LangoliersStranger ThingsThe Walking DeadThe ShieldMob City
Ads Masterclass