Stephen King: Ranking His Films From Worst To Best

3. The Shawshank Redemption

Obviously you can't have a list of the best Stephen King adaptations without this one being fairly high up. For one thing, director Frank Darabont has practically made a career on bringing King's stories to the big screen; for another, his 1994 classic is frequently included on lists of the best films of all time - period - let alone the best Stephen King films of all time. Nobody's gonna argue with that. Again based on a novella, leaving some room for interpretation and elaboration on the parts of the screenwriters, The Shawshank Redemption retains everything The Shining threw out: no supernatural gubbins, but King's real empathy for his fellow man, even if the man in question is an inmate at a federal penitentiary. Tim Robbins stars as the wrongfully imprisoned man who still manages to hold his head high in the face of adversity in his particularly corrupt jail; Morgan Freeman is his best bud on the inside. For a film so frequently bleak, it maintains a sense of hope that probably cemented it in the hearts of film-goers across the globe.