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2025 was a very good year for Stephen King adaptations, four of which landed in theaters. Now, one of those films has found a streaming home — and it’s an underrated gem destined for cult movie status.
The Long Walk was released in September 2025, and it earned $63.1 million worldwide against a reported $20 million budget.
Although this film wasn’t a breakout blockbuster, director Francis Lawrence and screenwriter JT Mollner gave it a sense of humanity that’s a bit unusual for a genre picture like this one.
Since the movie is now streaming, Watch With Us is sharing some reasons why you should watch The Long Walk on Starz.
It’s Stephen King’s ‘Hunger Games’ — Only Better
Viewers of The Long Walk may notice some similarities between it and The Hunger Games. Both are set in an alternate America that’s come under the control of a dictatorship, and both feature teenagers from across the nation who are sent to compete in a contest to the death. However, The Long Walk predates The Hunger Games by decades, and it was published in 1979. King has also said that it was the first book he ever wrote, despite being released five years after his debut novel, Carrie.
Unlike The Hunger Games, the kids in The Long Walk shun the only guy who tries to instigate a conflict between them. This is a contest of endurance rather than a battle royale, but the rules are essentially the same. There can only be one winner, and everyone else either walks until they die or they get shot for breaking the rules or stopping. Mark Hamill appears periodically as the Major, the man in charge of this death march. Although his character is intentionally cartoonish, it’s his second great performance in a King adaptation this year after The Life of Chuck.
‘The Long Walk’ Is Surprisingly Emotional
Much like The Hunger Games, this story wouldn’t work if The Long Walk didn’t give viewers reasons to care about the boys before they expire. Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) is the first walker to be introduced, and he’s soon joined by Pete McVries (David Jonsson), Billy Stebbins (Garrett Wareing), Art Baker (Tut Nyuot), Hank Olson (Ben Wang) and 45 other teens.
Not every character gets the same amount of screen time, but The Long Walk does an excellent job of making most of the character deaths into emotionally raw scenes. There’s only one way out of this contest for the kids who won’t finish at No. 1, and that means almost every boy introduced in the film will die. It’s impressive that the film handles their deaths with a sense of humanity rather than making them feel like disposable non-entities. Their lives mattered, no matter how briefly they lived.
The Young Cast Gives Their Characters a Sense of Camaraderie
Judy Greer briefly appears as Ray’s mother, Ginnie Garraty, but for the most part, this film is carried by its young performers. Most of the main cast members had valuable experience, including Hoffman’s leading role in Licorice Pizza and Jonsson’s main character in Alien: Romulus. That went a long way towards enabling them to create an on-screen camaraderie that’s hard to fake.
We won’t spoil the ending of the movie here, except to say that the film goes in a different direction from the novel. Unfortunately, this isn’t the kind of story that ends on an uplifting note. But it is one of the best adaptations of King’s work in recent memory, and one of 2025’s most underrated movies that’s worth checking out in 2026. You may feel a little sad after watching it, but you won’t be disappointed.
The Long Walk is streaming on Starz.
