Cooper Hoffman as Garraty, David Jonsson as McVries, Tut Nyuot as Baker, and Ben Wang as Olson in “The Long Walk.”
Murray Close/Lionsgate
The movie adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian thriller The Long Walk is new in theaters. How do Rotten Tomatoes critics rate the film?
Rated R, opened in theaters nationwide on Friday. From the highly anticipated adaptation of master storyteller Stephen King’s first-written novel, and Francis Lawrence, the visionary director of The Hunger Games franchise films, comes The Long Walk, an intense, chilling, and emotional thriller that challenges audiences to confront a haunting question: ‘How far could you go?’”
Adapted for the screen by Strange Darlings writer-director JT Mollner, The Long Walk stars Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Roman Griffin Davis, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, Josh Hamilton, Judy Greer and Mark Hamill.
To date, Rotten Tomatoes critics have given The Long Walk a 91% “fresh” rating based on 139 reviews. The RT Critics Consensus reads, “Cooper Hoffman and David Johnsson’s soulful performances bring a lot of heart to Stephen King’s dystopian tale, making The Long Walk a life-or-death ordeal for its characters but a riveting ride for audiences.”
The film has also received an 86% “fresh” score on RT’s Popcornmeter based on 100-plus verified user ratings. RT’s audience summary is still pending.
How Are Individual Critics Reacting To ‘The Long Walk’?
Steven Rose of the UK’s The Guardian is among the top critics on RT who gives The Long Walk a “fresh” rating, writing in his review summary, “The result comes across like a cross between a buddy movie and a horror movie — a war movie without the war. Ultimately, it all comes down to the core relationships, so it’s just as well that [Cooper]
Hoffman and [David] Jonsson are both terrific.”
Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter also gives the film a “fresh” review on RT, writing, “While The Long Walk doesn’t entirely escape its narrative limitations, it features generous amounts of the sort of emotion and heart that have marked the best King adaptations. Of course, that doesn’t make it any less grueling.”
Alison Willmore of New York Magazine/Vulture also gives the film a “fresh” review in her RT summary, writing, “I’d describe it as Lord of the Flies on foot, but it’s really more like The Hunger Games for dudes (complimentary).”
Liz Shannon Miller of Consequence also gives the film a “fresh” rating on RT, but with some reservations, writing, “The Long Walk offers a gripping premise, a lot of characters who feel more like loose sketches than fully-realized personalities, and a narrative that maybe has some minor pacing problems towards the end, but is pretty impossible to turn away from.”
Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times is among the few top critics on RT who give the film a rotten rating, writing in her review summary, “For a movie about motion, “The Long Walk feels oddly static, its washed-out images — a dead cow here, some live horses there — leaving the impression of a featureless nowhereland”.
The Long Walk opens Friday in theaters nationwide.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timlammers/2025/09/12/the-long-walk-rotten-tomatoes-reviews-does-stephen-kings-tale-stand-tall-or-stumble/
