Stephen King’s 10 favorite movies include one of the most underrated thrillers of all time

Everyone loves a good list, and it’s always fun for celebrities to share their favorite movies, as they offer a glimpse into their personal tastes and perhaps what makes them tick as artists. Thanks to these tales, we now know that “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” inspired Salma Hayek Pinault to become an actress, and Johnny Depp wanted a tornado to carry him away from his teenage life after watching “The Wizard of Oz.” Likewise, it’s not surprising that a major filmmaker like Steven Spielberg would lean toward old-fashioned Hollywood storytelling, while Werner Herzog distinctively favors esoteric documentaries that most people have never heard of. But what about Stephen King, the prolific author whose works have inspired countless film adaptations?

In September 2025, King revealed his ten favorite films of all time X (formerly known as Twitter). Coyly, he prefaced the list by noting that his choices excluded films based on his novels, naming “Misery” and “The Shawshank Redemption” as examples, among a few others. (Although not surprisingly, He did not mention Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”) For the most part, King’s selections are time-honored classics that reflect his passion for spinning good yarns, including the likes of “Casablanca,” “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” “Double Indemnity,” “The Godfather Part II,” and “Jaws.” Martin Scorsese’s semi-autobiographical “Mean Streets” also managed to surpass the director’s hit films like “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas,” which makes sense given that King also channeled a lot of his own life experiences into his work.

Meanwhile, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” his second Spielberg choice, is similarly accomplished: it sheds little light on the narrative but makes up for it with its gorgeous spectacle, with King putting his own dark take on the idea of ​​alien visitors into novels like “The Tommyknockers” and “Under the Dome.” However, “Groundhog Day” is his only comedy option, which is fair enough: not only is it a great movie, but you can also see how a time-loop scenario might appeal to a writer who regularly delves into mystery and fantasy. Finally, the list is rounded out by two more surprising selections: Sam Peckinpah’s “The Getaway” and William Friedkin’s “The Magician.” The latter is one of the most underrated thrillers of all time, but it was the first on King’s list, suggesting that he holds it in the highest regard. Let’s take a closer look at why “The Magician” doesn’t get the recognition it deserves and why it’s so special.

William Friedkin was on a hot streak in the 1970s. “The French Connection” was a huge commercial success and won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director and Actor for Gene Hackman. Friedkin then followed that up with The Exorcist, which was a box office success and became the first horror film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Friedkin also received a second straight nod in the Best Director category, but he and the film lost to George Roy Hill and The Sting.

These successive successes made Friedkin one of the most popular directors of the decade. But unfortunately, he was unable to capitalize on this momentum and embarked on a series of unrealized projects. He began work on a documentary about horror cinema called A Safe Darkness, interviewing Fritz Lang and Roman Polanski in the process. He then bought the rights to Will Eisner’s “Soul” comic book series, but had a falling out with the screenwriter. On top of that, he began developing a UFO movie called “The Devil’s Triangle,” aiming to star Steve McQueen, Charlton Heston, and Marlon Brando.

The latter project was shelved as Friedkin began work on his next completed picture, “The Magician.” According to the director, the studio thought Henri-Georges Clouzot’s remake of The Wages of Fear could be another hit, but it would be a hit. A perfect storm of problems The agony of the image is written. Friedkin’s intended star, Steve McQueen, has dropped out, and has been replaced by Roy Scheider, a very capable actor coming off the back of Jaws, but who doesn’t have the star power to sell a movie to audiences. It also didn’t help that the title was confusing to many people, misleading them into expecting more supernatural events after “The Exorcist.”

But what’s even more damaging is that “The Sorcerer” came out a month after “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope,” an instant cultural phenomenon that Friedkin himself reported. In the summer of 1977, it seemed that no one wanted a bleak existential thriller when George Lucas’s space adventure was still breaking box office records. As a result, The Magician flopped mightily, signaling the beginning of the end for the auteur-led New Hollywood movement. Friedkin made some good films after that, but his career never fully recovered from that disappointment. Fortunately, he has kept faith with “The Magician,” and it has gained a reputation as a true classic in recent decades.

Stephen King is a master at keeping readers on the edge of their seats, so perhaps it’s no surprise that “The Magician” is rated so highly. After all, the film centers around one of the most suspenseful conceits in cinematic history: four desperate men driving two wrecker trucks containing dynamite to shut down an oil well fire. The problem is that highly volatile explosives may explode at the slightest jolt, and the route you have to take is not exactly suitable for a smooth ride.

Friedkin used a quasi-documentary style in The French Connection and The Exorcist, and he pushes this to the extreme in Sorcerer. It takes us straight into a baffling international prologue that presents the backstory of each man: Nilo (Francisco Rubal), a hitman on the run after a hit in Mexico; Qasim (Amido), a Palestinian rebel who escapes from the Israeli army after detonating a bomb on a bus; and Victor Manzon (Bruno Kremer), a Parisian banker who leaves everything behind to escape arrest for fraud. Finally, we get some English dialogue when we meet the film’s titular hero, Jackie Scanlon (Cheddar), a New Jersey thief on the run from the mafia. Now, they are all holed up in a poor village in Latin America with no way to emigrate to a better place. That’s when they have the dubious opportunity to make a little money by transporting decaying boxes of dynamite 200 miles through the jungle.

“The Magician” is a slow burn that builds toward a moment in the show where the men must drive trucks across a decaying rope bridge over a rushing river in the middle of a violent storm. It’s one of the most dramatic scenes I’ve ever seen, and it showcases Friedkin’s filmmaking prowess. The sound design puts us in the moment when the trucks growl, the bridge creaks and the storm howls around our ears. You can feel the sheer weight of the trucks lurching forward over the rotting logs, and Friedkin builds the tension until something finally breaks. The director went all out for authenticity, driving real trucks through real jungles in the Dominican Republic to capture the scene. Following his usual method of practical training, Friedkin himself fell into the water During the filming of The Bridge Crossing, a set piece makes The Wizard one of the greatest thrillers of all time.