The Shining (1980)
Isolation is one of the most horrifying things a person can experience, and The Shining expertly captures the psychic damage it can cause. Author Stephen King has raked the 1980 adaptation of his novel through the coals over the years, but the public has been much more receptive. Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall give career-defining performances that punctuate the Torrance family’s descent into madness, and The Shining’s fingerprints are all over pop culture, as its shocking imagery and absurdist line reads have embedded themselves as staples of the horror genre to be replicated and parodied decades later. Stephen King might not want you to remember the adaptation of his novel, but the film has since overshadowed the source material. — Kenneth Shepard
