Stephen King: Ranking His Films From Worst To Best

5. The Green Mile

Frank Darabont began to stray a little into supernatural territory with his second Stephen King adaptation. Whilst The Shawshank Redemption was played fairly straight, King's next story of wrongful imprisonment and the general injustice and dehumanisation of the American legal system managed to work in some of the more mystical elements known from his popular horror work. That was present in the screen version of The Green Mile. Tom Hanks got most of the applause for his role as the prison officer who's a fair bit more calm, understanding, and less prone to police brutality than his colleagues; it was Michael Clarke Duncan, as the man accused of raping and killing two white women, that really steals the show, though. Duncan's character has a dignified, quiet calm and empathy belying a man who's on death row. His prisoner has the otherworldly power to heal, sorting out a UTI infection for Hanks and bringing a dead mouse back to life. It's a two-hander, with equally strong performances on both sides. Especially that ending.