Anytime a book is adapted to the big screen, you hear the refrain about how the adaptation pales in comparison to the book it’s based on. While that is often true, there are plenty of times when a novel is adapted into a genuinely excellent movie.
Great movies can come from anywhere, and as this list indicates, they can also come from any genre from thriller to sci-fi. We’ve selected eight great movies that were adapted from books (some of which are better than others). Here’s why you should check them out.
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The Godfather (1972)
175m
Genre
Drama, Crime
Stars
Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan
Directed by
Francis Ford Coppola
Watch on Paramount+
Perhaps the most famous example of a novel that was actually improved upon as a film, The Godfather is widely regarded as one of the best movies ever made, so it obviously had to be on this list. Telling the story of the son of a mobster as he first resists and then is slowly brought into his family’s criminal empire, the movie features incredible central performances from Al Pacino and Marlon Brando, and the best direction of Francis Ford Coppola’s career (which is saying something).
Jaws (1975)
124m
Genre
Horror, Thriller, Adventure
Stars
Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss
Directed by
Steven Spielberg
Watch on HBO Max
Steven Spielberg was just a kid when he made Jaws, a movie that fundamentally transformed the nature of summer movie season. What’s more, he thought the movie would be a disaster. The mechanical shark never worked, and filming on water turned out to be hell. Ultimately, though, Spielberg proved that he was one of the most intuitive filmmakers to ever work in Hollywood. Jaws was a massive hit, and almost 50 years later, the movie still holds up as one of the most thrilling blockbusters ever made.
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
135m
Genre
Action, Adventure, Thriller
Stars
Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn
Directed by
John McTiernan
Watch on HBO Max
Jack Ryan’s legacy on screen has been mixed, but it got off to an incredible start with The Hunt for Red October. Directed by John McTiernan, who was coming off of Die Hard, the movie tells the story of a rogue Soviet submarine and the CIA analyst who has been recruited to divine its motives. Thanks to career-best work from Sean Connery in the central role and converging storylines that climax in all the right ways, The Hunt for Red October is one of the best action movies ever made that is primarily about looking at paper.
The Remains of the Day (1993)
134m
Genre
Drama, Romance
Stars
Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, James Fox
Directed by
James Ivory
Watch on Amazon
Adapted from one of the great novels ever written, The Remains of the Day tells the simple story of a butler exploring the British countryside towards the end of his life. At the same time, we get flashbacks to his time as a butler prior to the second World War, and discover exactly who his. former boss was. A devastatingly sad examination of one man’s sudden discovery that he may have wasted his entire life in service to ideals that no one around him believed in, The Remains of the Day is a brilliant adaptation of a brilliant work, and it features two insanely great performances from Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
122m
Genre
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Stars
Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin
Directed by
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Watch on Amazon
The Coen brothers specialize in making bleak, sometimes funny examinations of the brutal cruelty of the world, and No Country for Old Men is one of their very best. Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name, the film tells the story of a man who finds himself being chased by a sociopathic killer after he finds a bag of money in the middle of the wilderness. A brilliant thriller, No Country for Old Men is also a movie about whether it’s even possible to fight for good in a world so overwhelmed by evil, and why it might be important to try even if the answer is no.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
179m
Genre
Adventure, Fantasy, Action
Stars
Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen
Directed by
Peter Jackson
Watch on Amazon
It’s impossible to single out just one of Peter Jackson’s adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, but the entire trilogy represents one of the great accomplishments in cinema history. These films tell the story of a fellowship that forms to destroy an evil ring, and along the way, they meditate on the nature of evil and the battle to keep it at bay. One of the most influential fantasy series ever written, these movies live up to the thrills and grandeur of their source material, and created an entire generation of new fans in the process.
The Social Network (2010)
121m
Genre
Drama
Stars
Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Armie Hammer
Directed by
David Fincher
Watch on HBO Max
A remarkably trenchant movie that feels true, even if not everything in it is, The Social Network tells the story of the founding of Facebook and everything that came after. The movie, which was made in 2010, feels remarkably applicable to the internet of today. What’s more important, though, is that the movie still plays incredibly well. Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg are brilliant in their central roles, and the movie’s depiction of a man who goes online to find friends, only to find himself as painfully alone as he always was, feels like a clarion call for our online world.
The Hunger Games (2012)
142m
Genre
Science Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy
Stars
Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth
Directed by
Gary Ross
Watch on Amazon
Perhaps one of the most underrated trilogies ever written, the entire Hunger Games franchise manages to get at the core themes of the novels they’re based on perfectly. Set in a world where teenagers are forced to fight to the death once a year in a gladiatorial arena, the novel follows one poor, young girl who finds herself thrust into the games and eventually becomes the face of an entire rebellion. The Hunger Games films nailed the casting of their central heroine, and even more importantly, the movies understand the ideas about political power that are coursing through the novels.
