The Greatest Stephen King Adaptation in Years Marches Toward a Digital Release

Judy Greer looks on with worry and horror in The Long Walk

This year has been a great one for Stephen King fans so far. We kicked off 2025 with Oz Perkins’ feature-length take on the legendary author’s short story, The Monkey, and had our hearts melt (in a sentimental way) thanks to Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of The Life of Chuck. Next, we’ve got an episodic series thanks to Andy and Barbara Muschietti’s IT: Welcome to Derry, and then we’ll round the year out with Edgar Wright’s The Running Man. Somewhere in the middle of the year of King, audiences received one of the most well done tellings of the scribe’s works courtesy of filmmaker Francis Lawrence and writer JT Mollner when The Long Walk marched onto screens. Soon, fans will be invited to welcome the dystopian nightmare into their own homes when the film arrives on digital on October 21.

Taking cinemas by storm, The Long Walk easily earned a Certified Fresh stamp of approval on the online ratings website, Rotten Tomatoes, strutting along with an 88% critics’ vote of confidence and an 85% from audiences. It’s immediately easy to understand why fans of King’s really loved this one, as the main performances from the young actors at the center of the story fully drive the narrative to soaring heights. There are numerous standout performances, but at the center of the tale is the friendship between Cooper Hoffman’s (Licorice Pizza) Ray Garraty and David Jonsson’s (Alien: Romulus) Pete McVries. On a quest to earn the cash bag at the end of their journey, the group of young men have signed up to walk until they drop — literally — with the stakes being their lives. As they travel along the way and lose their fellow walkers one by one, the dystopian drama fully flourishes to a dramatic fever pitch.

What Makes ‘The Long Walk’ One of the Best Films of the Year

Essentially, The Long Walk is a nearly two-hour-long movie that takes place on a road, but it’s Mollner’s writing mixed with Lawrence’s direction and the emotionally deep performances from its main cast that help it go the distance. Along with Hoffman and Jonsson, the up-and-coming wave of talent includes Ben Wang (Karate Kid: Legends), Garrett Wareing (Ransom Canyon), Charlie Plummer (The Clovehitch Killer), Tut Nyuot (The Witcher: Blood Origin), Joshua Odjick (Wildhood), Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit) and Jordan Gonzalez (Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin). Joining the young stars are longtime legends, Judy Greer (Arrested Development) and Mark Hamill (The Life of Chuck), the latter of whom sheds his long-standing notoriety as a good guy to transform into a ruthless character known as The Major.