

In a dystopian 1970s America, fifty teenage boys take part in a deadly annual walking contest, forced to maintain a minimum pace or be executed, until only one survivor remains.
Acting
Cooper Hoffman's thousand-yard stare should be illegal.
Direction
Francis Lawrence makes 108 minutes of walking feel like a panic attack.
Writing
Stephen King dialogue that somehow works better spoken than read.

Director
Francis Lawrence
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Stephen King published this as Richard Bachman in 1979, and it's technically set in an alternate history where Hitler won WWII and America became a military dictatorship—details the film mostly whispers rather than screams.
The 'warning' system—three strikes, you're shot—was reportedly inspired by King's own obsessive walking habits and his terror of physical failure. The man wrote his anxieties into literal death.