September 1 Will Be A Great Day For Stephen King Fans

Published Aug 28, 2026, 4:59 PM EDT

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

In connection to that, adaptations of King's novels continue to be announced every other day, with Variety reporting this week that an adaptation of Crouch End is on the way. Over the years, there have been many movies and TV shows based on King's novels. With no signs of that process slowing down, some franchises have had more than one adaptation, and more are on the docket. Before a new King series releases in a couple of months, viewers will be able to rewatch two King adaptations on HBO Max, as Misery and the original Carrie movie have been announced to arrive on September 1.

Carrie & Misery Are Two Of The All-Time Best Stephen King Movie Adaptations

While there have been many excellent King movies and TV shows over the years, few of them come close to the two films that will be released on HBO Max at the start of September. On Rotten Tomatoes, Misery stands at a stellar 86% critics' score based on 156 reviews, with an even better 90% audience score. The film tells the story of an obsessive fan, Annie Wilkes, who initially tends to the wounds of the author of her favorite novels, Paul Sheldon, after a car crash, but later takes him hostage when she learns that he will kill her favorite character.

Misery builds up the suspense nicely as Kathy Bates delivers an all-timer performance, alternating between kind and lethal, which won her a Best Actress Oscar. As for the 1976 version of Carrie, aka the original movie adaptation of King's popular novel, the film stands at a near-perfect 94% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 82 reviews, with a strong 77% audience score. In Carrie, Sissy Spacek's Carrie White eventually snaps and lets out her supernatural powers after being bullied by high school classmates and enduring abuse at home from her mother. That powerful story will be told again soon.

Carrie's HBO Max Release Is Perfect Timing

Carrie's HBO Max release on September 1 will act as the perfect refresher for fans of King's novel or the horror genre at large. After all, modern horror master Mike Flanagan (The Haunting/Midnight Mass) will come back to the genre on October 7 with a 6-episode Carrie series on Prime Video.

Carrie's young lead cast will be joined by horror talents like Kate Siegel (The Haunting), Rahul Kohli (The Fall of the House of Usher), Matthew Lillard (Scream), and more. A little over a month separates Carrie's HBO Max release and the debut of Prime Video's new Stephen King adaptation, making it the perfect option for genre fans to prepare for the latter.

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  Carrie

  Release Date November 3, 1976

  Runtime 98 minutes

  Director Brian De Palma

  Writers Lawrence D. Cohen

  Producers Paul Monash

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    Piper Laurie

    Margaret White

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  Misery

  

  10/10

  Release Date November 30, 1990

  Runtime 107 minutes