The Long Walk (2025) – Run!

Released: 11th September
Seen: 14th September

In 1979, Stephen King released the book The Long Walk under the pseudonym Richard Bachman (a name he picked partially to avoid saturating the market with King books and partially to test if his success was based on skill). The book was well received like a lot of early King works were and has been named one of the best books for teenage readers by the American Library Association. Like a lot of King books, there have been talks about an adaptation of The Long Walk for years, way back in 1988 it was going to be made by George Romero, but that ultimately fell through. Next up was Frank Darabont, who took a shot in 2007 and then in 2019, one André Øvredal (the man behind Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) had a go, but none of these versions made it. Finally, someone looked at the content of the books and presumably went, “Hey, this feels kind of like a more fucked up Hunger Games… why don’t we just get the Hunger Games guy?” and so Francis Lawrence was gifted the chance to make The Long Walk… and made one of the best films of 2025.

The Long Walk imagines a dystopian future (is there any other kind?) where America is ruled by a totalitarian regime. Every year under this regime, there is a contest known as The Long Walk where 50 boys are given the task of walking along a preset route without stopping. They’re given rations and water, but are not allowed to stop walking; in fact, they can’t even slow down below 3 miles per hour, otherwise they’re given a verbal warning. Should they get 3 of these warnings and not pick their speed up, they will be eliminated… elimination happening by a bullet to the brain. The boys will walk non-stop until there is only one standing; that one remaining person will receive a large cash prize that will set them up for life and a wish of their choice granted by The Major (Mark Hamill).

The Long Walk is the kind of film that punches you in the face just before the opening title begins and screams “Get the fuck over it, you have an hour and a half of this left to go” and you thank it for doing so. For a pretty mainstream film, it’s absolutely shocking how blunt and brutal this film can be. When I say that these characters are not allowed to stop walking, I mean even if they break their legs or have to take a shit, they walk or they die, and the film makes it clear how horrifyingly unfair that is. Some of the film’s most brutal moments come in the cruelty of it all, these boys just trying to walk at a moderately brisk pace, becomes an absolute horror as the gunshots ring out and another person is dropped on the road like they were nothing. 

With 50 kids on the long walk, the chances of getting to know every character are slim to none. Most of the film’s focus is on a pair of boys, Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and Peter McVries (David Jonsson), who are the emotional backbone of the events that unfold. They have their own little group of friends they make on the walk, people who we come to briefly know just enough that it’ll hurt all the more when it’s their time to get shot in the face, but most of the people who are there are just there to die, and the film makes that abundantly clear. The opening of the film is particularly smart about this because there is a brief shining moment when you think that they’re just talking in metaphors, “Punching your ticket” seems like such a quaint phrase that can’t be as dark as it seems… Then a kid gets a charley horse and can’t walk and the brutal reality sets in, and the film doesn’t slow down after that.

There’s a brutal brilliance to The Long Walk, knowing that we only really are going to get the time to know maybe a half dozen of these boys in any detail, but when the time comes for a countdown and one of the other boys to go, the film makes sure to set it up just right so it hurts. Be it having the boy screaming “It’s not fair”, having him be the loser in a fight that knocked him to the ground, which in turn leads to his death, or just having a guy really need to shit and having him sob knowing he can’t stop even though it’s going to kill him. They set all these characters up so even if you forget their names, it will hurt when the bullet goes off and you see them fall.

One truly stunning thing about The Long Walk is that, somehow, it’s one big trick (the whole “shooting a teenager in the face” thing) never stops being effective at all. You would think that just by general repetition, maybe it would just become background noise or just get a little jump out of the view instead of a feeling of absolute dread but somehow every time that gun went off, you can feel your heart sink deep into the ground. They so effectively set everything up that it’s impossible not to feel something. The little moments between bloodshed, where the boys talk and joke around, make you love them more, only to hear a soldier in the background yell “First warning,” and you know that it’s not going to be long before you hear a gunshot and the tension ratchets up.

For a film to manage to be as tense and captivating as The Long Walk is all the way through is no small feat, it’s almost amazing how it never drops the ball because there are so many times when it really could’ve screwed up, but it doesn’t. It’s so carefully thought out, so well paced and filmed that it just works brilliantly from top to bottom. Not only does it pull off an impressive amount of raw tension, but it manages to make you feel like one of the lead characters could lose at any second. It’s an impressive skill to make you think that the characters we spend the most time with are actually in real danger, but this film pulls it off and keeps you on your toes until the last second.

The Long Walk is easily one of the best King adaptations in the last 5 years, and I wouldn’t object to saying it’s one of the best of all time because it really just works brilliantly in every possible way. Its performances are incredible, it’s filmed beautifully, and it never relents when it comes to building tension. An absolute jaw dropper that will grab you by the neck and refuse to let go, a true masterpiece that deserves to be a massive hit. This is the kind of film where you run, don’t walk.