6. The Shining (1980)
Despite having labelled Kubrick’s The Shining as one our most overrated movies of all time, we’re not here to pick at the film’s overall quality. Beloved though it may be, it is still based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name. It also made a number of unfavorable changes from the original book.
Admittedly, King’s book is probably too long to adapt to a single film. However, the sheer amount of narrative that Kubrick decided to leave out is pretty staggering, and overall, the story suffers for it. The book delves into Jack Torrance’s latent alcoholism and abusive tendencies, but overall explains that he’s a good man trying his best. Then it lets the Overlook Hotel corrupt him almost completely before giving him one final moment of heroism.
Kubrick’s film paints Jack as an out and out villain. He’s surly and unpleasant, and the Overlook barely needs to nudge him into attacking his wife and son. It also majorly plays down the supernatural elements of the book, something which was only retroactively explored in 2019’s Doctor Sleep. Ramble all you want about how Kubrick was an artist, but we maintain that his version of The Shining bastardized King’s original story.