What Was The Best Year Ever For Stephen King Movies And TV? 2025 Is Already Top 3 But Not Number One

Over the last nine-plus months, I have frequently repeated how this is a particularly special year for fans of Stephen King. In addition to getting two new books from the author, 2025 is loaded with a stunning six adaptations spread across big and small screen – each of them based on very different stories with very different tones and wonderfully showcasing the immense range in King’s writing. But just because this year is extremely populated with King adaptations doesn’t mean that it’s the best year ever for them… which led me to ponder the question: what is the best year ever for Stephen King movies and TV?

My effort to address/answer that question is the leading headline of this week’s edition of The King Beat. You may have already seen the author’s early reaction to Black Phone 2 (which just had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest), and you may have caught the news about the novella Rat now being in the works as a feature, but there’s always more to talk about when it comes to the world of Stephen King! Without further ado, let’s dig in.

Highlighting The Five Single Best Years Ever For Stephen King Movies And TV

The ubiquity of Stephen King in Hollywood over the last 50 years cannot really be overstated. I like to point out that there have only been nine years since 1976 without a new King movie or a new season of a King TV series – and it’s most definitely not a “one per year” deal. Thirty of the last 49 years have seen multiple King titles arrive on the big screen, broadcast on television and/or start streaming. It’s these 12 month stretches on which I’ve focused in narrowing down the best years ever for Stephen King adaptations/original productions.

Some of the years are mediocre (like 1991, which saw the airing of the “Moving Finger” episode of the anthology series Monsters, the debut of the TV movie Sometimes They Come Back, and the premiere of the single-season show Golden Years). Some of the years suffer from being a mixed bag (like 1993 seeing The Dark Half and Needful Things associated with the TV miniseries The Tommyknockers). But there are other years that are principally full of greatness, and they made my Top 5 below:

5. 2004

Unlike all of the other years that I will highlight in this ranking, 2004 is different in that it’s not a year that features any particular standout title. And to be perfectly blunt, Mick Garris’ Riding The Bullet is really terrible. I’m also not someone who is prone to go to bat for David Koepp’s Secret Window – but it’s not a disaster, and I appreciate the two small screen entries from the mid-aughts year.

TNT’s Salem’s Lot miniseries doesn’t get nearly as much love as Tobe Hooper’s version from 1979, but I appreciate it’s dark approach to the material, and the casting is mostly great. More significantly, 2004 was the year that brought us Kingdom Hospital, which is a weird and freaky delight that helped Stephen King process his near-fatal accident from June 1999 by writing his own accident into a major plotline.

4. 2019

The box office riches earned by Andy Muschietti’s IT: Chapter One spurred invigorated interest from Hollywood in the works of Stephen King, and the development year of 2018 brought us a lot more great stuff in 2019. One could say that IT: Chapter Two was destined to disappoint (the adult storyline simply isn’t as good as the one with the kids), and I think that Kevin Kölsch & Dennis Widmyer’s Pet Sematary pales in comparison to Mary Lambert’s original from 1989, but three other titles ultimately righted the scales in 2019’s favor.

Vincenzo Natali’s In The Tall Grass is an underappreciated title from the streaming era of Stephen King, and the Creepshow TV series on Shudder got off to a great start with a pulpy, star-studded adaptation of “Gray Matter.” What really makes 2019 special above all else, however, is the release of Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep, which is as close to a cinematic miracle as one can find.

3. 2017

Here is a bit of behind-the-scenes for you: as I was putting this ranking together, I initially had 2017 winning the silver medal. But then I remembered how much I absolutely loathe Nikolaj Arcel’s The Dark Tower – and in combination with the general meh-ness of the Mist television series, I just didn’t feel right putting it in that place. It’s a shame, because everything else from the world of King that came out that year is in consideration for “all-timer” conversations.

