The Shining (1980)

The most terrifying danger isn't a monster from the outside, but the slow unraveling of someone who's supposed to love and protect you. Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," which he adapted with Diane Johnson from Stephen King's bestselling novel, weaves vivid performances, eerie settings, hypnotic tracking shots and shock after shock into a landmark of horror. In one of his signature roles, Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance, a struggling writer and recovering alcoholic who takes a job as winter caretaker of the grand, isolated Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies, despite learning that a previous caretaker went mad there and killed his family. He brings along his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their young son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), who has a psychic gift the hotel's kindly cook (Scatman Crothers) calls "the shining" and who talks to an imaginary friend who warns him of danger. As heavy snow cuts them off from the world, Danny glides through the empty halls on his tricycle, captured in unforgettable gliding camera shots, and encounters ghostly visions, including a pair of eerie twin girls and the forbidden Room 237. Meanwhile, the hotel's dark past begins to work on Jack's mind as his writing turns into an obsessive, repetitive mess. Has he been there before? The answer lies in a haunting time warp of madness and murder, culminating in a desperate chase through a snowbound hedge maze. King famously disliked the adaptation, but it has become one of the most celebrated horror films ever made, and a sequel, "Doctor Sleep," followed in 2019.