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Relatively speaking, the here and now is the quietest that prolific writer/director Taylor Sheridan has been in quite some time. The drama of Yellowstone (both behind the scenes and onscreen) is long over. The Yellowstone prequel chapters 1883 and 1923 are closed, as is Lawmen: Bass Reeves. Lioness calmly awaits a likely season 3 renewal. […]

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The novella is a strange beast in writing and publishing. Not quite a novel but lengthier than a short story (and also longer than the craft’s red-headed stepchild, the novelette). It’s a form that allows fiction writers to explore a story and characters in greater depth than a short story but doesn’t require the structural complexity, temporal sweep, and multi-level plotting of a novel.

The novella, however, also presents certain marketing problems: with lengths ranging from 17,000 to 40,000 words (a measurement that in itself is somewhat nebulous), it can be tricky for publishers to convince consumers to shell out their hard-earned money for a slim volume that may not always reach even 100 pages.

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Despite all this, Stephen King has long been an author who’s embraced the novella, going all the way back to his first collection of four of them, the now legendary Different Seasons. In fact, some of his best stories have fallen into this category, and it could even be argued that early King novels like Carrie, The Running Man, and The Long Walk are actually novellas. This distinction has also marked the screen adaptations of King’s work. Condensing his often mammoth novels or stretching his short stories to an acceptable running time for a feature can be tricky, but the novella has proven a number of times to be the perfect length for a film.

With the glowingly received The Life of Chuck just released in theaters, now’s the time to take a look at the 15 movies and one limited series based on stories by the author that are officially branded as novellas. As one might expect, a number of them don’t work very well and haven’t even been widely seen while others are not just among the best King adaptations of all time, but stand tall as films on their own. Here are all 16 of them, ranked from least to first.

16. Dolan’s Cadillac (2009)

Barely released anywhere and sent directly to video in the U.S., this Canadian production is based on one of King’s more obscure stories. It was published in installments in his long-defunct official newsletter, Castle Rock, before being included in his 1993 collection, Nightmares and Dreamscapes. The story is a revenge tale in which a teacher named Robinson plots to kill a mob boss named Dolan, who had Robinson’s wife murdered. The scheme involves a highway construction site and a pit in which Robinson plans to bury Dolan alive inside his car.

Wes Bentley and Christian Slater star as Robinson and Dolan in the film, which was helmed by journeyman TV director Jeff Beesley. Not widely reviewed, the film suffers from the two leads’ wildly divergent performances (Bentley is lax while Slater chews the scenery), a lack of suspense, and a needless fistful of subplots. It also lacks the psychological edge found in King’s original text.

15. Riding the Bullet (2004)

Running just over 40 pages in King’s Everything’s Eventual collection, “Riding the Bullet” is probably more famous for the way it was originally published than for either the story itself or the film based on it. King made the novella available in 2000 as the world’s first mass-market e-book, allowing fans to download it for $2.50. Hundreds of thousands of downloads were apparently sold, but King did not experiment much further with this kind of publishing.

As for the movie itself, it was directed by Mick Garris, a King specialist who also directed the 1990s miniseries versions of The Stand and The Shining (among others). He falls flat here with this limited release. It’s a slight tale about a college student (Jonathan Jackson) who has a spectral encounter while hitchhiking home to be at his mother’s side after she has a stroke and is forced to make a terrible decision. Garris (who also wrote the screenplay) struggles to get this one to feature length, making for a rather dull experience.

14. A Good Marriage (2014)

This little-seen indie thriller was adapted by King himself (a relative rarity in the 21st century) and directed by Peter Askin, perhaps best known for directing the original Off-Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. King’s story, published in the 2010 collection Full Dark, No Stars, is about a woman who discovers that her husband is a serial killer after 27 years of marriage. The movie, which stars Joan Allen as the wife and Anthony LaPaglia as her secretly psychopathic husband, is very faithful to the novella, right down to the third act turn it takes.