IT: Chapter One is certainly the sexist title for reasons mentioned earlier, but 2017 was the same year that also brought us the excellent Netflix two-fer of Mike Flanagan’s Gerald’s Game and Zak Hilditch’s 1922, and Audience debuted the exceptionally underrated first season of Mr. Mercedes.

2. 2025

Right now, the edge that 2025 has over all of the other years on this list is that there is no specific title among those that have been released that I would identify as “bad.” The weakest of the bunch is most certainly the MGM+ series The Institute, but it isn’t awful like The Dark Tower or Riding The Bullet; it’s simply super mediocre. Meanwhile, everything else that has come out has serious consideration for the list of the best ever Stephen King movies.

Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey, Mike Flanagan’s The Life Of Chuck and Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk are all completely different cinematic experiences, but what they share in common is excellence. If HBO Max’s IT: Welcome To Derry and Edgar Wright’s The Running Man turn out to be phenomenal, there may be an argument to bump it up a spot in this ranking.

1. 1983

In 1983, Stephen King was still within the first decade of his career as a published novelist – and when you look at the trio of movies that came out between January and December, it’s hardly surprising that he came to be a household name and a pop culture icon. In the same 12-month stretch that Pet Sematary and Christine both arrived in bookstores worldwide, movie-goers got to see John Carpenter’s film adaptation of the latter (yes, in the same calendar year) along with Lewis Teague’s Cujo and David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone.

All three movies arrived in the second half of the year (between August 12 and December 9), and they are all genre classics that are each incredible interpretations of their respective source material. Cujo is the least-great of the bunch, and yet I'd still qualify it as cinematic excellence with boldness in multiple arenas.

It’s entirely possible that this list will totally change within the next couple of months – but as things stand, it’s pretty damn hard to beat the trio of 1983.

The Brand New Trailer For IT: Welcome To Derry Makes Me Wonder How Much Of Pennywise’s Origin We May See In The HBO Max Show

As noted earlier, the arrival of director Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk in theaters means that the next stop in the cavalcade of 2025 King adaptations is IT: Welcome To Derry – and it will be here very soon. Come Friday, it will be exactly one month away, as the show is set to premiere on HBO Max on October 26. To celebrate the countdown now being truly on, a brand new trailer for the series has arrived online this week, and while there is a lot to digest, there is a particular moment that makes me wonder how much of Pennywise’s origin we will get to see in the eight-episode run.

Watching the trailer above, I’m betting that you can suss out the moment in question here (hint: it’s not Dick Halloran sitting down for a chat with the Hanlons in their living room). At about the 1:42 mark, there is a shot of a peaceful night in the wilderness being disrupted by a flaming comet coming down from the sky – leading a black trail of smoke behind it and burrowing deep into the earth. If this shot seems incongruous with most of the events in the trailer and yet familiar, it’s because it appears to be an adaptation of a part of Stephen King’s book that takes place long before 1962.

In IT, the titular monster’s origins can be traced back to a great void known as the Macroverse, but the evil being crash landed on our planet – specifically in the region that would become Derry, Maine – shortly before the settlement of America. The preview footage that just arrived suggests that the show will explore Pennywise’s arrival… but would it be greedy to wonder if there might be an entire episode dedicated to the being’s complicated beginnings?

Given that the novel features chapters told from IT’s perspective, the show wouldn’t be breaking any “rules” of the narrative by going this route, and it would finally provide the canon with the opportunity to explore the antagonist’s relationship with Maturin the Turtle. It would be a big swing, but it would also be a wonderful gift to Constant Readers.

Be on the lookout for more about IT: Welcome To Derry in the coming weeks, as we have a whole lot of coverage planned for you here on the site before, during, and after the show’s first season arrives on HBO Max.

That wraps up this week’s edition of The King Beat, but that just means we’re now just seven days away from the next one, as they arrive with promised regularity here on CinemaBlend every Thursday. While you wait, you can learn even more about the long history of Stephen King film and television via my series Adapting Stephen King.