The master of literary horror has had nearly every single one of his projects adapted into film — but did they all hit the mark of today’s greatest author?
25. Thinner
Original Release — October 25, 1996
The name Stephen King is usually associated with quality, but the world-famous author would probably happily distance himself from this project. When a successful yet egocentric obese businessman is corrupted with a Gypsy curse, he loses weight rapidly — and the resulting film is the victim of its own unintentional hilarity. The makeup effects were outdated even at the time of filming (1996), but it is the presentation of its almost comically overweight — and soon to be underweight — lead character where Thinner barely has a leg to stand on.
Who among us hasn’t wanted to lose weight at some point? Our grossly unsympathetic lead is certainly happy for a time, but when he becomes an emaciated, skeletal frame, the film should be ready to explore the psychological effects of “too much of a good thing” — instead we are treated to a woefully unfunny aesthetic that can’t seem to find a tone in the hole it has dug for itself.
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24. The Dark Tower
Original Release — August 4, 2017
Considered by many to the magnum opus of his massive library of works, The Dark Tower series followed lone gunslinger Roland Deschain in his mystical battles against the forces of evil across seven epic volumes. With a cast led by Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey as the hero and villain, respectively, what an epic it could be. Handled by a somewhat inexperienced director, the film went from adapting the tale as written to attempting to create a pseudo-sequel to the final seventh chapter — with all the grim trappings of your standard, bloated blockbuster. King’s original novels were filled with rich characterizations, vivid alien landscapes, and an overarching sense of doom for our lead character. Those vital nuances that made The Dark Tower series such a landmark were left locked away in the highest spire of Hollywood’s blockbuster machine.
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23. Dreamcatcher
Original Release — March 21, 2003
When the collaboration between immensely talented people leads to a dud of a final product, it can so easily suck the wind right out of the room and leave you feeling empty and befuddled. When Lawrence Kasdan signed on to write and direct an adaptation of King’s Dreamcatcher, the general public was certainly excited — Kasdan made a name for himself as the co-writer of the original Star Wars trilogy. A galaxy far, far away seemed even further away after Dreamcatcher landed with a dud.
While its premise of four childhood friends all sharing a telepathic gift is an intriguing concept, the film spends far too much time on an overly complicated melodrama of alien invasion and military coups. Even then, Dreamcatcher could have traded some of its military assault scenes for far more poignant material, but the desire to tell a tale of bloodthirsty invaders seemed too strong a pull — ironic for a man that helped create a universe where aliens were not so different than anyone else.
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22. Firestarter
Original Release — May 11, 1984
In a case of Stranger Things meeting Backdraft, Firestarter had its charm, but not enough bite to distinguish itself as anything more than a wannabe Carrie. Though King’s works often involve a combination of writers as protagonists, a city in Maine, and youngsters becoming gifted with supernatural abilities, the filmmakers became too confounded with the replication of excellent past adaptations rather than develop their own identity.
When a young girl (Drew Barrymore) hones her pyrokinetic powers and is on the run from the government, the script seems ready to leap off the page with fiery set pieces and thought provoking imagery — yet everything is exceedingly “meh.” The plot kicks in too quickly before we can learn about the characters, and even a nine-year-old girl is narratively underdeveloped to the point that we could care less about the safety of her character. Above all, Firestarter is a failed exercise in trusting the brand recognition of your source material far too much.
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21. Pet Sematary (2019)
Original Release — April 5, 2019
The original — and somewhat laughable — 1989 adaptation of Pet Sematary was a victim of its time, and wholly due for a reimagining. 2019 brought us just that, but aside from a few clever twists, this modern update should’ve taken a cue from its own tagline — sometimes dead is better. Though universally considered to be better than its late 80s predecessor, the originality that 2019’s Sematary attempted to exhume also revived an age-old problem with horror films — jump scares. When in doubt, throw in a jump scare to remind the audience that they’re having a good time. Rather than focus on the horrid intricacies of a reanimated family member begging others to join them in the afterlife — or lack thereof — your standard horror tropes were there to fill in the blanks, leaving the script and its unsettling premise to rot.
