Rob Reiner's Stephen King Horror With 86% On Rotten Tomatoes Is Back On Netflix After 5 Years

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Lauren Bacall as Marcia Sindell in Misery

Published Mar 8, 2026, 7:42 PM EDT

After joining Screen Rant in January 2025, Guy became a Senior Features Writer in March of the same year, and now specializes in features about classic TV shows. With several years' experience writing for and editing TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include a wide range of genres, from comedies, animated series, and crime dramas, to Westerns and political thrillers.

Rob Reiner’s darkest masterpiece, his 1990 adaptation of the Stephen King novel Misery, is back on Netflix after a five-year absence from the streaming platform. For fans of horror cinema, its return is a chance to revisit one of the greatest screen renderings of King’s work ahead of a big year in television for the legendary author.

Featuring one of the most iconic horror movie characters of all time, played by the incomparable Kathy Bates, Misery is a deceptively powerful depiction of obsessive fandom turned ugly. Annie Wilkes is so frightening precisely because she’s so relatable and endearing when we first encounter her.

Reiner’s feel for comedy actually renders Wilkes’ twisted relationship with James Caan’s captive writer Paul Sheldon even darker, and allows Bates to push her character to unhinged extremes with wild abandon. Misery wouldn’t be nearly as effective as a straight suspense movie without its bleakly comedic undertones.

Overall, the film is among the best adaptations of a Stephen King book ever to grace the screen. Netflix making it available once again, in place of Rob Reiner’s other King adaptation Stand by Me, is a timely reminder of the late, great director’s extraordinary range as a filmmaker.

Rob Reiner's Stephen King Horror Movie Misery Is Back On Netflix

After last leaving Netflix in February 2021, the 1990 horror movie Misery is finally back on the platform. It previously arrived on HBO Max in September 2025, but its absence from Netflix is an unusually long period for a syndication movie with multiple appearances on the world’s most popular streaming service.

According to Stephen King himself, the film version of Misery is even better than his book. With Rob Reiner’s fast-paced directing style and prominent use of intimate, low-angle close-ups on the story’s two central characters, the movie is an effortlessly entertaining watch. It's easy to see why King is so impressed.

Reiner also manages to strike the perfect balance between blood-curdling horror and jet-black comedy. It helps, of course, that Kathy Bates gives a performance for the ages as utterly demented fangirl Annie Wilkes. Bates enacts the transformation of Wilkes from carer to captor with the deftest of tonal shifts, making her a more than worthy Oscar winner in 1991.

If the relatively brief period in which Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me was recently on Netflix is anything to go by, Misery won’t be around on the streaming platform for long. Subscribers should make the most of this timeless horror movie classic while they have the chance.

It's The Perfect Time For Misery To Return To Netflix

Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes with a needle and a gun in Misery

What’s more, Misery serves as the perfect lead-in for other upcoming screen adaptations of Stephen King. Already in the first two months of 2026, movies and TV shows adapted from King’s work have dominated streaming, with The Running Man and The Long Walk topping the charts on Paramount+ and Starz respectively.

Meanwhile, the arrival of the miniseries adaptation of 11.22.63 on Netflix saw it surge past major original releases like Stranger Things and Run Away to reach number 2 in the American and global charts, a full decade after its screen debut on Amazon’s Prime Video. Stephen King has never had a bigger television audience than he does today.

His popularity on the small screen isn’t just perfect timing for Misery’s return to Netflix. It’s the ideal context for Mike Flanagan’s new TV adaptation of Carrie, which is set for release on Prime Video in October 2026. Flanagan will then be following it up with the first-ever full adaptation of Stephen King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower.

If that’s not enough, season 2 It – Welcome to Derry is likely to be arriving on HBO in 2027. It’s a great time to be a Stephen King fan with a streaming subscription or three. If you need reminding exactly why, just spend a chilly evening with Kathy Bates and James Caan, indulging in the masterpiece that is Misery.