Frank Darabont has been working within the film and TV landscape since the 1980s but has only directed five feature films since, including one TV movie. His earliest credits have him working on various screenplays directed by others, including the third Nightmare on Elm Street (one of the best). He began directing in the 1990s, with that decade seeing him release a particularly noteworthy pair of classics that remain popular to this day.

Since the start of the 21st century, things have been a little rockier for the writer/director. His film career remained interesting until he pivoted to television in the 2010s, being the showrunner early on during The Walking Dead's run and creating the short-lived series Mob City. Regarding his filmmaking career, Darabont has several hits. Although short, his filmography is a strong body of work, and while most of his films have received positive reviews, some are undoubtedly better than others. Frank Darabont's best movie prevails over the others for its influence in cinema, with the rest coming close but not quite capable of knocking its crown.

5 'Buried Alive' (1990)

Cast: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Matheson, William Atherton

Everyone has to start somewhere; for Frank Darabont, the beginning was a relatively obscure TV movie called Buried Alive. His directorial debut being a low-budget thriller made for TV is comparable to how Steven Spielberg made his debut with the thriller Duel, though Buried Alive isn't quite as successful and is drastically different in quality from Darabont's other 1990s work. It does feature a man getting buried alive, as the title would suggest, but he doesn't stay buried alive for long (those wanting to see that premise drawn out further should look no further than Kill Bill Vol. 2 or the appropriately titled Buried from 2010).

Buried Alive's protagonist is the victim of the sort of scheme that would fit right at home in a classic film noir movie, with his wife and her lover plotting to murder him and claim his company/estate. When they don't do the job properly, he seeks vengeance, turning a pair of hunters into the hunted. The role-reversal plot is relatively interesting, but Buried Alive feels oddly lacking when it comes to tension and genuine scares. As an early '90s TV movie, it's passable, but there's little about it that makes it worth seeking out beyond the novelty value of seeing Darabont's directorial debut.

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4 'The Majestic' (2001)

Cast: Jim Carrey, Martin Landau, Laurie Holden

Upon its release in 2001, it seemed like no one had a desire for a movie like The Majestic, a love letter to the films of Frank Capra and an unapologetically sentimental blend of romance and melodrama. It also came out at a time in Jim Carrey's career when he was trying to shift away from comedy, though The Majestic didn't quite resonate with most the way The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did. But in any event, Carrey's quite good here, playing a blacklisted screenwriter who temporarily loses his memory and ends up in a small town, staying there because he uncannily resembles a young man from there who went missing some years earlier.

It captures an idealistic 1950s town with a keen attention to detail, and at its best, The Majestic feels undeniably warm and good-hearted. It feels like a movie that got criticized a little too heavily by critics at the time of its release, but one common critique is fair: The Majestic is a bit bloated, with its runtime of 2.5 hours. With some tighter editing, maybe this one would have a little more love thrown its way. Indeed, plenty of aspects - from the acting to the well-executed period setting to some of its most emotional scenes - keep The Majestic from being the total disaster some reviews implied it was.

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3 'The Mist' (2007)

Cast: Thomas Jane, Laurie Holden, Marcia Gay Harden

Few directors seem as capable of adapting the stories of Stephen King to the big screen as Frank Darabont is; after all, his three best movies are film adaptations of the legendary writer's work. The Mist is included among these, but in no way can its success - nor the success of the other two adaptations - be attributed solely to King. For example, The Mist's famous (or maybe infamous) ending is drastically different from what appears in Stephen King's eponymous novella of the same name. It benefits from Darabont's unique touch to the point where King himself approved of the alteration.

But ending aside, the whole of The Mist is incredibly unnerving and claustrophobic, a unique thriller largely taking place inside a small town's grocery store after an unprecedented weather event brings hordes of terrifying creatures. It's a film about survival against monsters and other people, with constant tension and some considerable bloody violence to enhance the nerve-wracking plot. The Mist is an anxious and thoughtful exploration of paranoia and the darkest depths of human nature, a pretty solid horror film elevated by the way it concludes. More than fifteen years after its release, the film's final scenes remain hard to forget and admirably gutsy.

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2 'The Green Mile' (1999)

Cast: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse

Frank Darabont's second Stephen King adaptation is also his second-best movie overall: The Green Mile. This is easily his longest film, clocking at three hours, and perhaps his most ambitious, blending low fantasy and drama to craft a harrowing but undeniably rewarding prison movie. Much of it's held together by the remarkable performances at its center, namely Tom Hanks as the head guard of one prison's death row and the late Michael Clarke Duncan as a mysterious and surprisingly kind-hearted prisoner awaiting execution. The doomed John Coffey possesses a unique, potentially magical gift and seems to be innocent of the crimes he's been convicted of.

It's hard to describe The Green Mile without it sounding a bit cheesy. But while The Majestic was overly sentimental and self-congratulatory, The Green Mile has some incredibly intense and heartbreaking moments that complement - rather than clash with - the more sweeping emotional stuff. That all makes The Green Mile an emotional rollercoaster of a movie that ends up being surprisingly balanced, all things considered. It's a long and sometimes emotionally exhausting film, but it's expertly crafted and very engrossing. Beyond Hanks and Duncan, The Green Mile also boasts great supporting performances from the likes of James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Sam Rockwell, and Harry Dean Stanton.

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1 'The Shawshank Redemption' (1994)

Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton

The Shawshank Redemption is the movie that Frank Darabont will always be best known for, but in all honesty, it would be that way for 99% of directors out there if their names were attached to it. It's just about the most iconic prison movie of all time and could well even be up there as one of the greatest drama films ever made. It has a stellar reputation, given it's the highest-rated film within IMDb's top 250, and cracks the top 10 on Letterboxd, too. The outpouring of love toward The Shawshank Redemption will inevitably lead viewers to approach it with ultra-high expectations, and it's good enough that it'll likely live up to those and then some.

It's about surviving life inside a brutal prison, maintaining hope no matter what, and the value of finding kinship with like-minded people in tough situations. The Shawshank Redemption is inspiring, emotionally engaging, and hard to fault, which naturally has led to its lofty status as one of the best films of all time. Remarkably, Frank Darabont went from Buried Alive to The Shawshank Redemption just four years later. He may never direct something quite as great again, but his legacy is safe thanks to this cinematic gem; The Shawshank Redemption is that good of a movie, enough to secure Darabont's place in the pantheon of the all-time best.

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NEXT: The Greatest Movies of the 1990s, Ranked