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20. IT: Chapter 2
Original Release — September 6, 2019
The immensity of Chapter 1’s success was a rare feat that was a critical darling while raking in plenty of box office receipts. Audiences were clamoring for more, especially to see the story from an adult perspective — childhood is often difficult, but pressures of the real world only seem to increase with age, something the demonic Pennywise would be drooling and giddy to capitalize on. Though cast with absolute perfection (Bill Hader and Jessica Chastain being the standouts), the film’s deep dive into Pennywise’s cosmic origins unfortunately fell flat.
Though the shared trauma of their youths immediately rebinds this broken circle of friends, Chapter 2’s pacing of the individual scares distracts us from the overall narrative to shoehorn in more horror — in a film that is about coming together to defeat evil, why would you separate your cast for most of the middle just to see them each go through a flashback? When they are reunited, this film’s deep dive into the more inter-dimensional aspects of the chaotic clown is proof why so many visuals of King’s works are often left on the page — when filmed, it just doesn’t look quite right in reality. Is IT: Chapter 2 a bad movie? Absolutely not — but sadly, a forgettable one, all the more so when compared to its predecessor.
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19. Christine
Original Release — December 9, 1983
Ah, the joys of the open road and the car that takes us where we want to go — but this is not your ordinary story of open road freedom. If you’re looking for a horror maestro to helm your tale of a faceless, silent villain, look no further than John Carpenter — the man that brought Michael Myers to life in Halloween. With multiple similarities — all good — Carpenter was able to unleash his trademark voyeurism and atmospheric tension as a car itself becomes the film’s ultimate villain. Though the premise may sound silly, it is the execution of said premise that gives the film its cinematic weight.
Technology is a fickle subject in Hollywood — either a beacon of great advancement, like we see in The Jetsons, or the harbingers of horrid destruction that audiences experienced in Terminator. Yet a car — a down to earth, everyday clunky bit of metal — had never been given the horror novel / film treatment. When an idea as revolutionary yet obvious as Christine hit bookshelves and theaters, it’s no wonder why both author and director had such a great time relishing in this unexplored niche territory of man vs machine.
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18. Cujo
Original Release — August 12, 1983
What happens when man’s best friend reverts back to its more primal state? After being bitten by a rabies infested bat — how timely — family friendly St. Bernard Cujo begins to slowly lose his mind, ready to slaughter and ingest all humans who happen to be in his path. For our lead characters, it is a shift made all the more tragic as he seems especially blood thirsty for the family he once loved. Though the film stripped away a good portion of inter-family intrigue that formed the core of the novel, the film embraces its own identity as a creature feature.
The 1980s saw a resurgence of rubber monsters that had defined the early 50s — with better effects now available, the blood-soaked, glistening teeth of Cujo were more frightening than far more fantastical creatures from the bygone Cold War era. Though it proved to be too gory for some critics, Cujo stands uniquely apart from not only its source material, but from other horror films of the age — in a time when everyone wanted to create the next slasher icon, a slobbering dog became far more intimidating than most of the Michael Myers knockoffs that the 80s produced.
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17. Creepshow
Original Release — November 12, 1982
A wonderful ode to the midnight hour horror hosts that “haunted” a cavalcade of VHS tapes, a small collection of King’s short stories were expanded upon with original content to create a unique cult classic. Directed by horror maestro George A. Romero (the man who created zombies as we know it with Night of the Living Dead), these vignettes were wonderfully campy showcases of horror that harkened back to the showy style of the 1950s.
Framed as a young, abused boy reading his horror comic, the various tales were peppered with comic style lighting and zany, animated backgrounds that beg you to say, “Boom! Wham! Kapow!” Made with far more flash than your typical horror fare, its absurdity is what gave Creepshow its charm, both upon its release and today. It is delightfully creepy cinema, bringing a fresh twist on anthologies before they even became popular in the American mainstream.
