BellaOnline Forums TV and Movies Horror Movies What's your favorite Stephen King story?

From the hundreds of books and stories that Stephen King has written, in nearly all genres, from 'Carrie', 'The Green Mile', The Shawshank Redemption�,�Dolores Claiborne', 'Firestarter' - what's your favorite Stephen King novel or movie?

Stephen King's Movies

There are a few that are my favorites...The Green Mile, Needful Things, and The Dark Half are my 3 favorites. My absolute book to movie favorite is Misery. I could watch that one over and over again.

Favorite Stephen King Novel: Needful Things

I love all of those too, my favorite novel is either, Cujo (because it touched me so much), or Carrie (because I felt so sorry for her). I love the movies, Misery - Kathy Bates is just brilliant and was exactly as I imagined Annie Wilkes to be in the book. Carrie was an awesome movie, but so sad, the performances again are outstanding, though I never though Amy Irving as Sue Snell got enough recognition - the expressions on her face when she see's the pig's blood above the stage are just fantastic.

I also love 'The Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Green Mile' although the latter made me sob like a baby LOL.
I really like 'Firestarter' and 'Cat's Eye' too, I think Drew Barrymore is amazing in them, such a great actress.
If it was done right, I think that 'Bag of Bones' and 'Gerald's Game' could make really good movies - love Geralds Game - I think it's superb.

Also love "Christine" - before I read Christine, I was like, how on earth can you make a car scary? It's lame - but that book is awesome and it just prooves what an amazing writer Stephen King is - that he can make you fear a car!

Green Mile!

The Green Mile is my fave too

By my favourite film are written Stephen King, the green mile is. I cried from the seen. From cruelty and justice with kind heart.

Cujo - a definite yes. I also read the book...both the movie and the book were really good.

Did you see the Carrie remake? Ok it's not really new. I'm trying to remember the actors in it. Or maybe it was Carrie 2.

Believe it or not, I have never seen the Green Mile.

The Green Mile is excellent, but so sad - you'll need a box of tissues if you ever watch it LOL. I know they did a made for TV version of Carrie and also Carrie 2, both of which were poor I felt.

I love the movie/novel Dolores Claiborne, I watched it the other night - it's such an excellent movie. Kathy Bates is awesome.

My favourite Stephen King film, is; The Shining and Carrie, real classics in my view,.

You want me to pick just one??? :o My favorite novel by Stephen King is The Eye of the Dragon, a book I could read a hundred times and still enjoy it. Other favorites include Duma Key, Firestarter, and some of his short stories, as well. I loved The Mist, The Boogeyman, and I can't remember the name of it, but the one about the lake with the malicious "oil spot" thingie... I thought The Mist was a great movie, as well, and I loved the movie's ending more than the story's ending. I really loved the book, The Cell, but I hated the ending. I was actually angry at Stephen King for ruining that ending. :grin:

A lot of people seemed angry at the end of 'The Cell' - but I took it as a happy one I was annoyed when a certain character I really liked got a flying brick in the face - I was thinking - why on Earth did you do that? LOL.

I loved that story too with oil spot - the name has left me for the minute. It's SO good though. It was a short story on one of the horror compilations wasn't it. Oh, I just remembered it was called 'The Raft' - that was a really good short story.

I started watching the Mist but I didn't finish - I got to the part where they were all trapped in the shopping centre - I'll have to watch it properly.

Pet Sematary - film and book
Rose Madder - book
The Tommyknockers - book and film
Misery - book and film
Firestarter - film


My favorites.

The Shining

The Stand

Great choices Linda
Pet Sematary - love both the book & the movie. Disturbing but great - King said it was his most disturbing book.
Rose Madder - I never read it! I've heard it's really good though.
The Tommyknockers - Seen the film but I haven't read the book. I really want to now though, forgot about this one. Saw it years ago. The woman from CSI is in it I recall.
Misery - Love, love, love the book and the film. Kathy Bates is amazing in that role. She hates violence SO much she was crying in those scenes and had to be calmed down before the takes.
Firestarter - Love, love, love these. Book and movie too. Drew Barrymore is such a great actress - and it's really sad, but awesome. Apparently it's being re-made

Maria, I really like 'The Shining' too - I like most of King's stuff. Did you ever catch the movie version he wrote for TV? It was in two parts and was more true to the book. King said he never liked the Kubrick movie. It stars Rebecca De Mornay - it's good, but not as good as the Jack Nicholson version IMO.

Phyllis - I haven't read the Stand - and I only saw the first half of the movie It's one of my best friends favorite books as well. I loved that movie though cos it introduced me to Crowded House and 'Don't Dream it's Over' - and I really love that song, have done ever since. I recorded the opening credits I remember, just to listen to the song over and over LOL

the Dark Half

Favorite forever Stephen King book with such realism! Especially coz I almost 'hear' the georgian accent when he says 'hoss.' I've had to buy the book 3 times, because broke the bindings and bent so many pages!

