Stephen King recommends 15 movies and series to watch on Netflix

“I am your number one fan.”

Of course, Stephen King requires no introduction. The best-selling author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels has seen many of his works been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. King has published 61 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections

When asked why he writes, King answered: “The answer to that is fairly simple—there was nothing else I was made to do. I was made to write stories and I love to write stories. That’s why I do it. I really can’t imagine doing anything else and I can’t imagine not doing what I do.”

The last few decades have seen several of his works being adapted for the big screen. From Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining to Frank Darabont’s masterpiece The Shawshank Redemption, with the more recent Gerald’s Game; King, popularly described as the ‘King of Horror’, has clearly been equally prolific in cinemas and movie theatres.

Rest assured, King knows when he sees good work: be it films, television series or just books. He is also known to be quite active on social media, where he puts forward the good stuff that he liked while watching on the online streaming platforms.

Here, we list all the recommendations Stephen King has made for Netflix shows and films from his Twitter account.

Stephen King’s Netflix suggestions:

To The Lake

This Russian dystopian thriller follows a group of survivors who come together to outrun a zombie-like plague, while battling callous authorities and the Russian winter wilderness.

Faced with a terrifying virus that turns Moscow into a city of the dead, survivors set off on a long, dangerous journey north to find an isolated hunting lodge on a deserted island.

Dark

This science-fiction thriller focuses on the aftermath of a child’s disappearance and follows characters from the fictional German town of Winden as they pursue the truth. They follow connections between four estranged families to unravel a sinister time travel conspiracy which spans several generations.

The series explores the existential implications of time and its effect on human nature.

Reckoning

When a teenager goes missing and a serial killer is suspected, two men find themselves set on a course of mutual destruction that threatens to consume every part of their quiet, suburban community.

As for the Stephen King review: “A pretty good 10-episode limited series. Fine mystery plot generates bursts of maximum suspense. As a bonus, it’s a master class in how not to parent.”

Da 5 Bloods

This Spike Lee-directed war film’s plot follows a group of four ageing Vietnam War veterans who return to the country in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader, as well as the treasure they buried while serving there.

Also starring Chadwick Boseman in one of his final ever film performances before his tragic death, Da 5 Bloods has been praised for its impactful portrayal of the repercussions of the war.

The Stranger

The Stranger is an eight-part British mystery thriller series written primarily by Danny Brocklehurst and based on the 2015 Harlan Coben novel of the same title.

A mysterious stranger tells a man a secret that has a devastating impact on his seemingly perfect life. This Stranger is a woman in her 20s with a baseball cap and is learned to be correlated with more secrets as the series progresses. This secret affects the man’s wife who goes missing as a result.

Dracula

Dracula is a drama-horror television series developed by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, based on the 1897 novel of the same name by Bram Stoker. This series follows Dracula from his origins in Eastern Europe to his battles with Van Helsing’s descendants and beyond.

Netflix’s description reads: “The Count Dracula legend transforms with new tales that flesh out the vampire’s gory crimes—and bring his vulnerability into the light.”

Black Summer

Jaime King stars in Black Summer in the lead role as Rose, a mother who is separated from her daughter during the earliest and most deadly days of a zombie apocalypse.

Six weeks after the start of the zombie apocalypse, Rose (Jaime King) is separated from her daughter, Anna, and she embarks on a harrowing journey to find her. Thrust alongside a small group of refugees in North America, she must brave a hostile new world and make brutal decisions during the most deadly summer of a zombie apocalypse.

Pine Gap

Pine Gap is an international political thriller which is set around the Australian and American joint defence intelligence facility at Pine Gap, south-west of the town of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia.

A group of Australian and American analysts work together to keep one of the world’s most important joint intelligence facilities, Pine Gap, secure and stable.

Cam

Cam is a 2018 American psychological horror film directed by Daniel Goldhaber and written by Isa Mazzei from a story by Goldhaber, Mazzei and Isabelle Link-Levy. The story is partially drawn from writer Mazzei’s own experience working as a camgirl.

It deals with the idea of identity theft in the internet age. A camgirl has her principles until a mysterious woman who looks just like her takes over her channel.

La Mante

In this French crime-drama, police search for a psychopath whose murders are inspired by Jeanne Deber, known as La Mante, a famous serial killer who terrorised the country 25 years ago. Jeanne Deber offers her expertise to the police to help hunt the copycat.

Placed in solitary confinement since her arrest, La Mante has one condition: to deal only with Detective Damien Carrot, her estranged son. Damien has no choice, for a serial killer is on the loose and could strike anytime, anywhere in Paris.

Money Heist (La Casa De Papel)

Set in Madrid, a mysterious man known as ‘The Professor’ recruits a group of eight people, who choose cities for code-names, to carry out an ambitious plan that involves entering the Royal Mint of Spain, and escaping with €2.4 billion.

After taking 67 people hostage inside the Mint, the team plans to remain inside for 11 days to print the money as they deal with elite police forces. In the events succeeding the initial heist, the group are forced out of hiding and find themselves preparing for a second heist, this time on the Bank of Spain, as they again deal with hostages and police forces.

Calibre

In this 2018 thriller directed by Matt Palmer, Vaughn (Jack Lowden) and Marcus (Martin McCann), who have been friends since childhood, travel to a remote area of the Scottish Highlands for a hunting trip. The pair is tested to the limit when they face a thrilling situation which neither could have prepared for.

To go with King’s words; “This one is a genuine nail-biter. It’s got a Hitchcock vibe with a little bit of The Wicker Man tossed in for good measure.”

Mindhunter

This David Fincher produced psychological crime thriller television series created by Joe Penhall, is at once an extremely disturbing and brutal record of imprisoned serial killers as the FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), along with psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) try to understand how they think, with the hope of applying this knowledge to solve ongoing cases.

Hotel Beau Séjour

Hotel Beau Séjour is a Flemish-language Belgian supernatural crime drama television series, created by Bert Van Dael, Sanne Nuyens and Benjamin Sprengers, and directed by Nathalie Basteyns and Kaat Beels.

Teenage Kato is caught in afterlife limbo and investigates her own mysterious death, finding a web of secrets in her village.

Fauda

Fauda is an Israeli television series that tells the story of Doron, a commander in the Mista’arvim unit and his team as they pursue a Hamas arch-terrorist known as ‘The Panther’.

After retiring from the Israel Defense Force, Doron is working on a vineyard. He gets roped back into active duty, though, upon learning that an enemy who Doron thought his unit had killed is still alive and plans on attending his brother’s wedding. Doron rejoins the IDF team with the intention of going undercover at the wedding, but the plan goes awry when the team’s cover is blown. That sets into motion a chaotic chain of events and leads IDF into a manhunt to locate and kill the squad’s target.