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16. Secret Window
Original Release — March 12, 2004
It’s a wonder why an actor as visually eclectic and manically talented as Johnny Depp hadn’t been in a King adaptation before, but Secret Window provided the answer. Depp plays novelist — the favorite profession of King’s characters — Mort Rainey, a man with a case of writer’s block and a messy divorce. The film takes its time to weed out a potentially messy narrative, but balances its flaws quite well, using an actor as talented as Depp to help us through the fray. With Depp portraying a deeply troubled man, the film is a psychological thriller through and through — and with all the dressings, whether an audience likes that or not.
With the threat of a plagiarism lawsuit stoking his already fragile psyche, Mort slowly descends into paranoia — and his solution of unleashing his repressed anger does little to help the situation. While the stakes are relatively small, Secret Window patiently and wonderfully crafts its characters so their crumbling worlds become a framework that demands your attention — in this tale, paying attention might mean the difference between life and death.
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15. The Running Man
Original Release — November 13, 1987
With more than a few deviations from the source material, the typically everyman character in King’s works was given a testosterone fueled update in the form of none other than action’s biggest icon — Arnold Schwarzenegger. A more violent version of The Hunger Games — perfect for Arnold — America has become a nation obsessed with television violence, demanding blood each night as Runners dash away from the Stalkers who try to kill them.
Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger) is framed and thrown into the arena, but in typical Arnie fashion, comes out as the victor. Though publicly disdained by Stephen King for all the deviations the film makes, The Running Man is undoubtedly uproarious fun. Its dystopian setting is perfectly campy, rife with Cold War era anxieties and comments on American media. Many may consider it a dumbing down of the source material — but the style and fantastic action set pieces more than make up for a potential lack of substance.
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14. 1408
Original Release — June 22, 2007
Though his works are saturated with horrendous horror of inter-dimensional proportions, Stephen King has always worked best in framing the existential dread within his character’s minds, and the actions it leads them to take. As an investigator and debunker of paranormal activities, John Cusack’s Mike Enslin can’t help but resist an invitation to a haunted hotel room. From there, all manner of haunts begin to ensnare Enslin, making his torturous bid to escape all the more difficult and terrifying.
1408 smartly focuses on the psychological framework — and its eventual deconstruction — of its lead character rather than let jump-scare horror lead the charge. In fact, this film should be considered noteworthy for even existing — what team of filmmakers would want to tackle a Stephen King tale set in a hotel room with the shadow of The Shining certainly looming over them? Diverting from the purely horror aspect helped 1408 stand not only apart, but stand alone as a great example of a King adaptation done well.
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13. The Mist
Original Release — November 21, 2007
The works of Stephen King are often connected through the same nefarious cosmic entities and monsters that worm their way into our reality. But rather than frame his stories as conflicts between titanic figures representing good and evil, King creates microcosms and unexpected vessels to propel his themes forward. When a cloud of impenetrable and dangerous fog descends upon a small town, a handful of residents get stuck in the grocery store, allowing all manners of humanity and its primal brutality to be explored.
The grocery store becomes its own community, filled with their own eventual political and theological issues. Mass panic is given a much smaller treatment, but a treatment all the same — and the fewer the people to study, the more palpable its effects. The Mist is all about how a single event can begin to pull us apart and deteriorate us when it is most imperative to work together. Captured on film by a real life news crew to give it dramatic authenticity and a snap-zoom documentary style, the worst of a small section of humanity is put on display — the good may suffer for it, but we as an audience become engrossed in its complexity.
