Stephen King books and movies

THE SHINING (1980) — Stanley Kubrick’s take on King’s classic novel of slow-burn insanity counts King himself among its detractors, but the surreal 1980 shocker, starring Jack Nicholson (“Here’s JOHNNY!”) and a genuinely terrified Shelley Duvall, has lost none of its power in 31 years.

THE STAND: THE COMPLETE & UNCUT EDITION (1990) — Try to forget the lame miniseries, ignore the bowdlerized "original” version, and find a hardback copy so that the gruesome Bernie Wrightson plates are big enough to enjoy in gory detail — King’s Dickensian take on the apocalypse is either the best pulp novel around or the pulpiest entry in the American lit canon.

THE DEAD ZONE (1983) — While this wonderfully creepy movie was filming, helmer David Cronenberg legendarily stood off-camera and fired off a revolver to get a convincing flinch out of Christopher Walken every time Walken’s character, Johnny, touched another person and set off his psychic powers.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994) — Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman give their finest performances to date in “Walking Dead” creator Frank Darabont’s powerful adaptation of a King novella, but the real star of the show is cinematographer Roger Deakins, who miraculously keeps the drama’s penitentiary setting from feeling confined or stifling.

FULL DARK, NO STARS (2010) — Some writers get soft and lose focus with age, but King’s recent quartet of long stories is, if anything, bleaker, harsher and better-written than any of his other short-form work — especially the final story, in which a woman discovers her easygoing husband is actually ... well, I wouldn’t want to give it away.

THE DARK TOWER (1982-present) — The terrifying cosmology readers sampled in “It” and “The Stand” (among others) gets served up as a nine-course meal in King’s fast-paced fantasy series, consisting of seven main novels, an upcoming eighth sandwiched between “Wizard and Glass” and “Wolves of the Calla,” and a surprisingly good series of Marvel comic books.

STAND BY ME (198) — King’s novels are so disturbing that most folks forget about his gift for character development, but not Rob Reiner, who adapted King’s gentle coming-of-age story “The Body” into a now-classic movie about loyalty and the frightening adventures of childhood. With a young River Phoenix.

DESPERATION (1996) — In 1996, King wrote “Desperation” as himself and “The Regulators” as his alter ego Richard Bachman in a stunt-publishing coup; “The Regulators” is deeply lame but “Desperation” has all the great things about King’s writing in one book: deep characters, passages of nail-biting fear, and some surprisingly profound ideas about God and the nature of evil.

IT (1986) — “It” is one of the first books in which you can see King stretching to become more than just a thriller writer — its tricky parallel structure (half of the book takes place in the present, half in the past) explores small-town Maine life in rich detail, and its look-for-him-under-the-bed villain is far and away the most frightening thing King has ever dreamed up.

CARRIE (1976) — The “Moby-Dick” of schlock horror films, Brian De Palma’s “Carrie” has it all — a zero-nostalgia depiction of high school cruelty; John Travolta with his “Welcome Back, Kotter” hair; gratuitous slo-mo nudity; and an explosive finale that makes most of us grateful that we don’t know any teenagers with psychic superpowers. Let’s not talk about the musical version.