Stephen King reveals his top 10 movies, and you won’t believe what’s missing!

While Bard may hold the crown for most-adapted author, King of Horror Stephen King is hot on his heels. With over 69 films based on his works, ranging from iconic hits like The Shining (1980) to cult classics like Children of the Corn sequels, King has dominated the silver screen.

Now, as the film adaptation of his 1979 novel The Long Walk prepares to debut, the master of terror has shared his personal list of the 10 films that have left the deepest mark on him. He made the revelations in an interview with Mental Floss, and fans of King’s usual blood-curdling fare might be in for a shock.

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Presented without any ranking, King’s cinematic loves include:

• Casablanca (1942)
• Double Indemnity (1944)
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• The Getaway (1972)
• Mean Streets (1973)
• The Godfather Part II (1974)
• Jaws (1975)
• Sorcerer (1977)
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
• Groundhog Day (1993)

Yes, you read that right, Jaws, a horror-thriller, is the only film in his list that remotely aligns with his famous genre. Close Encounters is his lone sci-fi pick, and shockingly, the only comedy to make the cut is Groundhog Day (which, to be fair, is a darkly existential take on time loops). The rest? A collection of gritty, tension-filled dramas about desperate characters in even more desperate situations.

For instance, Sorcerer (1977) – a remake of The Wages of Fear (1953) – follows men transporting volatile dynamite through treacherous terrain. Double Indemnity (1944) and The Getaway (1972) are both crime thrillers about men trying to escape the consequences of their criminal actions. Even Casablanca (1942) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) center around characters searching for a way out—whether from war-torn Morocco or a failed gold prospecting venture.

In a 2009 interview with Entertainment Weekly, King explained his love for Sorcerer, “It’s about desperate men with nothing to lose hauling unstable nitroglycerin across a jungle. The tension is palpable. Roy Scheider nailed it. I love it more than the original Wages of Fear.”

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Interestingly, King excluded some of his own greatest film adaptations from the list, like Stand by Me (1986), Misery (1990), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and The Green Mile (1999), leading many to speculate they might have made the cut otherwise.

It: Welcome to Derry, a prequel to the It saga, will stream on HBO starting October 26. And just a few weeks later, The Running Man, based on King’s Bachman novel, will hit theaters on November 14, starring Glenn Powell. Stay tuned – there’s more terror to come!