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12. 1922
Original Release — October 20, 2017
Stephen King has always been an author that preferred to get into his characters heads, rather than inundate a reader with the details of the horror that is all too readily consuming — though he certainly excels in, and is defined by the latter. Though 1922 has all the trademarks and ingredients of a horror film, it is a gothic drama above all else — a meditation on the effects of a haunted person rather than the haunting itself. When Wilf James (the criminally underrated Thomas Jane) manipulates his teenage son into helping him his mother, the farmer sets in motion a series of events that psychologically scar his family and leads them all to demise.
Pestered by rats — the same that viciously chew his wife’s corpse — Wilf finds no peace in any corner of his home. It is a slow burn that never leads to a fiery explosion, but it appropriately shouldn’t. Just as the number of haunting rats grow like a plague, the visualization of guilt and fear is palpable to all the senses. Overlooked as one of the more excellent King adaptations, 1922 is a must see for fans of patient, quiet horror.
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11. Doctor Sleep
Original Release — November 8, 2019
The return to the Overlook Hotel was somewhat controversial even in the release of its novel. How could anyone — even King himself — continue the iconic ghostly horror of The Shining? With a strong focus on PTSD and drug abuse, Doctor Sleep featured a grown-up and tortured Danny Torrance. Similar to how so much of The Shining was a metaphor for alcoholism, Doctor Sleep’s meta-narrative was a meditation on moving on from pain and trauma. Mike Flanagan — one of cinema’s newest horror maestros — pays the perfect amount of homage to Kubrick’s adaptation while carving out his own unique visual niche and tale.
Delving deeper into the breadth of powers that the “shine” can create, a vicious clan of soul stealing cultists are desperate to find more targets — and encounter the powerful Danny. Many of King’s works have explored the supernatural and its infinite powers, but few films have captured the its visuals as clearly yet artistically as Doctor Sleep. Where so much of the source material is left in the proverbial shadows, it is refreshing to see a director as talented as Flanagan go full force into exploring what mental telepathy could look like.
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10. The Dead Zone
Original Releases — October 21, 1983
We all wake up from dreams wishing that parts of them had continued and come true — but imagine coming out of a coma with new psychic powers at your disposal. Teacher Johnny Smith (the delightfully creepy Christopher Walken) can learn a person’s life and see their future with just a touch. Realizing he can impact the future for better, Johnny makes it his task to dispose of a would-be Senator from starting World War III. So much of King’s work can be read, but not necessarily visualized.
Thanks to macabre auteur David Cronenberg, the imagery of reality meeting fantasy — and horrid — becomes wonderfully intertwined, where Johnny’s superpowered perspective helps paint a portrait of a timeline that can be changed. Beyond the supernatural imagery, The Dead Zone appropriately asks a critical question — just because we can change things, should we? For a man that long attempted to bury his gifts, Johnny Smith heroically answers that exact question, leading to a climax with far more optimistic resolution than the usual ending of a Stephen King novel.
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9. The Green Mile
Original Release — December 10, 1999
One of many reminders that Stephen King does not only work in horror, The Green Mile charts an epic yet intimate tale of redemption, magic, and the price of ignorance. Filmed with remarkable talent and wondrous patience, the tale of a falsely-accused death row inmate and his friendship with the warden that presides over him makes the heart ache and the eyes far from dry. Though John Coffey (an absolutely heartbreaking and superb Michael Clarke Duncan) is a hulking, bruiser of a man, he has a childlike naivete and a heart of gold that only seems filled with compassion and forgiveness.
The characterization is poignant and never delves into anything comical, despite all of the hardship that many of the bigoted guards attempt to throw his way — though we as an audience can see why Coffey’s “gifts” to some would be curses to others. With supernatural powers that are wonderfully unexplained, Coffey teaches warden Paul (Tom Hanks) about the cruelty of humanity — but most importantly, about the ability for one to try and fix the world. The Green Mile breaks your heart in all the most painful ways, but also reminds us about the wonderful things worth fighting for.