The problem is that the story is relatively small and told on the level of a TV movie-of-the-week, with Allen and LaPaglia not demonstrating the kind of chemistry needed to make a long marriage—even one that has in this story settled into complacency. Sure enough, A Good Marriage was relegated to direct-to-video release after a very brief theatrical run, cementing its status as “minor” King.

13. In the Tall Grass (2019)

Cube and Splice director Vincenzo Natali helmed this Netflix film based on a novella written by King with his son Joe Hill (the tale can be found in Hill’s Full Throttle collection, which also features a second collaboration between father and son, “Throttle”). In the original story, two siblings, a pregnant college freshman and her brother, pull over near a large field of grass while driving across country. When they hear a little boy calling for help from the grass, they enter the field and find themselves quickly lost in an eerie, ever-changing landscape.

The story contains some of the most disturbing imagery that either writer has ever dreamed up and continues the longtime King fascination with vast fields of tall vegetation that goes all the way back to stories like “Children of the Corn.” But Natali stretches the King boys’ relatively slim tale (it runs about 46 pages in print) to make a 90-minute movie, adding all kinds of new elements (extra characters and a time loop aspect) that render the film increasingly incomprehensible.

12. Big Driver (2014)

Another entry from King’s Full Dark, No Stars collection, this film ended up on the Lifetime cable network of all places despite its grim narrative. There are also King connections all over it: director Mikael Salomon helmed the divisive second miniseries based on ‘Salem’s Lot a decade earlier while the teleplay was penned by Richard Christian Matheson, son of one of King’s idols, Richard Matheson. The story is about a mystery writer named Tess who, after giving a reading at a local library, is raped and tortured by a hulking truck driver on a rural road. After learning that the woman who invited her to the reading is the mother of her attacker—and thus led her into a trap—Tess takes vengeance into her own hands.

Reminiscent in some ways of the cult horror film Mother’s Day, “Big Driver” reads pretty damn dark on the page, which makes some of the movie’s attempts at humor rather jarringly out of place. The theme of female empowerment is well-meant, but the movie can’t really overcome its tired revenge-exploitation roots. Maria Bello stars as Tess, while Ann Dowd is the evil mom.

11. The Langoliers (1995)

The one full-fledged television production on this list is, ironically, proof of why sometimes it’s not always the best idea to give a King story a wide berth in terms of running time. Originally published in King’s 1990 collection Four Past Midnight, “The Langoliers” is about a commercial airliner that gets flung several minutes into the past through a rip in time, with the passengers finding themselves in an empty, decaying reality that gets consumed by monstrous entities as time ineluctably moves forward.

One of King’s weirder excursions into that murky territory between sci-fi and horror, “The Langoliers” would probably have made for a tight, 110-minute movie. But at three hours with commercials, and released over two nights, director Tom Holland’s faithful adaptation is overly long. Plus it’s hard to read King’s tale and not think of the time-eating monsters as Pac-Men, which is what they end up looking like onscreen thanks to some woeful ’90s television VFX.

10. Silver Bullet (1985)

Based on King’s 1983 novella “Cycle of the Werewolf,” one of the earliest works by the author to be published in a limited edition, Silver Bullet was adapted for the screen by King himself, who jettisoned the story’s format of dividing the story into month-by-month chapters for a more straightforward narrative that preserves what’s ultimately a very simple tale of a small Maine town under siege from a werewolf.

It’s very much a minor work and the movie reflects that. There’s little suspense about who the werewolf is from the onset, and what tension or mystery there is gets diffused pretty quickly. Directed by Daniel Attias (a TV veteran helming his sole feature film), Silver Bullet features Gary Busey and Everett McGill hamming it up in the adult leads while Corey Haim does credible work as the young paraplegic hero. Less credible is the werewolf costume. In an era where movies like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London changed the game for this classic monster, the bear-like lycanthrope here is so 1960s.

9. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (2022)

One of the four stories in King’s last collection of novellas, 2020’s If It Bleeds, “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” is about a teenager who befriends an aging, wealthy businessman, both of whom happen to get their first iPhones at the same time. When the businessman dies and his phone is buried with him, the boy discovers that calling the mysteriously still-active number allows him to leave messages for Mr. Harrigan… messages that have repercussions.

Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, the movie, is one of a number of King-based works that have been subsidized by Netflix. Directed by John Lee Hancock (The Little Things), the film stars It cast member Jaeden Martell as the boy Craig and Donald Sutherland in one of his final screen appearances as Mr. Harrigan. Hancock is a capable, competent director, and both Martell and Sutherland give deft performances, but the film is glacially paced. And building a movie around leaving voicemail messages just doesn’t seem like a good idea in practice.

8. Secret Window (2004)

Written and directed by David Koepp (Jurassic Park), Secret Window is based on “Secret Window, Secret Garden,” first published in the 1990 collection Four Past Midnight. Johnny Depp stars as Mort Rainey, an author who’s suffering from writer’s block and going through a divorce when a man named John Shooter (John Turturro) shows up at his house, claiming that Rainey plagiarized a story of his and quickly escalating his grievance to include violence and murder.

Fans know that King loves to write about writers and their struggles, and similarities abound between this and King’s novel The Dark Half. But the problem with both this story and movie is that the twist—that Shooter is not real but a hidden aspect of Rainey’s own personality—can be seen coming before the first act even ends. Koepp also changes King’s ending and removes the supernatural aspect of the novella. Still, the film is stylishly done with a good cast where Depp is not encased in prosthetics or makeup for a change.

7. Hearts in Atlantis (2001)

This is an odd one. Hearts in Atlantis is not based on the collection of the same name, per se, but rather on the book’s centerpiece novella, “Low Men in Yellow Coats.” Directed by Scott Hicks of Shine fame, the film stars Anthony Hopkins as Ted Brautigan, an enigmatic boarder who comes to live with 11-year-old Bobby Garfield (Anton Yelchin) and his mother Liz (Hope Davis). Although Ted and Bobby strike up a friendship, Ted is also on the run from the “low men” who want to capture him for his psychic powers.

Hearts in Atlantis got a mixed response from critics and audiences, although Roger Ebert enjoyed it, writing, “Rarely does a movie make you feel so warm and so uneasy at the same time.” The film is atmospheric but slow-moving while the performances from Hopkins and Yelchin are excellent. The biggest problem is that the menace of the “low men” is rendered rather vague. This is because the original story was tied to King’s Dark Tower mythos, with nearly all of that context removed for the movie version.

6. Apt Pupil (1998)

The longest and darkest novella in King’s classic Different Seasons collection, “Apt Pupil” is about a high school student named Todd Bowden who discovers than an elderly man living in his town is actually a Nazi war criminal named Kurt Dussander. Fascinated with the Holocaust and its atrocities, Todd begins a parasitic, mutually destructive relationship with Dussander, one that brings out the sadistic qualities in both and ends with mass murder.

Unfortunately matching its pitch-black subject matter, the history of “Apt Pupil” onscreen is a troubled one. An initial 1987 adaptation starring Rick Schroeder and Nicol Williamson was abandoned halfway through shooting when funding ran out. So Bryan Singer picked up the option in 1995 and filmed it as his follow-up to The Usual Suspects, with Brad Renfro as Todd and Ian McKellen as Dussander. Both are chilling, as is the film itself; Singer also alters the ending, which is still dark but not nearly as violent as the novella. More disquieting, scandal erupted when three teenage extras accused Singer of making them strip naked for a shower scene; given later allegations surrounding Singer, this has only added an unsavory real-life aspect to an already deeply unpleasant movie.

5. 1922 (2017)

Thomas Jane has the distinction of starring in three Stephen King productions, and two of them are actually damn good (the third is, uh, Dreamcatcher). This Netflix adaptation of a novella from Full Dark, No Stars is actually the most recent of the three, and features Jane as Wilf James, a farmer who hatches a plot to murder his wife (Molly Parker) and recruits their own son (Dylan Schmid) into helping him. Although they’re successful, things go decidedly south for Wilf and his boy not long after. It’s a grisly narrative involving rats and the spirits of the vengeful dead.

