The Long Walk is a dystopian survival thriller directed by Francis Lawrence, adapting the very first novel Stephen King ever wrote, published in 1979 under his Richard Bachman pseudonym. Released by Lionsgate in September 2025 from a screenplay by JT Mollner, it brings to the screen a story King drafted as a teenager, long considered one of the most unfilmable entries in his bibliography, and does so with a stripped-down intensity that critics called the best King adaptation in decades.

In an alternate, totalitarian America, fifty teenage boys are chosen for an annual endurance contest with a single, merciless rule: keep walking above a set speed or be shot. There is no finish line, only a last survivor, who is promised a fortune and one wish. Cooper Hoffman stars as Ray Garraty and David Jonsson as the compassionate Peter McVries, whose bond anchors the film, while Mark Hamill plays the regime's chilling overseer, the Major, and Judy Greer appears as Garraty's mother. As the miles accumulate and the ranks thin, the movie becomes an unbearably tense study of endurance, friendship, and cruelty.

Made for a modest twenty million dollars, the film earned strong reviews and an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score, with praise for its young ensemble, its unflinching direction, and the raw emotion Hoffman and Jonsson bring to the road. It went on to win the Robert Altman Award at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, and admirers have predicted it will endure as a genre classic. The Long Walk is streaming on HBO Max.