By virtue of winning the TIFF People’s Choice Award in 2024, “The Life of Chuck” was automatically put into the Oscar conversation – until its release date was set in 2025 instead. Between that, its early summer release starting on June 6, and NEON buying up an entire slew of Cannes winners for its 2025 awards season lineup, “The Life of Chuck” has increasingly longer odds in the Oscar race than the average TIFF winner. However, those may not even be the biggest obstacles for it.
Although Stephen King and movies based on his work are pop culture icons, they are not exactly Oscar-season icons. Admittedly, only a select few of them had actual awards aspirations, yet only a select few have been recognized by the Academy—a collective “The Life of Chuck” still hopes to join.
For the moment, here are the only five King adaptations that have received Oscar nominations in the last 49 years.
1976: “Carrie”
Nominated for Best Actress (Sissy Spacek) and Best Supporting Actress (Piper Laurie)
When it comes to the big screen, this is the King story that started it all and set a standard that wouldn’t be matched in many ways for a long time.
While horror has always had a hard time being seen by the Academy, this was a time when “The Exorcist” got into Best Picture just three years earlier. Although “Carrie” couldn’t get that far and couldn’t get then-rising star Brian de Palma into Best Director either, it did match “The Exorcist” in getting nominations for its two leading actresses – one a young breakout star and one a past nominated veteran. Yet unlike young Linda Blair, young Sissy Spacek was elevated to Best Actress for on-screen acts of terror that still live on 50 years later.
Despite an Oscar night shutout for Spacek, Piper Laurie, and the movie, “Carrie,” launched a legacy that still echoes every time another King novel hits the big screen. Nonetheless, it would take several more King adaptations for the Academy to take notice of him again.
1986: “Stand by Me”
Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay
In a way, “Stand by Me” was also a legacy-launching King’s story, as the book and movie showed his talents beyond horror and death. Four decades later, “Stand by Me” keeps its influence growing with every subsequent coming-of-age King story and every vaguely similar story of small-town kids – foul-mouthed or otherwise – who have their first great adventure.
Unlike with “Carrie” and Spacek, none of the young breakout stars of “Stand by Me” received nominations, although River Phoenix’s time would come two years later for “Running on Empty.” The only nomination “Stand by Me” did land went to Raynold Gibson and Bruce A. Evans for adapting King’s novella “The Body,” although they would lose to the decidedly polar opposite film “A Room with a View.”
Still, the success and validation of “Stand by Me” only built King’s growing star power, as it was the 11th11’th King story to get a movie version since “Carrie.” Many more would come by the end of the decade, yet it wasn’t until 1990 that the King empire finally got an Oscar for its name as well.
1990: “Misery”
Winner for Best Actress Kathy Bates
“Stand by Me” director Rob Reiner returned to the King universe for a far different and even more graphic tale four years later. For example, “Stand by Me” only received one Oscar nomination, but this time, it won – or rather, Kathy Bates won.
While it probably makes sense that someone who played one of his iconic killers won the first and only Oscar for a King movie, it was still unlikely in more ways than one. Between the movie’s lack of nominations elsewhere, the Academy still being entrenched against giving movies like “Misery” a major Oscar win – at least until “The Silence of the Lambs” came the following year – and Bates being an almost complete unknown until she became the most homicidal super fan of her era, her run defied multiple long odds to make multiple forms of history.
Nonetheless, Bates’ win still left a few Oscar milestones remaining for a King movie – and it would take four more years for one to cross them off next.
1994: “The Shawshank Redemption”
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Morgan Freeman), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Cinematography and Best Editing
Until 1994, no King movie had received a Best Picture nomination or been an across-the-board Oscar nominee. But the fourth Oscar-nominated King film was the biggest one of them all, with “The Shawshank Redemption” landing seven total nominations and arguably getting snubbed for a few more.
As a King story that wasn’t a horror film or a coming-of-age movie, “The Shawshank Redemption” was already an outlier before it was released in September 1994. It seemingly bombed in theaters and then gained word-of-mouth buzz that hasn’t really stopped. Yet despite how its reputation grew enough to make it the No. 1 movie of all time on IMDb, it hit a slight speed bump in early 1995 when it lost every single one of its Oscar categories.
In a year where “Forrest Gump” dominated and “Pulp Fiction” later became the film everyone wished had won instead, there was no room for “The Shawshank Redemption” to break out of its runner-up prison. Still, it did build up much higher expectations for the next King prison story five years later.
1999: “The Green Mile”
Nominated for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Michael Clarke Duncan), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound
Going into 1999, most figured that Frank Darabont’s second adaptation of a King prison novel would be even bigger than the first in awards season. Indeed, like Reiner did when the decade started, Darabont got Oscar recognition for a second straight King movie – but in this case, a second time would not be the charm when it came to winning.
Like “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile” lost all of its Oscar categories and was in three fewer of them to boot. Like “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile” got nominations for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and a standout African-American cast member in Duncan, but none of them won anyway. And just as the Oscar field was ultimately too crowded in 1994, it was even more crowded in 1999.
In a sense, “The Life of Chuck” may have the same problem in 2025, as it will come and go from theaters this summer before possibly dozens of newer films fill out the field. But unlike the other King nominees, “The Life of Chuck” doesn’t have to squeeze into a Best Picture field of five, although one of ten could easily be too crowded for it as well.
The only King films to reach Best Picture are sentimental prison movies, and “The Life of Chuck” is certainly sentimental despite being set on the outside. Nominated King movies also benefited from high-profile directors like de Palma, Reiner, and Darabont, and “The Life of Chuck’s” Mike Flanagan has been building a name for himself in film and streaming TV. But the category where King movies have had the best luck is Best Adapted Screenplay, and a script with Flanagan’s brand of sentiment and monologues can certainly hang around for a while, especially if the 2025 Adapted field is as thin as some recent years have been.
Regardless, 49 years of King adaptations and only five Oscar-nominated films to show for it isn’t a very hopeful track record. Yet “The Life of Chuck” has already pulled one awards-related upset—albeit in the last awards season—and now seeks to join an even more select club than the 2025 Best Picture field.
Have you seen “The Life of Chuck” yet? If so, what did you think of it? Do you think it will be nominated for Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards? If so, which awards? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
