10 Best Stephen King Movie Adaptations

5. Misery

Kathy Bates rightly won an Oscar for her unforgettably horrifying performance as Annie Wilkes, the world's worst fangirl, who holds her favourite author (James Caan) captive and forces him to write to her will.

Surely one of King's more personal stories, albeit taken to a highly exaggerated, satirical extreme, Misery could have easily been B-movie horror schlock in lesser hands, but William Goldman's fantastic script and sharply-calibrated turns from Bates and Caan keep it on an even tonal keel throughout.

The cringe-inducing hobbling scene is, of course, a classic sequence from the genre, but director Rob Reiner also deserves a lot of credit for milking maximum suspense out of a tiny cast and isolated setting.