"Calling All Angels"? I love that song and listen to it once in awhile on youtube.

I only saw a few scenes of the movie and would like to see the whole of it. The book was so good and very well written. King portrayed all the characters vividly. I want to read the book again. My brother has it.

I read the Dark Half when I was really ill - it brings bad memories up. It was very well written though and very, very creepy. I remember it clearly.

Phyllis - next time you're on youtube, type in 'Crowded House don't dream it's over' - it's a really beautiful song, apart from an odd line which doesn't seem to fit toward the end LOL.

Sorry to bring up bad memories. That was not my intention. I only thought to encourage your participation.

No worries it didn't, I just remember having a fever and the whole thing seemed so real LOL. So horrible when his flesh was all rotting.

I am listening to it now. It is beautiful. Thank you.

It just freaked me out when the sheriff came back and said he actually found Tad's own fingerprints! And the whole fetus in fetu is just plain macabre!

I'm really pleased you liked it

Yeah, Nin, apparetly with twins - in a lot of cases, one twin will eat the other in the womb. Which is a very ghastly thought. Imagine being told you ate your brother or sister in the womb. It would mess you up.

Definitely watch it. The pharmacy part is really, really creepy *shudders.* But I think the ending in the movie is so much better than the ending in the book.

Misery. The book is better, but both are very absorbing and frightening.

Oh and Dead Zone.

Hey Jill

Yeah, Misery is right up there with my favorite books and films. I think the book is slightly darker - the way she deals with him not escaping and her killing the police officers for example.

I tried to watch 'The Dead Zone' - but I couldn't get into it, even though I think Christopher Walken is amazing and he's one of my favorite actors. I started reading the book - actually I'd say I got about three quaters of the way through - and then it started getting really political and it lost me. I need to finish that one though.

I remember feeling SO sorry for him in it, the way his mother had died and his g/f was with someone else. It was really sad. I loved the way King got their relationships expressed so superbly. Yeah, I need to revisit both of those - the book and the movie.

I used to totally be into Stephen King. And read the books before I saw the movies. I loved the Stand, Dead Zone, Firestarter, Christine, Salem's Lot, IT and Needful Things...

I LOVED Eyes of the Dragon - and was always SOOOO disappointed he didn't come out with a sequel for it. It didn't feel like it ended,ya know?

Some books just annoyed me though - like the Tommyknockers. It was good until the ending :::grrrr:::

But I like happy endings

The ending of IT really annoyed me - I thought a giant spider was the lamest idea LOL. Christine is brilliant, before I read it I kept thinking - how on Earth can a car be scary? Well, he taught me - that's one of my favorite King books. It's just SO, so clever how he sets the whole thing up, and it is really, really creepy.

'Carrie' and 'Cujo' are my two favorite books by King - though I loved 'Gerald's Game' - that was another amazing piece of writing. 'Cujo' had such an impact on me, I was literally sobbing my heart out reading that book, and it stayed with me for months.

When you think how talented he is, that he wrote 'The Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Green Mile' 'Dolores claiborne', 'The Stand' - all these stories are just fantastic. The worst book I read by him was 'From a Buick 8' - it was so dull and nothing happened, in the end I put it down LOL.

Steven, I've never read the Shawshank Redemption, but I watch the movie over and over and over again!!!! I LOVE the ending

Steven, I did not know King wrote 'The Green Mile'. I love that movie and have seen it several times. The cast was great, too. 'From a Buick 8' was really boring. Was there a movie on that?

Deanna, the ending in 'Shawshank Redemption' was so wonderful. I think King could not have come up with any better way to end it.

I have never seen 'Cujo' or read the book. I have heard from others that it is really good. I have a lot of titles now on my "gotta read" list.

I read 'Dolores Claiborne' a long time ago but never saw the movie.

After King had his accident, he wrote a book I was not too fond of and I do not remember the name of it. It was about 4 or 5 guys who went on a hunting trip and some weird things started happening. This alien type thing would invade the body of people. Towards the end the main character was trapped in a cabin with these things all over the place. I think all his friends died. I am so not good at remembering titles, just the stories.

Phyllis, I know what movie you're talking about! My sister loved that movie. I think it was called Dreamcatcher. Jason Lee was in it, and he kept flipping a toothpick around in his mouth. It drove me crazy!

My sister also loved this movie, I think it was Stephen King, about this house called Rose Red??? Have you ever heard of this?

The name Rose Red interested me because of a very old faerie tale about 'Rose Red and Snow White', sisters. So I did some research and read about the movie and plot. It seems very familiar. I might have read the book years ago. I would love to get the book and read it then will know if I saw part of the mini-series on TV or once read the book. It is a very intriguing story.

I have seen Thornewood Castle (Rose Red). It is a beautiful setting on the shore of American Lake in Lakewood, Washington -- we visited there often when my siblings and I were little, picnics around the lake. We lived in Tacoma and loved to go out to American Lake. My mother and brother lived in Lakewood many years ago. It is a huge castle that was built with bricks that came from a castle in Wales.

