9 Best Stephen King Series, Ranked!

While every Stephen King adaptation is not created equal, the iconic author's ideas have served as nightmare fuel for generations of brave viewers (both children and adults alike), and for that we salute him! And with every new series that drops comes a chance to revisit the classics, which is exactly what we're doing here.

To celebrate the release of Apple TV+'s upcoming Lisey's Story (which premieres Friday, June 4 with two episodes), TVLine is taking stock of our favorite King series from the '70s to today. Our list has loads of supernatural baddies from the Nosferatu-inspired vampire Kurt Barlow and one infamous axe-wielding maniac, to Pennywise the Clown and beyond. The following nine series kept us up all night and got under our skin, and therefore are worthy of your time if scares are what you're seeking.

We hop all over King's multiverse from Derry to Jerusalem's Lot (well, mostly all over the state of Maine), as we highlight our absolute favorites, and honor King's twisted tales that best transferred from the page to the screen. (Apologies in advance Under the Dome fans, but that third and final season was rough.)

So which shows made the cut? Review our ranking of the best TV adaptations from King's oeuvre, then be sure to drop some comments and tell us your faves!

Following body horror maestro David Cronenberg's film was a bold move, but this procedural-with-a-twist was a largely successful feat. The TV version once again revolved around Johnny Smith (with The Breakfast Club's Anthony Michael Hall stepping in for Christopher Walken), a man who awakens from a coma with psychic abilities. Johnny quickly finds his gifts are both a blessing and a curse as he works with a local town sheriff to solve crimes and subvert genre tropes. Come for Hall's excellent performance, stay for the wowing action and visuals of impending doom.

Directed by horror legend Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), this TV miniseries follows writer Ben Mears (Starsky and Hutch's David Soul) as he discovers that the citizens of his hometown are being stalked and turned into vampires. Not only did the series pave the way for the classic '80s vampire films to come (like Fright Night and The Lost Boys), but it expertly infused haunted house elements into its bloodsucking premise. Plus, the make-up effects on head-vamp Kurt Barlow were an excellent homage to Nosferatu. 

The Audience Network adaptation of the Bill Hodges novel trilogy (now available on Peacock) was strong out of the gate with its casting, with Brendan Gleeson perfectly capturing Hodges' gruff and troubled but brilliant disposition, Harry Treadaway giving us shivers as psychopath Brady Hartsfield, and both Holland Taylor and Justine Lupe shining in supporting roles. Season 2 benefited from a sprinkling of the supernatural as it continued the Hodges/Treadaway battle of wits, while Season 3 ably stood on its own while siccing Hodges on a brand-new case.

Condensing King's 800-plus-page tome into a nine-episode miniseries was no small feat for series creators Benjamin Cavell and Josh Boone, but their 2020 adaptation for CBS All Access (now Paramount+) brought the book's emotional gravity and looming sense of dread to life. Plus, the stacked cast — including Whoopi Goldberg, James Marsden and Alexander Skarsgård — ensured an array of colorful performances. But some perplexing creative choices were made for the limited series, namely the decision to jump back and forth in time instead of telling the story in chronological order, which made it harder to invest in the Captain Trips survivors and their perilous journey.

Less overtly creepy than most King adaptations, Hulu's miniseries still brought plenty of eerie thrills with James Franco starring as Jake, an English teacher who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination. Once there, Jake gets immersed in his 1960s life, and the alt-history intrigue and time-travel complications are addictive to watch unfold. But it's the human emotion, as Jake's romance with Sarah Gadon's librarian Sadie builds to an exquisitely bittersweet conclusion, that truly makes this adaptation one for the history books.

Lisey's Story is a rarity: King himself wrote the screenplays for all eight episodes of this particular limited series. Led by the incredible Julianne Moore, Lisey tells the story of a widow who's haunted by her memories and late husband's dark past, as she's tortured by a dangerous stalker dead-set on getting what he wants. The adaptation handles a very internal story with aplomb, deep diving into the titular character's psyche, while painting the wowing world of Boo'ya Moon in ways we hadn't imagined. Plus, its non-linear narrative structure has a captivating flow that will keep you hooked until the very end. (Premieres Friday, June 4, on Apple TV+.)

An anthology series based around King's work gave Castle Rock the freedom to blend elements from all over King's multiverse, while also introducing new bits of fiction as it saw fit. Intertwining characters and stories from the titular fictional town and other parts of Maine, the series cranked up the psychological horror, telling tales about an odd Shawshank prisoner (in Season 1) and the early days of Misery's Annie Wilkes (Season 2), sprinkling in Easter eggs and references to IT, Dolores Claiborne, Salem's Lot, The Green Mile, The Shining, The Mangler and loads more along the way. It was dark, unsettling and yes, confusing at times, but it left a behind a creepiness in its wake that we just couldn't shake.

HBO's rendition of this 2018 novel sees Ben Mendelsohn playing Detective Ralph Anderson, a man trying to solve an impossible case as a supernatural doppelgänger muddled his findings at every turn. Cynthia Erivo is brilliant as Holly Gibney, a private investigator with photogenic memory and perceptive capabilities that seem like a handy set of superpowers. The series' deliberate pacing is a slow burn that pays off in spades, delivering a bleak, pitch-black tone that could only come from the inside of King's brain.

Nothing is perhaps more iconic in the world of Stephen King TV than Tim Curry's Pennywise. In the original miniseries, Curry both delights and terrifies as a shapeshifting monster that stalks the town of Derry and the members of The Losers Club by preying on their worst fears and phobias. With a cast consisting of John Ritter, Annette O'Toole, Richard Thomas and Tim Reid, IT not only had star power, but arrived fully loaded with all the tools needed to do King's 1,100-page+ tome justice. (Let's just pretend that giant spider puppet never existed, OK?)