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Stephen King’s Favorite Movies of All Time

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - September 21st 2026, 23:30 GMT+2

Cropped sorcerer movie — 10. Sorcerer (1977)

Stephen King has repeatedly championed William Friedkin’s *Sorcerer*, and its merciless simplicity makes the enthusiasm easy to understand. Four desperate men must transport dangerously unstable explosives across the South American jungle, where a rotten bridge or badly placed wheel could erase them instantly. Roy Scheider carries the film with the exhausted stare of someone already imagining his obituary, while Tangerine Dream’s electronic score turns every mile into a prolonged panic attack. | © Film Properties International

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

Francis Ford Coppola does not merely continue the Corleone story; he pulls it apart across two generations. Robert De Niro charts Vito’s calculated rise while Al Pacino shows Michael becoming more powerful, more isolated, and frighteningly hollow. The criminal empire grows, yet the family supposedly justifying it disintegrates one betrayal at a time. That slow moral decay gives *The Godfather Part II* the bleakness of a horror film in which the monster happens to wear immaculate suits. | © Paramount Pictures

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

A bank robbery is only the opening headache in Sam Peckinpah’s hard-edged adaptation of Jim Thompson’s novel. Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw play Doc and Carol McCoy, a married couple fleeing across Texas with stolen money, armed pursuers, and enough resentment to make the getaway deeply uncomfortable. Peckinpah delivers the expected gunfire and bruising action, but the damaged relationship underneath supplies the real tension. Everyone wants the cash, nobody trusts anybody, and romance must share the trunk with a shotgun. | © First Artists

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

Bill Murray wakes up to the same song, the same weather report, and the same relentlessly cheerful townspeople until repetition starts resembling cosmic punishment. Harold Ramis uses that terrific comic premise to smuggle in a surprisingly serious examination of selfishness, despair, and personal change. The movie never explains why Phil Connors is trapped, which keeps the time loop funny, unsettling, and strangely profound. It is the warmest selection among Stephen King’s favorite movies, although psychological torture still drives most of the plot. | © Columbia Pictures

Cropped Casablanca 1942 — 6. Casablanca (1942)

Decades of quotations and parodies have done remarkably little damage to *Casablanca*. Humphrey Bogart’s Rick hides heartbreak behind sarcasm and nightclub management until Ingrid Bergman walks back into his life carrying both old memories and a dangerous request. Michael Curtiz keeps romance, wartime espionage, comedy, and political urgency moving together without making the film feel crowded. Its famous ending works because Rick’s final choice hurts; heroism arrives, but it sends the hero home alone. | © Warner Bros.

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

Gold promises Fred C. Dobbs an escape from poverty and instead exposes every ugly thought rattling around inside him. Humphrey Bogart allows the character’s suspicion to build gradually, from understandable caution into sweaty, wild-eyed paranoia, while Walter Huston supplies humor and hard-earned wisdom as the experienced prospector Howard. John Huston shoots the adventure without romanticizing greed or the men consumed by it. The treasure is valuable, but watching Dobbs mentally unravel proves considerably richer. | © Warner Bros.

Cropped Jaws — 4. Jaws (1975)

The malfunctioning mechanical shark accidentally gave Steven Spielberg his greatest weapon: absence. For much of *Jaws*, danger is communicated through John Williams’ score, a drifting barrel, an empty patch of water, or Chief Brody’s horrified expression. Once Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw board the Orca, the blockbuster becomes a cramped battle between three clashing personalities and one enormous predator. King knows better than most that imagination finishes whatever the audience cannot clearly see. | © Universal Pictures

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

Martin Scorsese’s breakthrough feature feels less like an orderly gangster drama than a night spent following volatile men who should never have been allowed near credit, alcohol, or firearms. Harvey Keitel’s Charlie struggles to reconcile Catholic guilt with criminal ambition, while Robert De Niro’s reckless Johnny Boy treats every unpaid debt as another opportunity to provoke somebody. *Mean Streets* is noisy, restless, and painfully intimate, capturing small-time mob life before Scorsese began filming criminals with operatic grandeur. | © Taplin-Perry-Scorsese Productions

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

Alien contact is usually treated as an invasion or a military crisis, but *Close Encounters of the Third Kind* approaches it as an obsession ordinary language cannot contain. Richard Dreyfuss gives Roy Neary’s fixation an uncomfortable edge, especially as his family watches him abandon normal life for mashed-potato mountains and mysterious coordinates. Spielberg fills the finale with light, music, and genuine wonder, yet never completely removes the unease. Discovery feels miraculous here, though it also carries a steep personal cost. | © Columbia Pictures

Double Indemnity 1944 — 1. Double Indemnity (1944)

An insurance salesman, a dissatisfied wife, and a carefully planned murder produce one of film noir’s most efficient disasters. Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck generate chemistry sharpened by mutual calculation; their attraction is real, but so is the suspicion waiting behind it. Billy Wilder reveals the outcome early, then makes every attempted cover-up tighten the trap around his doomed conspirators. Edward G. Robinson nearly steals the picture using persistence, intuition, and the quiet fury of a man who can smell a fraudulent claim. | © Paramount Pictures

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Stephen King has spent decades giving audiences nightmares, but his taste in movies stretches well beyond haunted hotels and killer clowns. The legendary author has praised everything from classic horror and science fiction to war films, thrillers, and unexpectedly sentimental favorites. His personal picks reveal the stories that frightened, inspired, and entertained one of popular culture’s greatest storytellers—and yes, several might genuinely surprise you.

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Stephen King has spent decades giving audiences nightmares, but his taste in movies stretches well beyond haunted hotels and killer clowns. The legendary author has praised everything from classic horror and science fiction to war films, thrillers, and unexpectedly sentimental favorites. His personal picks reveal the stories that frightened, inspired, and entertained one of popular culture’s greatest storytellers—and yes, several might genuinely surprise you.