I prefer Kings older stuff (when he was addicted to alcohol and drugs LOL - his best stuff came from that era oddly enough.) He says on his website that he was so stoned while writing Cujo that he can't remember anything about it - which is a shame because I wanted to ask him a question about it. When I interviewed actress Dee Wallace Stone, I asked her about that movie and she said it was the movie she was most proud of making.

She's such a lovely woman we spent half an hour talking about my problems LOL - I kept thinking this is insane LOL. I used to watch E.T over and over as a child so she sort of felt like a mother figure to me - but she was just so, so lovely and kind.

No, they never made a movie of from a Buick 8 - thank God, it was awful.

'The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon' is a really interesting book, it's about a little girl who gets lost in the woods - he manages to get inside the little girls head and make you believe it's coming from her - he's a talented guy - but he's had a few awful books.

It's amazing to think he can write all types of genre books. 'The Green Mile' for instance is just so beautiful and tragic - it gets me every time. I love the shawshank redemption too - the ending with the poster is just superb LOL. I love the way he set the whole thing up

I started watching ;Rose Madder', but I got a bit bored with it - I'll try and give it another chance though, I've heard good things about the novel.

I prefer Kings older stuff (when he was addicted to alcohol and drugs LOL - his best stuff came from that era oddly enough.) He says on his website that he was so stoned while writing Cujo that he can't remember anything about it - which is a shame because I wanted to ask him a question about it. When I interviewed actress Dee Wallace Stone, I asked her about that movie and she said it was the movie she was most proud of making.

She's such a lovely woman we spent half an hour talking about my problems LOL - I kept thinking this is insane LOL. I used to watch E.T over and over as a child so she sort of felt like a mother figure to me - but she was just so, so lovely and kind.

No, they never made a movie of from a Buick 8 - thank God, it was awful.

'The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon' is a really interesting book, it's about a little girl who gets lost in the woods - he manages to get inside the little girls head and make you believe it's coming from her - he's a talented guy - but he's had a few awful books.

It's amazing to think he can write all types of genre books. 'The Green Mile' for instance is just so beautiful and tragic - it gets me every time. I love the shawshank redemption too - the ending with the poster is just superb LOL. I love the way he set the whole thing up

I started watching ;Rose Madder', but I got a bit bored with it - I'll try and give it another chance though, I've heard good things about the novel.

"with twins - in a lot of cases, one twin will eat the other in the womb."

Never happened.

This is absolutely untrue, an old wive's tale if you will, albeit however a myth suitable for a Stephen King thread.

Simplistic in its black/white, good/evil setting and outlook, "The Stand" is nevertheless my favorite.

I thought they could absorb the other twin? Yeah just checked - they can obsorb the other featus in the womb. I knew this idea didn't come from anywhere. There was a documentry on TV where a twin had obsorbed the other, they found teeth etc. Eating/obsorbing - the kids gone and the other isn't LOL

I found an article I read some time ago about Vanishing Twin Syndrome . Maybe that is where Stephen King got his info?

If one types 'vanishing twin syndrome' in the search engine, there are a lot of sites with information on this rare condition.

I have got to get to the library and check out some of Stephen King's books. Rose Red will be my first to read.

Has anyone read 'Bag of Bones'. Did they make a movie of that? I really liked the book.

'Bag of Bones' is one of my favorites - it's his best book in the last few years - that and 'Geralds Game.' It's so scary in 'Geralds Game' when the diformed guy is stood in the corner of her bedroom just watching her - ugh, that freaked me out so much. All of his books tie in with each other too, you could draw a map of where all the places are, there's lots of nods to other books in his novels too. Like in Cujo, they drive past the Overlook Hotel (or there's a mention of it for example)

I have always wanted to like Stephen King's books. I tried to read a couple of them, and I found them to be too long for me. Not page wise, since I do read long books. I think his books would be better if he cut about 1/3 of the pages of repetition out of them. They would be tightly plotted and scarier. Just my opinion.

Connie, with his recent books, I completley agree - go back to Carrie or something - his publisher sent it back to him repeatedly because it was originally a short story. It's a very short/compact book.

Carrie
Cujo
Misery
Cell
Salem's Lot
His short story books are really good too (the one with 'The Shawshank Redemption' is good.)

They're all quite quick to the point. He has developed a thing for stretching his stories, I agree

i love Stephen King Novel because i love story of that novel.

One of my favorites is "The Stand" - which I hear they are going to make a movie out of. I'm interested to see how they fit all of this book into a movie. They already did a miniseries on it - and that left out quite a bit.

Michelle, Yeah, I see your point completley. My friend loves the stand and the mini series, but she said a lot was left out - so unless they make an epic lord of the rings style trilogy, I don't see how they're going to fit it all in either. The books so thick, you could use it as a door stop LOL. I remember picking it up and thinking - oh I can't be bothered LOL. I'm sure I'll get around to it one day though.