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8. Carrie
Original Release — November 16, 1976
Prom isn’t always great for everyone — just ask the poor, bullied Carrie White. Tortured by both her mother and peers at school, Carrie seemingly has no place that wants to accept her. Just as she begins puberty — a horrible/wonderful scene in the girl’s locker room that makes your blood boil — Carrie also begins to develop telekinetic powers that are far more formidable than her ability to initially control them. The difficulties of growing up are a common theme in King’s works, but Carrie takes a special place in how its blood-soaked narrative explores the trauma of both religious domination and undeterred bullying.
Just as no one will take the time to understand Carrie, she barely has time to understand her burgeoning powers before unleashing them like a force of nature at the iconic prom scene. It is the release of pain, torment, and anger at all who have abused her — and as is often the case, even the innocent suffer because of their silence. Brian de Palma’s gorgeously saturated, almost operatic cinematography brings life to each frame as masterfully and quickly as Carrie can take it — for in her own small form of mercy, she doesn’t leave her victims tortured for that long.
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7. Gerald’s Game
Original Release — September 29, 2017
Doctor Sleep’s director Mike Flanagan took his first stab at Stephen King novel with this Netflix adaptation that was a home run even the streaming giant didn’t anticipate. In a sex act gone wrong, Carla Gugino is left handcuffed to the bed, her husband dead of a sudden heart attack — and the key just too far out of reach. Taking place almost entirely in the bedroom, she takes the time to muse on her life’s choices, and the trauma that has shaped her in ways she never knew about. With intensifying clues that a stalker might be infiltrating her summer home, she is desperate to escape.
The tension is horridly perfect and Gugino’s performance is perhaps one of the few examples out there of simply flawless acting. A great director should be able to craft a scene with nothing but the room they are in — Flanagan takes advantage of every possible scenario, weeding out only what could never plausibly work on screen. The film helped launch the director into the mainstream, giving us gorgeous projects such as The Haunting of Hill House — a series that was given a tidal wave of praise from Stephen King.
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6. Dolores Claiborne
Original Release — March 24, 1995
After the success of Misery, the teaming of Kathy Bates with the words of Stephen King scored another hit with Dolores Claiborne. Perhaps King’s most straightforward murder mystery, Claiborne’s investigation is rife with tension that purposefully wisps itself away from us right before we are about to dispel it. With truth always a matter of perspective, the narrative constantly forces you to question if you should be rooting for or against Bates’ Dolores, a woman accused of killing her elderly employer.
Here, you will find no battles against cosmic entities, no ghouls or ghosts, or ancient curses — just the evil that lives in people’s hearts, and the horrible shadow of mob-led justice. A film with this number of twists and perspectives could easily become mismanaged and muddled, but director Taylor Hackford managed to make it all work within its true narrative — a poignant tale of an estranged mother and daughter attempting to reconnect. Stephen King’s works, when properly handled, are always about more than you expect, and Dolores Claiborne certainly ranks as one of the finest adaptations there is.
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5. IT: Chapter 1
Original Release — September 8, 2017
It is the face that has terrified generations — a beaming clown with razor sharp teeth that brings your most horrid nightmares to life. King’s Pennywise is undoubtedly his landmark creation, a specter of interdimensional evil that continues to torment readers and viewers alike. Though it had been given the miniseries treatment in the 1990s, a novel with all of King’s sadistic tropes seemed like it would be unfilmable — until director Andy Muschietti bravely stepped into the fray, with a vision that matched King’s by bringing nearly every torturous element to the forefront.
Muschietti’s assembly of the perfect cast — all age appropriate, a rare occasion with on-screen teens — gave us characters that felt like real people as opposed to caricatures of teenagers. Though audiences were left screaming at the film’s most horrifying moments, Chapter 1 undoubtedly succeeds because of the chemistry it built between its characters and the various hardships they face in their personal lives. Whether it be abusive parents or Pennywise himself, the Losers Club is a force that is stronger together — and cements the anchor of a modern horror classic.
