This week on Story Punk, we tackle The Long Walk (2025), directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games), a grim, gripping dystopian endurance thriller based on Stephen King’s early work from his  Richard Bachman era.

The premise is brutally simple: a group of late-teen boys are selected for an annual event called “The Long Walk.” Keep walking at the required pace… or you get shot. No finish line comfort. No easy outs. Just miles, exhaustion, and the slow collapse of certainty as the grueling trek grinds everyone down.

We break down why the film works (and why it’s the kind of “that was good, I’ll never watch it again” experience): the escalating psychological pressure, the uneasy camaraderie and rivalry, and how the story turns a survival contest into a bleak meditation on obedience, spectacle, and what people become when the only choice is forward.

Featuring Cooper Hoffman as Ray Garraty, David Jonsson as Peter McVries, Judy Greer, Josh Hamilton, and Mark Hamill as the ominous authority figure known only as “The Major.”