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Stephen King’s Favorite Movies of All Time

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - June 20th 2026, 19:00 GMT+2

Cropped sorcerer movie — 10. Sorcerer (1977)

William Friedkin’s *Sorcerer* has the kind of sweaty, doomed energy that feels tailor-made for Stephen King’s taste: men with rotten pasts, a jungle that looks personally offended by their existence, and trucks full of nitroglycerin that turn every bump in the road into a theological crisis. Roy Scheider anchors the madness without overplaying it, while Tangerine Dream’s score makes the whole thing hum like a panic attack with headlights. It bombed in its day, which only adds to its cult-film swagger now. | © Film Properties International

Cropped The Godfather 2 — 9. The Godfather Part II (1974)

*The Godfather Part II* is not just a sequel; it is a family autopsy conducted in candlelight, expensive suits, and increasingly dead-eyed silence. Francis Ford Coppola splits the Corleone myth between Vito’s rise and Michael’s moral collapse, and the result is colder, sadder, and arguably more devastating than the original. Al Pacino turns Michael into a man who wins every room he walks into and still somehow leaves it smaller. Gangster cinema rarely feels this grand and this haunted at the same time. | © Paramount Pictures

Cropped The Getaway 1972 — 8. The Getaway (1972)

Sam Peckinpah’s *The Getaway* takes a Jim Thompson crime story, puts Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in the middle of it, and lets everyone sweat through the consequences. The movie has robberies, betrayals, bruised romance, and that very specific Peckinpah rhythm where violence feels both stylish and miserable. McQueen plays Doc McCoy with the cool of a man pretending he has not already lost control of the situation. It is pulp with a mean streak, but the craftsmanship keeps the engine purring. | © First Artists

Cropped Groundhog Day 1993 — 7. Groundhog Day (1993)

On paper, *Groundhog Day* sounds like a high-concept comedy built around one very bad morning; in practice, it becomes a sneaky little masterpiece about ego, repetition, depression, and the exhausting business of becoming decent. Bill Murray’s performance is the trick: smug, wounded, hilarious, cruel, and finally almost peaceful without turning into greeting-card mush. Harold Ramis keeps the movie light enough to quote forever, but its philosophical bite is why it never gets old. Even Stephen King seems to appreciate a time loop with teeth. | © Columbia Pictures

Cropped Casablanca 1942 — 6. Casablanca (1942)

*Casablanca* is one of those classics that survives its own reputation, which is not easy when half the dialogue has been absorbed into pop culture like oxygen. Humphrey Bogart gives Rick Blaine the perfect mix of romantic damage and bar-owner exhaustion, while Ingrid Bergman makes every impossible choice feel even more impossible. The wartime intrigue still works, but the real kick is how cleanly the movie balances cynicism, sacrifice, politics, and heartbreak. It is old Hollywood polish with a knife tucked under the table. | © Warner Bros.

Cropped Treasure of Sierra Madre — 5. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

John Huston’s *The Treasure of the Sierra Madre* begins as an adventure about men chasing gold and slowly mutates into a study of paranoia, greed, and sun-baked psychological rot. Humphrey Bogart lets Fred C. Dobbs curdle right in front of us, which is the fun and the horror of it. Walter Huston’s old prospector gives the film its cracked wisdom, but nobody leaves this desert looking especially noble. The movie understands something King also knows well: money does not create monsters, it simply gives them a shovel. | © Warner Bros.

Cropped Jaws — 4. Jaws (1975)

*Jaws* turned a broken mechanical shark into one of cinema’s greatest suspense machines, mostly because Steven Spielberg understood that panic is scarier when it arrives in pieces. The fin, the music, the empty water, the mayor pretending everything is fine each detail builds a beach-town nightmare that feels absurdly simple and perfectly engineered. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw give the movie its human bite, especially once the story squeezes onto that boat. Blockbusters have been chasing this level of clean terror ever since. | © Universal Pictures

Cropped Mean Streets 1973 — 3. Mean Streets (1973)

*Mean Streets* has the rawness of a director kicking the door open before anyone told him where the door was. Martin Scorsese turns Little Italy into a pressure cooker of Catholic guilt, petty crime, unpaid debts, and guys who talk like they are always one insult away from combustion. Harvey Keitel gives the film its bruised conscience, while Robert De Niro’s Johnny Boy bounces through it like a lit match in human form. It is messy, loud, intimate, and still dangerously alive. | © Taplin-Perry-Scorsese Productions

Cropped Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977 — 2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Steven Spielberg’s *Close Encounters of the Third Kind* treats alien contact less like an invasion and more like a spiritual emergency with better lighting. Richard Dreyfuss plays obsession as something embarrassing, funny, and a little frightening, which keeps the wonder grounded in human messiness. The mashed potatoes, the five-note melody, the glowing ships over Devil’s Tower every image feels built for permanent residence in the brain. It is science fiction powered by awe, not cynicism, and that makes its strangeness feel almost holy. | © Columbia Pictures

Double Indemnity 1944 — 1. Double Indemnity (1944)

*Double Indemnity* is noir with the brakes cut: sharp suits, bad decisions, cigarette smoke, and dialogue that snaps like a trap closing. Billy Wilder gives the murder plot a ruthless elegance, but Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray are the real poison in the glass, selling lust and calculation as two sides of the same rotten coin. Edward G. Robinson’s insurance investigator adds the film’s moral pressure, and every scene tightens the noose without wasting a breath. Crime movies do not get much cleaner, meaner, or smarter. | © Paramount Pictures

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Stephen King has spent decades terrifying readers, but his taste in movies is much wider than haunted hotels and killer clowns. His favorite films reveal a writer drawn to sharp suspense, strange characters, nasty surprises, and stories that know exactly how to get under your skin. Looking through Stephen King’s favorite movies of all time is a reminder that his imagination was shaped as much by cinema as it was by books. And yes, the man who gave nightmares to half the planet has excellent taste in being creeped out.

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Stephen King has spent decades terrifying readers, but his taste in movies is much wider than haunted hotels and killer clowns. His favorite films reveal a writer drawn to sharp suspense, strange characters, nasty surprises, and stories that know exactly how to get under your skin. Looking through Stephen King’s favorite movies of all time is a reminder that his imagination was shaped as much by cinema as it was by books. And yes, the man who gave nightmares to half the planet has excellent taste in being creeped out.