How many Stephen King movies have been made?

When it comes to authors who have had their works adapted for the screen, Stephen King is in a league of his own. The list of iconic films based on novels and short stories written by the ‘King of Horror’ is extensive, and it includes titles like Carrie, It, The Shining, Misery, Christine, Pet Sematary, Cujo, and The Dead Zone. He has also had several adaptations made based on his works outside the horror genre, such as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.

Just how many King movie adaptations have been made in total, though? Well, the number currently sits at 55, and that includes upcoming projects like The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Hearts, and Suffer the Little Children. That’s an incredibly high number of adaptations, even though it has been spread out over the last five decades. It also doesn’t account for the various television shows, TV movies, and miniseries that have been based on King’s work over the years – because that would put the number higher than 100.

Indeed, King has done so well over the years from Hollywood adapting his books that he long ago instituted a policy to give something back to filmmaking as an art form. “Over the objections of my accountant, who saw all sorts of possible legal problems, I established a policy which still holds today,” King revealed in the introduction for The Shawshank Redemption: The Shooting Script.

Adding: “I will grant any student filmmaker the right to make a movie out of any short story I have written – not the novels, that would be ridiculous – so long as the film rights are still mine to assign.”

Heartwarmingly, King’s ‘Dollar Baby’ policy actually wound up introducing him to someone who later made two of his most acclaimed feature adaptations. In 1980, a young filmmaker named Frank Darabont paid a buck for the rights to ‘The Woman in the Room’, though it took him three years to make the film, King was impressed with the results. Darabont, of course, later went on to direct The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.

So, what was the first movie based on a Stephen King book?

Amazingly, the first movie to be based on a Stephen King book was Carrie, which was also his first novel. King was only 26 years old when he sold the rights to the novel for $2,500, and in 2010, he admitted, “I was fortunate to have that happen to my first book.”

The film, directed by Brian De Palma, became a roaring success both critically and commercially, setting King up for a lengthy career as a writer whose works are always prime candidates for cinematic adaptation.

…and how many Stephen King movies have won Oscars?

Despite so many films being made based on his works, only five King films have been nominated for Academy Awards. In 1977, Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie from Carrie were nominated for ‘Best Actress’ and ‘Best Supporting Actress’ respectively, while Stand By Me was nominated for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ a decade later.

In 1995, The Shawshank Redemption landed seven nominations, including ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Actor’ for Morgan Freeman, and ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ for Darabont, who then repeated the same trick with The Green Mile. That film also netted nominations for ‘Best Picture,’, on top of Michael Clarke Duncan’s nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor.’

The only Oscar won by a King film, though, came when Kathy Bates took home ‘Best Actress’ for her chilling performance as unhinged superfan Annie Wilkes in 1990’s Misery.

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