Spoilers ahead for the plot and ending of The Long Walk.
Few authors have more thoroughly prepared us for our dystopian future than Stephen King. Over the course of 60-plus novels and a couple hundred short stories, he’s depicted everything from a civilization-upending pandemic in The Stand to a real-estate huckster who uses his outsider status to become a political demagogue in The Dead Zone. In two separate novels written under his pen name of Richard Bachman, he crafted tales of an economically ravaged U.S. where a totalitarian regime distracts the populace with televised bloodsport. The 2025-set The Running Man will see its second film adaptation released in November, while The Long Walk is just now hitting theaters for the first time after spending decades in development hell. Both movies feel like they’re arriving right on schedule.
The Long Walk is one of King’s most straightforward and contained narratives. Both the novel and Francis Lawrence’s new film follow a group of young men who have volunteered — insofar as anyone can volunteer when they’re out of options — for the title event, a brutal, days-long march that only ends when there’s one survivor left. Becoming the last one standing promises life-changing riches and the fulfilment of a personal wish, but the Long Walk is a deadly contest: Stopping or even slowing down gets you a warning, and three warnings earn a gunshot to the head. The Long Walk is unsparing in its depiction of violence, as well as the other indignities the boys face along the way. (I asked myself how participants could go to the bathroom without stopping, only to have that question answered in graphic detail.) As in the book, though, this is also a story of the bonds forged between the Long Walkers, namely Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and Pete McVries (David Jonsson). Despite the fact that their individual survival depends on the failure of the other, they develop a deep connection to each other that helps keep them alive.
In adapting King’s 1979 novel, screenwriter JT Mollner hews closely to the source material, but releasing the film now inevitably gives it new shades of timeliness. When King began writing the novel in the late ‘60s, it was a response to Vietnam, and it still reads as a thinly veiled allegory. Decades removed, that association is nowhere to be found in the movie. Instead, vague references to a second Civil War invoke our current reality, with its stark ideological divides, encroaching political violence, and calls for retribution that have only escalated in recent days. The economic uncertainty that inspired The Long Walk, meanwhile, is more salient than ever, with new lines like “People with a lot of money doing good is a myth” feeling especially pointed. There’s also, of course, added resonance to the autocratic leader known as the Major (Mark Hamill), who presides over the Long Walk and potentially — though it’s never quite spelled out — the country as a whole. In production notes for the film, Lawrence insists, “We didn’t want to get too bogged down in details of the government because our focus is entirely these young men, their relationships, and their emotional journey.” That may be true, but he’s certainly aware of how fiction about totalitarianism plays in 2025.
The Major has a somewhat larger role in the movie The Long Walk, which reveals a more direct connection to Ray that guides the boy’s participation in the annual event. In King’s book, Ray’s father has been Squaded — taken away by the government’s secret police — for political speech, including speaking out against the Long Walk. Mollner’s adaptation sees Mr. Garraty (Josh Hamilton) executed by the Major himself for refusing to pledge his allegiance, an event witnessed by Ray and his mother (Judy Greer). Here, Ray is driven more by retribution than by the monetary reward of making it to the end. If he wins, he plans to wish for a carbine, which he’ll use to assassinate the Major in clear view of the assembled crowd. It’s a more film-friendly approach to the character — Hollywood loves a revenge story — but it also works to create a clear distinction between Ray and Pete.
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While King’s version of Pete underlines the futility of the Long Walk, admitting he doesn’t know what he’ll wish for because “the whole thing is pointless,” movie Pete offers a counterpoint to Ray’s bloodlust. “Vengeance is not enough,” he tells Ray. His almost too-selfless wish would be for the Long Walk to have two winners. We later learn more about Pete’s rough-and-tumble life and the fight that nearly killed him. It was while recovering in the hospital that he made a decision to always find light in the darkness, a philosophy that informs his unusual approach to the Long Walk. “If you make it,” Pete advises Ray, “I suggest you choose love.” These kumbaya platitudes feel out of place when battered and bloody boys are dropping like flies, but that works to the film’s advantage, laying the groundwork for the final rug-pull.
After the death of Stebbins (Garrett Wareing), the Major’s illegitimate son, Ray and Pete are the only Long Walkers left. In the book, Pete chooses to stop and is killed, making Ray the victor. Psychologically broken from his experience, Ray keeps walking, following a phantom figure ahead that only he can see. In the film, it’s Ray who stops, telling Pete he loves him before being gunned down. It’s a jarring twist for readers, made all the more shocking by what happens next. When Pete is offered his wish, he bucks his original plan and asks for a carbine. “This is for Ray,” he says, then shoots the Major and walks off into the night. In the end, Ray does choose love, sacrificing himself and abandoning his single-minded pursuit of justice so that his friend can live. And it’s Pete, presented with the promise of his heart’s desire, who opts for revenge.
At first glance, The Long Walk’s bold new ending seems to undermine the themes it’s been cultivating, namely the importance of holding onto one’s humanity amid dire circumstances. But the movie ultimately lands on something more nuanced. There’s no question that the bonds between the boys are the heart of the film — it’s that emotional connection, at least in part, that drives them to keep fighting. At the same time, any attempt at ending on a moment of grace and forgiveness would ring false, particularly in the context of our current moment. It’s unfortunate timing that the film is debuting in the wake of the killing of far-right activist Charlie Kirk and amid a heated debate on the meaning and morality of political violence, in large part because this is not a conversation The Long Walk is eager or equipped to wade into. But its conclusion does capture something bleak yet honest about where we find ourselves. The closest thing the ending has to a moral is a reminder that while love may be essential, it’s not enough to escape a system designed to make monsters of us all.
The gut-punch of those closing moments also captures an anger that will feel familiar to viewers across the political spectrum. There is a point at which, the movie suggests, it is no longer possible to face suffering and oppression with dignity. Rather than trying to deliver an ending that validates Pete’s ethos of camaraderie and forgiveness, the film offers a more uncomfortable acknowledgment of the limitations of “choose love” as a guiding principle. It’s not that there isn’t something admirable about looking for the light in the darkness — it’s that there’s often little light to be found. “Everyone loses” the Long Walk, Pete says in the novel, and that includes the purported victor, who in both book and film never stops walking. Pete’s final choice can be read as a betrayal of his ideals, but it may also be the only remaining path forward for him: If there’s no real winning for any Long Walker in the end, he can only ensure there’s no winning for the Major, either.