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4. Misery
Original Release — November 30, 1990
Stephen King has created legions of demonic and inter-dimensional horrors — but sometimes, the worst harbingers of darkness are as human as the stranger next to you. When uber-popular romance writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) wrecks his car in a snow storm, super fan and nurse Annie Wilkes just so happens to be on the scene to save him. Almost set entirely in Annie’s bedroom, Paul is immobilized through a horrid winter — and comes to learn that his number one fan may be his undoing.
Utterly obsessed with the titular lead character of his Victorian novels, the death of Misery in his latest release shows Annie for who she truly is — a zealot who desires control and conformity above all else, and who will do truly haunting and painful things to achieve it. A figure as seemingly wholesome as Annie Wilkes becomes a monster as frightening as Michael Myers or Norman Bates — and most terrifying of all, she does it with a gleaming smile, and righteous fervor. Isolation and obsession make for a wonderful pair in an adaptation that stays faithful to, while simultaneously strengthening the source material.
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3. Stand By Me
Original Release — November 26, 1986
Though his penchant for darkness and horror is what he is most recognized for, Stephen King delivered a master class in the far more earthly horrors and difficulties of growing up in a novella titled The Body. Director Rob Reiner returned to the King-dom once more to helm this tale of four friends on the search for a dead body — and while that premise sounds ready to descend into the depths of pain and horror, it in face becomes a meditation on friendship, individuality, and the melancholy of fleeting time.
Told in the form of our lead character Gordie as an adult, we feel as if we know the ending by the time the story starts — who among us hasn’t yearned for the past, for the childhood friends we had that for whatever reason, aren’t with us anymore? Stand By Me makes it painfully clear that we don’t get to choose how and when we grow up — only the way in which we respond to its ever increasing challenges. When viewing a film such as this, made with such beautiful kindness yet brutality, one can’t help but wonder if Stephen King is at his best when the supernatural horror is set aside.
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2. The Shining
Original Release — June 13, 1980
A story of domestic abuse, ghosts, and environmental isolation seems like it should be three different scripts — in the hands of Stanley Kubrick, the narratives meld together seamlessly to bring the horror at the Overlook Hotel to life. Notorious for wildly deviating from Stephen King’s source material, Kubrick gives us his usual cryptic narrative and imagery as Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson’s most recognized role) descends into madness. Far from your typical ghost story, Kubrick’s and Nicholson’s collaboration shows how resentment and anger fester and degrade into violence — especially when a supernatural force is egging it on and feeding off of it.
The curse of the Overlook Hotel is never fully explained — just when enough clues are given, another one is found that goes in a very different direction. Young Danny’s ability to Shine — a psychic force that the hotel seems to feed off of — is our only real concrete evidence that spirits beyond the moral plain inhabit the Overlook. But part of Kubrick’s typical brilliance is framing Wendy’s account of the situation as completely different — through her, we imagine that maybe there’s no curse at all. Trapped in a harsh snowstorm, who wouldn’t go a little mad?
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1. The Shawshank Redemption
Original Releases — October 14, 1994
“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.” This optimistic declaration from Andy Dufrane (Tim Robbins) perfectly sums up the message of this landmark and majestic drama — that strength and the courage to go forward is always rewarded. Far from just a prison drama, The Shawshank Redemption is an epic saga that pits cruel injustice and saintly kindness against each other — can wrongfully convicted Andy’s morality win while incarcerated? Or will his spirit be crushed?
Told over two decades, the film is a declaration of hope to all who have struggled against what is seemingly insurmountable. Despite the years of abuse he endures from fellow prisoners or the cruel warden’s staff, Andy and his best friend Red (the incomparable Morgan Freeman) never lose that glimmer of tomorrow’s sunrise — even when it oftentimes flickers with doubt. Patiently told with the perfect balance of grit and near-fantastical optimism, The Shawshank Redemption represents all the tools of filmmaking at their finest.
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