Every Stephen King Movie Ranked Worst To Best

Based on King's daring novel of the same name, which was written as an informal monologue with no breaks or chapters, Dolores Claiborne stars a rarely-better Kathy Bates as a woman accused of murder and forced to reconnect with her estranged daughter (Jennifer Jason Leigh). 

Aspects of the film's structure don't work, perhaps because the novel was so uniquely written, but the parts that do - from Bates' creepy central performance to its hypnotically dreadful exploration of repressed memories and hidden pain - work to envelope you in a world impossible to resist, troubling as its drama may be. 

Unpredictable and unsettling to the very end, Dolores Claiborne is a brilliant character study briefly derailed by tired courtroom clichés, and the whole thing will leave you reeling.