The Long Walk (2025) Reviews: What Critics Said

Editorial note: This is a roundup of published criticism of The Long Walk. Celluloid has not screened the film for this piece, and it carries no Celluloid rating. The critics are named and linked under Sources.

Is The Long Walk worth watching?

Most critics say yes: Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of Stephen King’s early dystopian novel was widely praised as a harrowing, surprisingly tender film, with Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson singled out. Reviewers admired how much tension it finds in a story that is, in effect, people walking down a road. The reservations concern missing psychological depth, an allegory one critic found narrow, an ending another thought too unresolved and, for one dissenter, a sense that the relentless deaths add up to very little.

What is The Long Walk about?

In a dystopian 1970s America, fifty teenage boys take part in a deadly annual walking contest. They must keep up a minimum pace or be executed, until only one survivor remains. Cooper Hoffman plays Ray Garraty and David Jonsson plays Peter McVries, with Garrett Wareing, Ben Wang, Charlie Plummer and Judy Greer in the cast and Mark Hamill as the Major, who oversees the contest. Francis Lawrence directed from a screenplay by JT Mollner, based on the novel King first published under the name Richard Bachman. The film was released in 2025 and runs 108 minutes. Release details and where to watch are on The Long Walk film page.

What critics praised

Jamie Graham of Empire was the most enthusiastic. He found the film gruelling and grimly violent, praised Mollner for making bold changes to the book without softening it, and thought both leads superb, with the friendship between Garraty and McVries giving the film its emotional core. He also rated Hamill highly as the Major, and felt the monotony of the landscape only sharpens the horror.

Writing for Variety, Siddhant Adlakha called it a tightly wound thriller with an excellent cast. He credited Lawrence and cinematographer Jo Willems with finding inventive ways to frame what is largely a single repeated action, saw Hoffman’s likeable surface hiding a fierce determination, and considered Jonsson’s performance the emotional high point. He also read the film as a pointed parable about state violence.

Jacob Oller of The A.V. Club valued the moments of connection between the walkers, and called Jonsson a movie star with remarkable range. He thought Hoffman warm and affecting, admired the grimy, sweat-soaked atmosphere, and felt the film’s parallels between conscripted soldiers and exploited workers speak directly to present-day anxieties.

William Bibbiani of TheWrap praised Lawrence for making a film about walking genuinely gripping, called the young cast fascinating, and admired its focus on economic desperation and the way a system feeds on its young.

Where critics were divided

Several of the positive reviews came with caveats. Adlakha felt the film never quite reaches the emotional heights it aims for, and that the ending makes big gestures while leaving too much unresolved. Oller missed the novel’s slow psychological unravelling, which he felt the film keeps at arm’s length, and found Hamill’s Major a crude caricature, a view at odds with Graham’s.

Bibbiani read the story as a clear Vietnam War allegory, but faulted the film for showing no interest in Vietnam or its people, and felt the distances involved strain belief.

The firmest dissent came from Matt Lynch of In Review Online. He argued that without King’s interior voice the characters become unconvincing and the premise stops making sense, that the executions quickly lose their power to shock, and that the film ultimately leaves nothing behind. He conceded that the young actors do what they can and found Hamill the one amusing novelty.

Who is it for?

The film suits viewers who can take sustained, graphic violence and a bleak outlook in exchange for strong performances and a moving friendship at its centre. It is rated R in the US and 15 in the UK. Readers of King’s novel will find notable changes, which Graham welcomed. Its televised death contest invites comparison with The Running Man, another King adaptation from the same year, and with the Japanese thriller Battle Royale.

The critical verdict

Most of the critics here regard The Long Walk as a tense, humane adaptation lifted by Hoffman and Jonsson, whose partnership was praised almost everywhere. The reservations vary: Adlakha and Oller wanted more depth, Bibbiani questioned the film’s politics, and Lynch found it empty. The balance of opinion is clearly positive, but this is a punishing watch by design.