Stephen King's 10 Best Final Book Lines, Ranked

Collider has ranked the 10 best final lines from Stephen King's books, pulling from his most famous works and a few deeper cuts. The list covers the literal closing sentences and why they work, with some spoilers baked in.

1. The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

The final line of King's seven-book epic echoes the opening of the first novel: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." But this time Roland carries the Horn of Eld, suggesting the cycle might one day break. Collider calls it the best way such a long story could have ended.

2. Pet Sematary

King's bleakest novel ends with the main character, Louis, having killed his resurrected son and now trying to bring back his wife. The last line: "A cold hand fell on Louis's shoulder. Rachel's voice was grating, full of dirt. 'Darling,' it said." Collider notes it's an excruciatingly unsettling close to a dark book.

3. 11/22/63

After using time travel to prevent JFK's assassination and then resetting history, the protagonist meets his lost love as an elderly woman. The final line: "Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance." Collider says the catharsis is undeniable.

4. IT

King's massive novel ends with Bill Denbrough thinking about memory and a wheel, echoing themes from The Dark Tower. The line: "To think that what has looked forward must also look back, and that each life makes its own imitation of immortality: a wheel. Or so Bill Denbrough sometimes thinks on those early mornings after dreaming, when he almost remembers his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it."

5. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

The novella ends with Red hoping: "I hope Andy is down there. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope." Collider calls it a well-earned happy ending.

6. The Stand (1990 Uncut Version)

The epilogue closes with a line about the wheel: "Life was such a wheel that no man could stand upon it for long. And it always, at the end, came round to the same place again." Collider notes it ties into the cyclical nature of King's universe.

7. The Long Walk

The bleak competition ends with the winner forced to keep running: "And when the hand touched his shoulder again, he somehow found the strength to run." Collider points out the horror of a character who might collapse from exhaustion moments later.

8. Misery

Paul Sheldon finally gets back to writing after escaping Annie Wilkes. The final line: "The hole opened and Paul stared through at what was there, unaware that his fingers were picking up speed, unaware that his aching legs were in the same city, but fifty blocks away, unaware that he was weeping as he wrote." Collider contrasts it with the novel's short, confusing opening.

9. Cujo

King's sad creature novel ends by mentioning the rabbit Cujo chased at the start: "Its bones, so far as I know, still remain there with the bones of those small animals unlucky enough to have tumbled into that place before it." Collider says it drives home the sadness of all the death.

10. The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1)

The first Dark Tower book ends with the gunslinger waiting: "The gunslinger waited for the time of the drawing and dreamed his long dreams of the Dark Tower, to which he would some day come at dusk and approach, winding his horn, to do some unimaginable final battle." Collider says it hints at bigger things to come.

Collider's full piece includes deeper analysis of each line and how it connects to the story.

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• Collider
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