The Long Walk is one of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time – and the saddest movie of 2025

There are movies that make you tear up a little, movies that have you sobbing long after you leave the theater, and then there's Francis Lawrence and JT Mollner's 2025 live-action adaptation of Stephen King's dystopian sci-fi thriller The Long Walk.

The film, which stars a lovable ensemble cast of mostly hopeless misfits, is book-accurate right up until it flips the original ending – turning a rather selfish story on its head by putting love at the forefront and rendering it not only better than the book, but one of the best Stephen King adaptations ever made… and the saddest movie of 2025. Have you ever watched a film in theaters and been absolutely inconsolable by the time the credits roll?

Get busy walking or get busy dying

One of my favorite Letterboxd user reviews of The Long Walk simply states, "It's not a fun movie." I'd say "fun" is subjective, because it's actually a lot of fun for sci-fi horror fans, until things start getting a little too real… and the characters you didn't even realize you were becoming deeply attached to start getting picked off one by one.

The story takes place in a dystopian universe (which is eerily not far off from our own), where there isn't much left of America – and the fascist military regime, led by a dictator known as the Major (Mark Hamill), intends on culling the population even further. We watch as our hero, a young man by the name of Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), becomes one of 50 (100 in the novel) to enter an annual contest known as The Long Walk. The rules? Walk or die. No, really: walking too slow, or not at all, gets you a bullet in the head – among the other terrible ways the boys meet their end throughout the film. The boys walk and walk until only one Walker is left… and that Walker gets whatever he wants, no questions asked.

The novel is all about Ray. It's Ray's journey, Ray's story, but he's simply the narrator in a sad, twisted story about life (or death, rather) after the world ends. The movie, however, takes Ray and gives him a weeping mother (Judy Greer), a deep love that develops in just 72 hours, and a personal, vengeful motivation for entering the Walk. His journey is no longer solo: it's shared by the friends he makes along the way, and they become a ragtag group of misfits who manage to keep their spirits up as their fellow contestants start dying all around them.

Oh, and that deep love? It comes with sacrifice. It comes with a (impossibly well-acted) final act so harrowing that I couldn't breathe by the time the credits rolled around. It's bad enough to grow attached to these smiling boys, who are rough around the edges but sweet all the same, knowing that they're all about to meet their end… but the love between Garraty and Peter McVries (David Jonsson)? You'll never recover. I still haven't recovered.

Go on dancing with me like this forever, compadre

Mollner himself told GamesRadar+ several months back that this was always the intention: "What was the center of this? It's the love story between Garraty and McVries… People had different ideas about what the relationship was, because the key to that relationship is that these characters love each other. They only know each other for a few days, but they really, truly love each other. And that's what the center of the movie is – the love story."

Though Ray grows close to fellow walkers Olson (Ben Wang), Baker (Tut Nyot), and Parker (Joshua Odjick), it's McVries that he develops a particular fondness for – and Hoffman and Jonsson, who are easily two of the best dramatic actors of our time, have a chemistry that feels so authentic, so electric. It's McVries who keeps Ray calm when the guns go off, who keeps him awake when he starts to zone out. It's also McVries who pulls Ray back into the Walk after he runs to his mother after seeing her in the crowd – a scene that even The Academy publicly recognized as particularly gutwrenching, writing that Mrs. Garraty screaming, "Keep walking!" through tears was her way of saying "I love you" in that moment.

Ray is motivated to win the Walk not only for his mother, but with the intention of killing the Major – something he quietly admits to McVries, sharing the story of how the Major killed Ray's father in front of him for opposing the fascist regime. The movie is set up in a way that makes us believe Ray will win the contest (which is what happens in the novel), but it's an unforgivable bait-and-switch: McVries sits down, intending to sacrifice himself and let Ray win, but Ray convinces him to keep on walking… and, in one last act of love, takes the gunshot to the head instead.

An inconsolable, distraught McVries manages to maintain his composure – and carry out Ray's mission. "This is for Ray Garraty," he says, pulling the trigger. And in that moment, he doesn't seem to care that he just altered the lives of every citizen left in America (for better or worse). He walks away into the night. He just keeps on walking.

Honorable mentions:

Joel's death, The Last of Us season 2: If you didn't play the video game, you didn't know it was coming… and you might never look at a golf club the same way again.

Richie's death, It: Welcome to Derry: Though co-showrunner Jason Fuchs said it "had" to happen in order for his and Marge's characters to make sense in the long run, I still don't forgive him (and you can't make me).

Helen's death, The Uninvited: It's the kind of death you know is coming, but doesn't make it hurt any less.

The entire ending of Sinners: "Before the sun went down, I think that was the best day of my life" might just stick with me for the rest of my life.

The Long Walk is available to rent or buy digitally. For more, check out our guide to the most exciting upcoming Stephen King movies and shows releasing in 2026 and beyond.