Director: Francis Lawrence
Cast: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Weaving, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davies, Jordan Gonzalez, Josh Hamilton, Judy Greer, Mark Hamill
Screenplay: JT Mollner
108 mins. Rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, suicide, pervasive language, and sexual references.

Stephen King’s The Long Walk is often in contention for my favorite book by the horror author, so when I tell you that the new adaptation, directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), is the best movie of 2025, you can probably say that I’m biased because of my love for the book. Or, just maybe, it’s actually the best movie to come out so far this year. I’m going to stick with that.

The Long Walk is an annual contest where a group of young men gather, of their own volition, to…well, they walk. They walk and they walk and they walk, but be careful not to walk too slow. Anyone who goes under 3 miles per hour gets a warning and ten seconds to catch up. Then, another warning. Earn three warnings, and they punch your ticket with a bullet, courtesy of The Major (Mark Hamill, Star Wars). Last man standing wins the prize, anything their heart desires. Raymond Garraty (Cooper Hoffman, Licorice Pizza) has a very peculiar prize in mind as he joins up, but how far is he willing to go to earn it?

I’ve often wondered how to properly execute an adaptation of The Long Walk. Stephen King is inherently a very cinematic writer, but back when he was penning the initial draft of the novel in the 1960s, I’m not sure he had a film version in his mind. That said, JT Mollner (Strange Darling) has crafted an excellent screenplay that never shies away from the more peculiar elements of the novel and essentially finds a dystopian and haunting atmosphere with the plotting that takes elements from King’s success in writing youth characters like The Body (adapted into Stand By Me), It, and Dreamcatcher, and he makes us love these youth characters, surviving on a dream that they may indeed win. Then, when Mollner accomplishes that, someone is eliminated, and the odds of winning increases, and the miles drag on.

Lawrence populates his film with some of the best and most compelling young performers working today, and naming just one would be a disservice to the rest, but I’ll try to mention the ones that stayed with me the most leaving the theater. Roman Griffin Davies (Jojo Rabbit) as the young Curley is that perfect encapsulation of innocence lost here in the Walk. The recent Karate Kid himself, Ben Wang (Mean Girls) brings an unexpected charisma to every scene he’s in as Hank Olson, resident shit-starter and worthwhile friend to have in one’s corner, and Wang is surprisingly excellent playing this character with seemingly effortless skill. Tut Nyuot, a relative newcomer, shines as Arthur Baker, a walker who has such a sunny outlook on the world, even the needlessly gruesome one depicted in the film, that he helps to play off the more hardened young men walking around and alongside him.

Without question, though, this movie belongs to the dual lead characters played by Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus). While Hoffman’s Ray Garraty is the central character that the narrative is focused on, we spend just as much time with Jonsson, and the two performers have great chemistry, working off of Mollner’s screenplay and King’s source material. King has always had the ability to depict love and real bonding between his young protagonists, and Hoffman and Jonsson carry the narrative with equal notes of fear, belief, and strength, all the while knowing that, if the contest plays out as intended, one or both of them is not making it to the end. There’s a great sadness in these two discovering such a strong and believable friendship, brotherhood even, and knowing the fate that awaits is an unpleasant one.

Francis Lawrence holds his film version together, working in many ways with a stripped-down version of The Hunger Games films he has spent so much of his career with, and I think the film’s all the better for it. The Hunger Games films have always played to a younger audience, and I get the feeling that the spectacle and fantasy of those books have been a way to relate the heavier themes in a more palatable way, but here, he’s left with a bunch of young men and boys, walking, hoping to avoid facing down the barrel of a gun. It’s bleak, just in theory, but Lawrence chooses not to hide the violence. He puts it right in the camera, right in front of us, to witness. It’s hard to watch, but it’s necessary for the themes he’s playing with, themes reinterpreted from King’s own work so many decades ago. The Long Walk is, after all, a contest, and the winner gets a prize so enticing, so wonderful, that it’s hard to turn down…and yet, nearly all the competitors are going to die in the process. It’s discussed early on in the film that it’s a completely voluntary choice but no one seems to know a single person who hasn’t tried to get in. The entire reason The Long Walk exists is to keep the people in their place. Why is it always the young who have to the pay the price of the old? It’s a question King was asking back in the 1960s, during the escalation of the Vietnam War. It’s a question we also ask ourselves today, with school shootings on a near daily basis; with clear options to halt the violence and yet, we do nothing because it would inconvenience some.

Making The Long Walk cinematic was not an easy task, as I’ve stated above, but Lawrence makes the most of his vistas. The movie is shot well, dressed well (it’s hard to make stretches of a road seem different and eye-catching, but the production team places enough debris and onlookers to keep the viewer involved), and the score hits with intensity when needed. Lawrence even decided to include the mile markers, which add necessary impact and even make the viewer contemplate if the length is even possible as the hours and days tick onward.

Francis Lawrence and team have seemingly tackled a impossible feat; they’ve made a cinematic achievement from the story of a bunch of people walking. The dialogue and plotting work in tandom, mixing the strong characters with the bleak world surrounding them. They’ve given Mark Hamill another menacing and memorable villain, and they’ve given a ton of characters enough screen time to build a lasting impact, along with the best title card drop of the year. Over the past few days, I’ve been dreaming about The Long Walk and its cast of oddball young men on the path to doom. I can’t get this movie out of my mind. Without a doubt, this King adaptation is the best movie to come out this year thus far.

5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

• For my review of Francis Lawrence’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part One, click here.