In the world of entertainment, Stephen King is a legend. Possibly the most adapted living author, his works have been adapted into film and TV that range from horrors such as IT and The Shining to original teleplays such as the 1999 miniseries Storm of the Century. In 2025, nearly 50 years since the release of Carrie (the first film adaptation of King’s works), his literary popularity shows no signs of slowing down. This year alone saw the release of The Monkey and The Life of Chuck, and while audiences await Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man, Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence takes up the director’s chair in The Long Walk, the film adaptation of King’s first novel.
In a dystopian America, 50 young men participate in ‘The Long Walk’ where they walk non-stop until one person is left. Among them are Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), Peter McVries (Rye Lane actor David Jonsson) and Thomas Curley (Roman Griffin Davis). But as the miles mount up, the emotions of each walker threaten to boil over.
A project that had been in development hell since the late 1980s, The Long Walk was originally linked to director George A Romero before Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont secured the rights for the book in 2007. Either filmmaker would have been a solid choice to helm the adaptation, considering their respective careers in horror cinema and Stephen King adaptations. But The Long Walk feels like a natural transition for Francis Lawrence. His experience in the Hunger Games franchise has seen him capture a dystopian world that holds a contest involving the lives of young people, so there is a common narrative that allows him to present his vision on a different canvas. But similar to Hunger Games, there is a need to stay faithful to King’s original novel.
The premise of The Long Walk is similar to The Running Man: you keep moving or you die. While the overly simplistic plot makes it easy to follow, the film doesn’t show the dystopian world of the original novel. King’s original 1979 novel places the narrative in an ‘alternative, dystopian America’, yet Lawrence’s adaptation seemingly puts its characters and the forces monitoring them, led by the enigmatic Major (Mark Hamill), in rural, current-day America. In addition, the focus is purely (and rightly) on the walkers, and although scenes show cops saluting the walkers or even families just watching them stroll by, the side effects of the walk are barely seen and left underexplored. Even the ‘Prize’ (The Long Walk‘s ‘McGuffin’) is more of an impossible goal than an attainable aim. With no visible hope on the horizon, the combination of these elements hammers in the futility of the walk in a downtrodden world.
Fortunately, the bare-boned narrative accommodates the complex character development to ‘fill out’ the film, as well as allows the core cast to provide different facets of human nature, as these men undertake a simple but ultimately painful endurance test. Lawrence presents the walk itself as more than a walk – it highlights the physical and psychological toll of walking hundreds of miles, non-stop, with no toilet breaks, rest stops or shelter. With a sense of inescapable agony, these tolls subtly wane with each sequence to create a gruelling yet transfixing watch, with a steep hill notably providing a smart yet horrifying turn of events.
Furthermore, TJ Mollner’s screenplay shows that the walk affects the participants in different ways. As the miles mount up, friendships and enemies are formed among realisations of the walk and the Major’s unforgiving regime. Amid the pain of being in dystopian America, the ‘Prize’ is not just about being rich and changing one’s life for the better. Some of the characters initially come across as impractical, with cocky Olson (Karate Kid Legends‘ Ben Wang) and religious man Baker (British actor Tut Nyuot) dreaming of women and rockets, respectively, coming across as somewhat materialistic. However, Ray’s endgame – motivated by his father’s death – betrays how he is emotionally broken by the totalitarian regime, with the walk being the only way to stop it. This shapes him as The Long Walk‘s conscientious anchor, with new brother-in-arms Pete keeping him grounded with his support and blunt wisdom.
An array of different emotions is wonderfully conveyed by the ensemble cast, with Hoffman and Jonsson offering a touching and occasionally sad bromance. Wang and Charlie Plummer, who plays antagonist Barkovitch, are also great additions, respectively delivering humour and discomfort to liven up otherwise monotonous points in the narrative. Supporting cast members Hamill and Judy Greer are also worth mentioning, as they evoke the emotions the walkers struggle to contain – Hamill booms bouts of condescending praise that stirs resentment, while Greer’s performance as Ray’s mum is heartbreaking, with a desperate interaction from Ray striking an unexpected glimpse of fear and regret.
Lawrence enables the characters to guide the story through their emotive performances, but adds layers throughout the journey. The walk uneventfully starts and friendships start to form until a walker suffers cramp and quickly receives their ‘ticket’ (i.e. death), flipping the tone from intrigue to easy-going to tense and violent before the title card even drops. This establishes an unsettling tone amid the well-paced story while his direction is enhanced through Jo Willems’ picturesque cinematography, which showcases the vastness of King’s dystopian America, as well as symbolising the never-ending walk.
The Long Walk is more than just the eponymous walk – it is as heartwrenching as it is compelling, marking it as one of the strongest Stephen King book-to-film adaptations in recent years.
THE LONG WALK will be released in UK and Irish cinemas on 12 September 2025.
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Director: Francis Lawrence, JT Mollner (screenwriter)
Stars: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, Josh Hamilton, Judy Greer, Mark Hamill
Runtime: 108 minutes
Country: USA
