Stephen King: His Top 10 Movies

Stephen King may be the master of horror, but his taste in movies goes far beyond things that go bump in the night. In a recent interview, the best-selling author revealed his ten favorite films of all time, and they cover everything from film noir to science fiction classics.

Here is King’s list, in no particular order:

1. Sorcerer (1977)
2. The Godfather Part II (1974)
3. The Getaway (1972)
4. Groundhog Day (1993)
5. Casablanca (1942)
6. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
7. Jaws (1975)
8. Mean Streets (1973)
9. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
10. Double Indemnity (1944)

The range is impressive. William Friedkin’s tense thriller Sorcerer sits alongside Groundhog Day, one of the most inventive comedies of the 1990s. There are Hollywood staples like Casablanca and The Godfather Part II, as well as gritty crime tales such as Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway. Steven Spielberg makes the cut twice with Jaws, which King has often credited with keeping him out of the water, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

King purposely left out films based on his own novels but gave special mention to four: Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, and The Green Mile. He explained that it did not seem fair to rank them with the others, although those adaptations remain close to his heart.

For a man who has inspired so many films, King’s list shows he is still a true movie fan.