Stephen King season, BFI

So The Dark Tower turned out to be a bit of a dud. Well, you can't expect all Stephen King adaptations to be masterpieces. So many of them actually are masterpieces, though, that we have very high hopes for the new film based on his novel It. The King Law of Averages dictates that it's likely to make up for The Dark Tower's poorness.

Don't believe us? See for yourself: the BFI Southbank is putting on a season of Stephen King films, featuring talks and discussions as well as screenings of the movies in question. As should be clear from the selection available, most of them are absolute gems.



The majority, of course, are horror films. Horror is King's bread-and-butter, out of which some pretty terrifying sandwiches have been made: Brian De Palma's Carrie tells the story of a bullied teenage girl who gains psychic powers as a metaphor for her maturation to womanhood, and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (starring Jack Nicholson at his most menacing) is probably one of the most brilliantly disquieting movies in the history of cinema.

But not all of King's novels are about creeping you out. Stand By Me, based on his short story 'The Body', is the quintessential coming of age film, and if you've never seen epic prison drama The Shawshank Redemption... Well, now's your chance.

Read the full list and book tickets here.