Five Stephen King Adaptations Elevated by Standout Performances

Despite King’s creative imagination, there are several adaptations of his works that nearly everyone agrees fell short. Yet, even in the least successful adaptations, a standout performance can sometimes redeem the experience. From mesmerizing portrayals to unexpectedly successful acting choices, certain actors have managed to elevate otherwise lackluster adaptations. Here, we explore five such instances where a single performance made all the difference.

One of King’s most ambitious novels, “The Stand,” presents a post-apocalyptic saga of good versus evil, set across a vast American landscape devastated by a deadly virus. First released in 1978 and later expanded in 1990 to over 1100 pages, the novel’s intricate plot and multitude of characters pose a significant challenge for adaptation.

Despite these shortcomings, the actors involved generally delivered commendable performances, given the script’s limitations. Notably, Greg Kinnear’s portrayal of Glen Bateman shone brightly. One Reddit user remarked that Kinnear captured the essence of the character, effectively bridging the gap between the novel’s version of Glen and Ray Walston’s iconic portrayal from the 1994 series. The user added that while Walston’s voice remained their mental image when reading the book, Kinnear managed to steal every scene he appeared in, making the series worth watching despite its flaws.

The first adaptation, a 1994 made-for-TV mini-series, is still considered by many to be one of King’s best adaptations. For fans of the drama, that made it all the more disappointing when the star-studded 2020 Paramount mini-series adaptation absolutely bombed, coming in at a dismal 57% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 25%. Among viewers’ litany of complaints about this series, top concerns included frustration with the story’s narrative structure and pacing, along with a general sense that many of the novel’s characters and themes were mishandled.

Exactly none of that is the fault of the actors, many of whom did a fine job despite not having the best material to work with. But one performance that stands out enough to make the series worth watching despite its many failings was Greg Kinnear as Glen Bateman. “He felt like the perfect in between of novel Glen and the legendary Ray Walston from 1994,” opined one Reddit user, adding that although Walston would always be the voice they hear when reading the book, “Kinnear stole every scene he was in.”

If you don’t remember the fever dream that was the 1995 adaptation of Stephen King’s existentialist horror novella “The Langoliers,” you’re certainly not alone. Many fans say it’s one of King’s spookiest tales, with some comparing it to an early introduction to the Backrooms mythos that would later inspire “Severance.” But it’s also an undeniably difficult story to adapt, since so much of the tale is purely psychological as it deals with a group of airline passengers who find themselves trapped outside of reality.

The pacing of the mini-series, which feels a bit like an onscreen adaptation of a stage play as its characters argue in the airplane and airport, accounts for most of this adaptation’s failings. But the series is also full of disappointing performances, weakly written characters, and, toward the end, one of the most egregious abuses of CGI ever to hit the small screen — and veteran actor Dean Stockwell can’t do a darned thing to salvage it.

But even if good acting can’t make this film more watchable, the absolute over-the-top scenery-chewing performance of Bronson Pinchot as mentally unhinged finance bro Craig Toomy makes it a can’t miss addition to the King multiverse canon. As one Reddit user put it, “Bronson Pinchot is in a different movie than the rest of them.” And yet somehow, that absurdist performance ends up being the most watchable thing in the movie.

The 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary,” a film about a cemetery that reanimates the dearly departed, is far from a perfect film, with critics lauding the 2023 remake as a significant improvement over the original “Pet Sematary.” It certainly has its scary moments, especially if you were a 1980s kid who found the prospect of living roadkill to be fertile ground for nightmare fuel. But many of the film’s biggest scares felt overplayed or even cartoonish to some viewers, and the zombie toddler toward the end of the film didn’t help.

As is too often the case with adaptations of King’s work, the film’s main characters sorely failed to capture the complexity of their print counterparts — a crying shame since so much of what makes his books great is those characterizations. Still, one actor brought a level of depth and dimension to his role that still stands out as one of the finer performances in the King adaptation pantheon. In his performance as the Creed family’s kindly neighbor Jud Crandall, Fred Gwynne, who is best known for his role as Herman Munster, went above and beyond the call of duty portraying a nuanced, complicated man. Many Stephen King fans consider his performance to be their favorite of any King adaptation. As one Redditor put it, “Fred Gwynne was highly underrated, everyone just saw Herman Munster, but he’s so great in Pet Sematary and My Cousin Vinnie.”

The 1997 mini-series adaptation of “The Shining” is one of those movies many fans had no idea were remade. Although the original 1980 Stanley Kubrick version starring Jack Nicholson gets all the love, King had always wished for a more faithful adaptation of his novel, a problem the 1997 adaptation set out to correct.

And despite the earlier version overshadowing this adaptation, the 1997 version isn’t a bad one, with the mini-series drawing critical acclaim and racking up a handful of awards, including two Primetime Emmy Awards for makeup and sound editing. Even so, when compared to the surrealist, atmospheric Kubrickian vision of its predecessor, the later “Shining” still struggled to stand out. And that’s sad, if only because Steven Weber’s Jack Torrance in this film is really outstanding. Far from a mere rehash of Nicholson’s Torrance, Weber’s portrayal presented a more multi-dimensional vision of a man who cares about his family even when his failures as a father and husband cause him to give in to madness. Sure, he’s not the villain that Nicholson’s Torrance was, but this does align with the book much better than the Kubrick adaptation, and the series is worth watching if for that reason alone.

When “IT: Chapter II” concluded the second adaptation of King’s book in 2019, critics had mixed feelings about the film, with many finding the nearly three-hour film heartfelt but ultimately underwhelming. Fans’ takes were even less magnanimous as they took to the internet to express outright disappointment with what should have been a grand finale to a killer two-part saga. The visions had begun to feel overplayed and even monotonous to many viewers. To boot, some fans felt the casting could have been better and found the chemistry of the film’s main stars lacking altogether.

Nonetheless, despite all of this film’s shortcomings, both critics and general audiences found Bill Hader’s performance as Richie Tozier to be a bright spot in the film. After seeing his portrayal, many fans were surprised by Hader’s range as both a dramatic and comedic actor. Posting her brief review of the film on X, Collider’s then-Horror editor Hayleigh Foutch wrote, “Bill Hader is every-bit the scene-stealing standout we all hoped he’d be.”