Summary
Stephen King is one of the most adapted authors of all time. Whether the adaptations are actually better than the source material (The Shining, The Mist) or worse (Cujo, The Dark Tower), you don’t need to have read one of his books to be familiar with his work.
There are plenty of Stephen King adaptations available to watch on Netflix, but the very best doesn’t fall within his preferred genre: horror. Instead, it’s a time travel thriller with a historical bent.
What happened on 11.22.63?
A boomer’s savior fantasy come to life
11.22.63 is adapted from King’s novel 11/22/63, with periods replacing the slashes. Despite the minor name change, the plots are more or less the same. The limited series follows Jake Epping (James Franco), an English teacher whose friend happens to have a time portal to the year 1960 in the back of his diner. The friend, Al (Chris Cooper), has been using this portal to go back in time and try and prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. But he’s now dying of cancer, so he passes the job onto Jake. Jake, who doesn’t have a lot going on in his life at the moment, decides to follow through.
Thus begins an odyssey through the 1960s, the conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination, and the perils of time travel. The past isn’t set in stone, but it does “push back.” It works a little like the death traps in the Final Destination movies, where the world itself seems like it’s trying to kill people who have cheated death. In 11.22.63, Jake has to content with car breakdowns, falling chandeliers, fires, and more whenever he tries to change something significant, all of them put in his path by a universe that doesn’t want to be altered.
Jake also gets sucked into life in the 1960s to the point where he’s not sure if he wants to ever go back, especially after he falls in love with a schoolteacher named Sadie (Sarah Gadon). Maybe he can save Kennedy and then live out the rest of his life with her in the past. But if you’re at all familar with Stephen King, you probably know the ending isn’t going to be quite that rosy.
11.22.63 may not strictly be a horror story
But it’s definitely a Stephen King story
11.22.63 also engages directly with history in ways most Stephen King stories don’t. We spend time with both Lee Harvey Oswald (Daniel Webber) and his wife Marina (Lucy Fry). Did Oswald act alone? Was he a “patsy” for a wider conspiracy? The show looks at these theories, although true Kennedy conspiracy nuts may be disappointed at the conclusion it comes to.
11.22.63 is more about the character drama, which has a distinct Stephen King flare to it. Early in his journey, Josh encounters a brutal bully named Frank Dunning (Josh Duhamel) who feels like he could have walked off the pages of pretty much any Stephen King book. Later, there’s a scene where Sadie’s abusive, estranged husband holds her at gunpoint and mutilates her face, demanding that Jake kill himself by drinking bleach lest he kill Sadie. So while there aren’t any literal monsters in this story, King still finds plenty of ways to have gore and horror.
Towards the end of the show, things get conceptual in a fun way. When I first watched this series, I questioned the logic behind wanting to go back in time to save Kennedy in the first place. Al thinks saving Kennedy will prevent a series of 20th century catastrophes and make the world a better place, but there’s no solid reason to believe that; it could just as well make things worse. Without giving too much away, the show does not ignore that possibility.
The controversies of 11.22.63
Whither James Franco?
The performances in 11.22.63 are solid across the board, but James Franco holds everything together. As Jake, he’s appropriately bewildered and conflicted about everything he’s doing, providing a waypoint for the audience to follow.
11.22.63 originally aired in 2016, two years before Franco became persona non grata in Hollywood after accusations of sexual misconduct concerning his behavior at his now-defunct acting school gained traction. Franco is now mounting a career comeback, so it looks like the industry is mostly willing to overlook his past scandals. But if those scandals give people pause before watching 11.22.63, it’s understandable.
Watch 11.22.63 on Netflix while you can
11.22.63 arrived on Netflix on January 7, 2026, but it wasn’t always here. The show originally aired on Hulu, but has since been removed from the platform.
Will it ever be back? Maybe. Will it stay on Netflix forever? Probably not. Licensing deals for non-Netflix original shows tend to last for one or two years, so if you’re interested in watching this eight-episode time travel thriller, it’s a good idea to do so sooner rather than later, lest you wake up one day to find it gone.
- Release Date
- 2016 - 2016-00-00
- Showrunner
- James Franco
- Directors
- Kevin Macdonald, James Franco, Frederick E.O. Toye, James Strong, John David Coles