The Long Walk
THE LONG WALK isn’t one of Stephen King’s most well-known works, but it’s lore rests in the fact that it was the first full-length novel that he ever wrote. 
Though it was not his first published (that honor belongs to Carrie), it was released under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1979. The story is set in a totalitarian world where once a year, young men compete in a brutal competition to see who can travel the farthest on foot. The winner will receive whatever he wants for the rest of his life, but those who drop off as the competition unfolds are killed on the spot.
Long thought to be unfilmable, director Francis Lawrence has successfully brought King’s savage tale to life, delivering a thought-provoking thriller that is anchored by spectacular performances by a cast largely devoid of A-list stars. Cooper Hoffman (son of legend Philip Seymour Hoffman) plays Ray Garraty, young man with mysterious ties to the Major (a devilishly cast Mark Hamill who embraces the baddie with a gusto I never saw coming), who oversees the entire walk. He forms an instant bond with Pete McVries (David Johnson), who has his own demons and reasons for walking.
Screenwriter JT Mollner made some slight changes to King’s original novel, dropping the participants from 100 to 50, and dropping the pace of the walk from 4 mph to 3mph. If any walker drops below that pace they are issued a warning. Three warnings, and they are eliminated. 
The walk encompasses the entirety of the film, apart from a few brief flashbacks. This means for the rest of the runtime, the performers are on the move. While this may not seem like much of a feat on paper, in execution, it’s remarkable. To briefly consider what an undertaking this must have been from a filmmaking perspective is to realize how impressive the execution is. Character development, heroes, villains, and comic relief are all established as feet pound the pavement, and the camera is on the move. Time is spent with each man, and while we may not know every ounce of motivation that propels them forward, we begin to understand their essence. Through it all, the threat of unimaginable violence lurks behind every step, and when these moments occur, they are shocking in their unimpeachable finality. 
THE LONG WALK unexpectedly emerges as one of King’s best on-screen adaptations, which puts it in the same breath as THE SHINING, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and MISERY, to name a few. I’m not here to tell you that THE LONG WALK raises to the same cinematic level as these classics, but it’s definitely powerful and memorable enough to rank amongst the better films in the King catalog, and in 2025 as a whole. Modern audiences will certainly think of THE HUNGER GAMES as the young men give their lives for “the greater good,” yet King’s story was penned decades before Katniss ever considered defying the Capital, and exudes an urgency that feels more relevant than ever. 
THE LONG WALK- A
GRADE: A
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 1h 48min
GENRE: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
STARRING: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing
DIRECTOR: Francis Lawrence
WRITERS: JT Mollner, Stephen King
Now streaming on most VOD services.