It’s a macabre tale that Australian writer-director Zak Hilditch nails in terms of atmosphere and faithfulness, making for one of the sturdier recent King-based movies. Jane is excellent as the tormented, sociopathic Wilf, and the movie’s overall feeling of rot and dread effectively echoes what happens to Wilf both mentally and physically. This one’s a bit of a sleeper hit.

4. The Life of Chuck (2025)

The Life of Chuck is not just the most recent adaptation of a King novella, but the story itself is one of the newer King tales to make it to the screen. Published in 2020’s If It Bleeds—the author’s fifth collection of novellas to date—“The Life of Chuck” is a tale in three acts, told in reverse order. It begins with an ex-husband and wife desperate to reconnect as the world teeters on the edge of apocalypse and ends with a teenager seeing a vision of his ultimate fate but determined to live life as fully as possible. And there’s a wild dance number in the middle.

Adapted by King specialist Mike Flanagan (Doctor Sleep), The Life of Chuck is not really a horror tale at all despite some eerie touches throughout. Instead it’s a paean to the idea of appreciating every moment in life that you can, no matter how insignificant they may seem at the time. It’s also King at his most compassionate and humanist, which is something this planet could use right now. Flanagan captures the tone of King’s story perfectly, and the ensemble cast, led by Tom Hiddleston as the adult Chuck and Mark Hamill as his crusty grandfather, is wonderful.

3. The Mist (2007)

Director-writer Frank Darabont went from making Stephen King prison dramas (like The Green Mile and one more that will come later on this list) to adapting this pulp horror shocker, based on King’s 1980 tale that clocked in at around 130 pages. Darabont’s film is similarly lean, following a group of people who take refuge in a supermarket after a mysterious fog containing nightmarish monsters descends on their small town and possibly the rest of the world.

As is often the case with King stories, the people are just as dangerous as the monsters, as the survivors split into two camps representing reason and fanaticism. But even the good guys are prone to making mistakes, which is what protagonist David Drayton (Thomas Jane again) does when he makes a final decision that ends the movie on an even bleaker note than King’s story. The Mist is straight-down-the-middle horror, which Darabont proves he’s equally effective at.

2. Stand By Me (1986)

Stephen King’s classic novella “The Body” was first published in Different Seasons, alongside “Apt Pupil” and the story that inspired the next movie on this list. “The Body” became the first of the three to arrive on the screen, as Stand by Me, giving it the distinction of being the first film adapted from a King story that wasn’t horror. The film is a poignant, nostalgic coming-of-age tale about four young boys who hike along a railroad track one endless summer day on a mission to see the dead body of another boy killed by a passing train.

“The Body” is a meditation on youth, growing up, and memory, reminiscent in some ways of Ray Bradbury’s work, and director Rob Reiner captures the tone of King’s novella in what is easily one of the best adaptations of the author’s work. The four boys—a painfully young River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Jerry O’Connell, and Corey Feldman—are all magnificent while Kiefer Sutherland and John Cusack are also effective in important supporting roles. Stand By Me remains a moving tribute to the fleeting innocence of childhood.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

You kind of suspected it would all lead here, right? The Different Seasons novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” was faithfully transferred to the screen in 1994 by The Mist director and future The Walking Dead series creator, Frank Darabont. Despite positive reviews, top stars like Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, and a deliberate attempt to downplay the King connection—plus an eventual seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture—The Shawshank Redemption was a box office bust upon release, barely earning back its $25 million budget.

A second life on home video and cable television began to turn the tide, however, and The Shawshank Redemption is now considered not just one of the best King adaptations ever, but a beloved classic in its own right. Which it is: the movie is a beautifully acted, moving, and superbly told tale of both one man’s (Robbins) refusal to give up on himself as he spends a potential life sentence in prison on false charges, as well as the friendship he forms behind bars with another lifer (Freeman) who finds his own hope restored by their bond. It’s dark and harrowing in spots, with murder, savage violence, and rape all factoring into the story, but it remains a crowning achievement in the King filmography.

The Life of Chuck is in theaters now.

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