Every Stephen King Movie and TV Show Ranked by Rewatchability in 2025 — The Ones Worth Your Next Binge
Stephen King owned 2025, as a fresh wave of page-to-screen hits crashed across theaters and TV, with Welcome to Derry vaulting to the top of HBO Max’s charts. From breakout voices to seasoned auteurs, his stories still rule—and it’s the perfect moment to revisit the classics.
2025 basically turned into Stephen King season. The guy had adaptations all over film and TV, and one of them, It: Welcome to Derry, sat on top of HBO Max’s charts. If you’re in the mood to revisit the highlights (and a couple mixed bags), here are six King projects from this year that are absolutely rewatchable for very different reasons.
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The Institute (MGM+)
Based on King’s 2019 novel, this one checks every box for the familiar: mysterious facility, kids with powers, sinister adults, the whole thing. It leans so hard into well-worn territory that you’ll think about Stranger Things, The Shining, and Firestarter more than you probably should.
Season 1 runs 8 episodes (roughly 54–59 minutes each) and premiered July 13, 2025. Benjamin Cavell developed and wrote the series, Jack Bender directed, and the cast is stacked: Joe Freeman as teen prodigy Luke Ellis, Ben Barnes as ex-cop Tim Jamieson, Mary-Louise Parker as Ms. Sigsby, plus Simone Miller, Fionn Laird, Hannah Galway, Julian Richings, Robert Joy, and Martin Roach.
The setup: Luke is kidnapped and thrown into a secretive facility that exploits children with special abilities. The show splits its time between the kids inside and an ex-cop tracking the mystery from the outside. The dual narrative wears thin, and the execution stays pretty middle-of-the-road, but if you like this flavor of sci-fi-tinged supernatural thriller, it’s comfort food TV.
Genre: Supernatural horror/thriller with sci-fi vibes. Streaming in the U.S. on MGM+.
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The Running Man (2025 film)
Edgar Wright adapting King’s dystopian bruiser (originally published under his Richard Bachman pen name) sounded like a killer match. Add Glen Powell leading and, on paper, you’ve got a crowd-pleaser. The finished movie is a slick dystopian science-fiction action thriller that gets the message right but doesn’t quite land the rebellious gut-punch it promises.
Wright co-wrote the script with Michael Bacall. It runs 133 minutes and hit theaters November 14, 2025. The story sticks to the novel’s spine: in a grim future, wrongfully accused Ben Richards signs up for a deadly televised chase where he must survive 30 days while hunted, all to expose a corrupt media-government machine.
Wright’s trademark high-velocity editing sometimes works against the stakes here; it looks sharp, it moves fast, but the impact is uneven. Powell is absolutely game, though, and the core idea still hits.
Based on: The Running Man (1982). Available to rent or buy on Amazon and Apple TV in the U.S.
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The Life of Chuck (Neon)
Mike Flanagan plus Stephen King usually screams pure horror. Instead, Flanagan swings for a supernatural drama that’s more soulful than scary, told in reverse, and it works. It’s a graceful, quietly mind-bending piece about the life, death, and hidden significance of an ordinary man named Charles "Chuck" Krantz.
Released June 6, 2025, the film runs about 110 minutes. Flanagan wrote, directed, and produced (with Trevor Macy). The cast is aces: Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, and Jacob Tremblay. Set in contemporary America and distributed by Neon, it’s the rare King adaptation that swaps dread for wonder without losing the weird.
Hiddleston delivers what might be his best performance, and the movie’s structure lets Flanagan stage a few sequences that just glow in your memory afterward.
Based on: The Life of Chuck from King’s 2020 collection If It Bleeds. Available to rent or buy on Amazon and Apple TV in the U.S.
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It: Welcome to Derry (HBO Max)
This was the breakout TV hit: a prequel to It (2017) and It: Chapter Two (2019) that drags us back to Derry, Maine, in 1962, right as Pennywise begins to stir. Across 8 episodes (about 54–66 minutes each), a new family’s arrival dovetails with a rash of disappearances, and the show keeps layering fresh twists while digging into psychological horror most series only nod at.
Developed by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs, with Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane as showrunners, it premiered October 26, 2025. Bill Skarsgard returns as Pennywise, joined by Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Chris Chalk, Madeleine Stowe, Matilda Lawler, and more.
The series topped HBO Max’s streaming charts and drew the kind of praise that usually means instant renewal. Officially, Season 2 hasn’t been announced yet, but the creators have already said they want to explore more cycles of Pennywise’s terror. Odds are good we’re not done with Derry.
Streaming now in the U.S. on HBO Max.
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The Monkey (Neon)
Osgood Perkins followed up Longlegs with a lean, nasty, and surprisingly funny King adaptation that shouldn’t work on paper but totally does: a cursed toy monkey whose cymbals signal gruesome, Final Destination-style deaths.
Released February 21, 2025, the feature is written and directed by Perkins, produced by James Wan, and distributed by Neon. Theo James leads, with Elijah Wood and Tatiana Maslany backing him up. The film toggles between gallows humor and real weight, and yes, there’s a gnarly late twist that lands.
It’s a prime group watch with friends (maybe skip it with the family). Genre: Horror with supernatural bite. Currently streaming on Hulu in the U.S.
Based on: King’s short story The Monkey from Skeleton Crew (1985).
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The Long Walk (Lionsgate)
Of the dystopian adaptations this year, this is the one that hits hardest. Francis Lawrence doesn’t waste time easing you in: teenage boys are forced into an endurance contest where slowing down means death, and only one survives. It’s brutal, but the movie is really about the friendships that form under impossible pressure.
Released September 12, 2025, the film is written by JT Mollner and set in a near-future United States. It plays as dystopian, psychological thriller, and horror all at once. The script is tight, the pacing unrelenting, and a chilling turn from Mark Hamill as an iron-fisted figurehead underlines the story’s take on violence-as-entertainment. It’s the pointed commentary The Running Man aimed for, delivered with more sting.
Based on: The Long Walk (1979), published under King’s Richard Bachman name. Studio: Lionsgate. Available to rent or buy on Amazon and Apple TV in the U.S.
King’s 2025 had range: some hits, some swings that didn’t fully connect, but plenty worth your time. Which one are you itching to rewatch?